[TRLog] TRLOG crashed - nixes attempt at CQWW record

[00tlzivney@bsuvc.bsu.edu]

Catchy title - more details to follow but...

It locked up my computer Sunday noon, and wouldn't reconize the 3 finger
salute.  Power off reset, reboot TRLOG, screen looks kinda funny (parts of
the screen, like the mult list are full of smiley faces, etc).  Run in pure
MS DOS, no windows installed on computer.  Totally automated (i.e., TRLOG
connected) station so pulled the plug.

After a nap, I decided to dig out the really old 386 computer and load
TRLog on it - clean load of 6.50 (version that I was using in contest) with
the log files from the contest computer (a 486).  Exactly the same problem,
so not a hardware problem.  Went downstairs, had a cold one (Diet RC) and
groused to wife about how unfair life is.  She thought I was talking about
Florida situtation.....  

I called W9RE and asked how conditions were in recovering from the flares.
Mike said things were looking good for his op, N9RV.  I decided to try to
get things working before the contest ended somehow, so that I would know
for the next contest that things were ok.

In playing with my backup computer, I found that deleting the RESTART.BIN
and BANDMAP.BIN files would let me continue to work without crashing every
Stime I hit ALT-R.  THIS NEED 
THIS NEEDS TO BE ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE MANUAL - IN CASE OF DIFFICULTY,
DELETE RESTART.BIN.

Of course, I had totally stripped down the station after the original
problem (I only have one monitor, and had pulled serial and parallel cards
from one computer to have enough for 2 TopTen switches and 2 radio interfaces).
I got things back together about 5 pm, and spent the time just cruising up
and down the bands making sure everything was working again.  Seemed solid
through the end of the contest at 7 pm.

Lots of wasted effor in trouble shooting, things like seeing how much free
memory was available and needed, etc.  

Oh, well, nobody cares about minor categories like low power anyway.

Terry Zivney, N4TZ/9

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