[WriteLog] Operating system--followup

[Ron Stordahl]

John

You raise many issues.

One issue for me is CW generation.  While some say letting the computer
generate CW using DTR on the serial port is acceptable, for me it is not.
Only in DOS was it acceptable, with Windows I have never found a machine or
program which generated uniform CW.

Thus I bought the W5XD multikeyer+, mainly for the CW capability and with
the dream that I would set up as SO2R at some point.  I have not gotten to
SO2R as yet and have had a few years in which to do it..it may never happen.

I would like to see just a W5XD CW keyer, it's too late for me, but if there
would be significant cost savings then I believe a lot more people would go
that route and the endless disappointments with DTR keying would be a thing
of the past.

As to OS, seems like you should stick with W2K, unless its been reported as
otherwise I would bet it would be reliable.  I do hope that some day
Microsoft regrets their new licensing..but I am not holding my breath.  I
have tried the latest Linux from Mandrake and it seems very nice, just no
logging/contest programs worth using are available as you know.

It looks like you are building your own machines...I also do this and its my
choice for the future.  I thought it might be tricky, then a 10 year old
neighbor built his own machine!  It can be done in an evening, and you only
need install what software you want, not all the junk that comes with
pre-built systems.

Ron N5IN