[UK-CONTEST] ESM

[Bob Henderson]

Subject line adjusted to reflect subject matter...............

I have become something of an ESM fan over the past few years with Writelog. 
I've found it a very relaxing way to operate and haven't really experienced 
getting myself into a knot.  I suspect this, like so many other likes and 
dislikes, is driven by familiarity and the lack of it.  In my experience the 
only feature of ESM which creates problems is when auto advance to exchange 
is used.  I don't like that and don't use it.  When someone sends me an 
exchange, which may include a call correction, my attention is always on it, 
even when SO2R.  Hence I find it better to manually advance to exchange 
field with space bar than to have to back-track to correct a call.

Despite that I am comfortable and enjoy using ESM, I will be without it in 
WW CW this year.  My frustration with the lack of resilience in Writelog 
networking means that after 8+ years we will abandon it in favour of 
Win-Test, which currently doesn't support the mode.

Who knows, after this WW I may have become a fan of their 
auto-send/intelligent QSL alternative.

Only 12 days to go.  See you there.

Bob, 5B4AGN, P3F