[TRLog] CW Keying - No Problem

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

This is a well-known problem where Windows does not relinquish control
of a com port once multiple uses have been established. Some of the
multiple uses may be buried and unused, such as a driver for a modem you
no longer use, but was on that com port, or a serial mouse driver left
after you go to a PS/2 mouse, etc. TR wants direct control, so it can
send nice CW, etc.

Some have solved it by going through bios and setting the com ports to
NON plug and play, and using bios and windows hardware configuration
panel to FORCE them to legacy settings. This may unearth some conflicts
you were unaware of, and explain why windows was keeping control to
itself.

Dunno what else you are trying to do with the Windows system during a
contest, but in my case, when TR is on, nothing else is going on except
a contest, and the best thing for me to do is:

1) Power down (really...clean up the hardware states, start fresh)
2) Power up, hitting F8 repeatedly after the bios screen goes past.
3) When the boot menu comes up, pick the command prompt.

TR has it all to itself. If you're using Win98SE, the prompt says
windows 98, but don't worry, they know and we know that Win9x still
boots over MSDOS.

But it's better than the old DOS, because you can use a C: drive with
extended filenames and FAT32, without having to worry about
compatibility issues.

I also used to wonder what good a Pentium 733, 128 meg & fast hard-drive
would be using TR.  Add SMARTDRV with a huge cache size to the autoexec,
and watch the INSTANT partial call search that flashes the screen with
every keystroke.

- - . . .   . . . - -     .   . . .     - - .   . - . .

73, Guy
k2av@contesting.com
Apex, NC, USA

----- Original Message -----
From: robert c reisenweber <bobreis@juno.com>
To: <K4BEV@aol.com>
Cc: <trlog@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, July 03, 2000 5:54 AM
Subject: Re: [TRLog] CW Keying - No Problem


>
> Don and the TR faithful,
>
> My apologies.  After I responded to Don's email, I realized what I
said
> was not true.  I said the computer was running in DOS.  Not quite
correct
> as I had accessed DOS under the MS-DOS Prompt while running Windows.
> Once I exited Windows and rebooted the computer in DOS, the problem
went
> away and the program now keys the rig.
>
> Thanks for your help and sorry for the confusion.
>
> 73 de Bob W3BBO
>
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>


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