[TenTec] Fwd: Re: [NCCC] WRTC HW/SW: 64% Elecraft K3, 68% Win-Test

[Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP]

Thanks Jim, this was very useful information.
Makes one wonder what to do.

That N1MM is the most popular is, IMO, a US-centric statement.
Over here, WIN-TEST is the leader by far.

It seems there is no money in selling contest software to hams.
Thinking back over the years, many of the people I knew writing contest
software eventually got out of it for that reason.

WIN-TEST launched one year after the ORION launched, and was actually
launched from the TEN-TEC booth in Friedrichshafen!
 
The French WIN-TEST Team had a little corner of the Appello-Funk booth, and
Appello is the German TEN-TEC distributor.
The two French guys were really enthusiastic.
(We all got copies of their software for free, which was nice).
But 10 Years After, the momentum has dwindled.
It's a lot of work supporting this software forever.

One of the problems is what N6TV pointed out.
He said WIN-TEST does not support "CQP".
I thought, "what is that?"  Had to google it.  California QSO Party.

Over here it's the same in reverse.
The good US software does not support many of the popular European contests.
That's a challenge for anyone writing software.
It's a huge amount of work and people eventually grow tired of it consuming
their lives.

Perhaps DXLog is the future.  We'll see.

I yearn for the days of CT?
Whatever happened to K1EA?

73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt am Main)


-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jim Brown
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 8:33 AM
To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Subject: [TenTec] Fwd: Re: [NCCC] WRTC HW/SW: 64% Elecraft K3, 68% Win-Test

This is from N6TV, a very competetent contester who competed in Russia.

He was at WRTC14 as an observer (and as a photographer).

73, Jim K9YC

-------- Forwarded Message --------

If you're happy with Writelog, and you are just a "very casual contester,"
there's probably no compelling reason to switch to anything else.

However, K6MM gave a detailed overview of many Contest Loggers at Visalia
Contest Academy 2014.  I found a copy of his presentation buried in
ContestAcademy-IDXC2014.zip
<http://www.nccc.cc/members/misc/ContestAcademy-IDXC2014.zip>Â which you can
access on the NCCC Members-Only page <http://www.nccc.cc/members>.

Bottom line, as in life, there is no best answer.  What follows are my
personal opinions; please read John's comparison charts to reach your own:

  * Writelog may be strongest for RTTY
  * Win-Test is stable, probably the strongest choice for multi-op, and
    CW without external hardware, but it doesn't support CQP, it's not
    free, and there's only one developer left, and he isn't enhancing it
    very much any more.  But it is extensible (to a limited extent),
    with user-written LUA scripts (I've published many of these at
    http://bit.ly/wtscripts)
  * 9A5K's new DXlog.net is UI-compatibile with Win-Test, and it does
    support the CQP, or just about any contest you want, but it tends to
    be buggy, and his no customization via scripting (yet)
  * Skokum Logger works on a Mac
  * N1MM is free, by far the most popular, best supported, and
    extensively documented, but it is also the most complex, and it is
    being completely rewritten to support .NET.

73,
Bob, N6TV

On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 12:53 PM, Bob Frostholm KO6LU <bob at ko6lu.com
<mailto:bob at ko6lu.com>> wrote:

    NCCC Brain Trust,

    I've been using Writelog for the past 10 yrs (as a very casual
    contester), but from this data it seems to have fallen out of favor
    for Win-Test.

    Anyone here using Win-test that can offer comments on its advantages
    over Writelog? I looked at their site and they recommend use with
    32bit windows OS....I have windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit....does that
    mean it will not work for me?


    Bob

    KO6LU