[WriteLog] 10M Contest - Opportunities for Improvement

[Marty Tippin]

At 06:38 PM 12/17/2001 , TOMK5RC@aol.com wrote:
>First, entering a call in the entry window should pop up the logical QTH 
>in the QTH field, like VE2 = QC. W6 = CA. When there is no logical QTH, it 
>can be blank, unless you have worked the station on the other mode, then 
>it should pop up the QTH or the number given in the first QSO. NA handles 
>this quite well.

WriteLog could probably do better in this area - but so few US hams have 
callsigns related to their call area that it's almost a waste of time. It 
would be useful for the VEs however.

>Second, using the W9XT card, the Writelog.ini file requires different F 
>key mapping for phone and CW, so I could use all the features on one mode 
>or the other. Also, I could only use the repeat CQ feature on one mode or 
>the other or have to change settings every time I changed mode.

Use the sound card and I don't think you'll have that problem. The sound 
card can do everything the W9XT gizmo can and a whole lot more. I've got a 
fairly generic sound card and have it set up not only to route my 
microphone audio through it (allowing easy on-the-fly recording of F-key 
messages) but also I have it set up to record the audio from the entire 
contest. Pretty darned nifty, especially when reviewing the audio after the 
contest.

>The band map was also cumbersome changing back and forth between CW and 
>Phone. The band map also showed partial calls entered in the data entry 
>screen. There were lots of JA1 and K2S type entries where the entire call 
>was not copied before entering the QTH information.

Didn't use the bandmap, but I don't recall seeing that "problem" before - 
is there a setting that forces calls on the entry window to go to the band 
map *before* you log the QSO?

>The rate meter would lose the "time on - time off" when I closed the 
>program. The only way I got an accurate time on-off calculation was to add 
>up the information from one of the rate reports.

The time on/off info in the rate window works fine here. I just opened my 
log after a day of being closed and it shows the 1:10 that I spent 
tinkering in the contest. If it's not accurate on your end, make sure "Set 
for Automatic Rescoring" is checked in the Contest menu -- each time you 
restart the program, it recalculates the score and on/off times.

-Marty NW0L
  martyt@pobox.com