[WriteLog] Silly questions and headaches

OE3ZK Gerhard oe3zk at aon.at
Fri Aug 20 12:00:27 EDT 2004


Thank you George and the many others who tried to give me a WL headache relief!

WL does have a good reputation and is certainly a widely proven and stable solution for contest logging.

I might be spoiled by the functionality of other products, so  I'm dissapointed about some of the WL features. 

It is certainly not a user friendly software - neither self explaining! Why do newbies  have to read so much in the manual and the help files?  Beeing a  newbie to YPLog I was able to set up this program within 20 minutes for SO2R contesting - without reading the documentation. The same should be possible with WL...

After reading quite a bit of the WL documentation and looking through K9JY web site I may have overlooked some of the features other programs do have.

1) I'm missing true single key contesting for the A (RUN) and B (S+P) radio. 

I.e.: Just one key (ENTER key) should sequence the proper CW messages for the RUN and the S+P mode on each radio.

I.e.: 
On the (A) RUN radio:

RUN CQ / RUN EXCHANGE / RUN TO LOG / EDIT TO LOG / RUN DUP

On the (B) S+P/MULT radio:

S+P CALL / S+P EXCHANGE ...etc.

Maybe this can be done with WL but I could not find it out as yet...

2. Saving of configurations:

>From other programs I'm used to get a query DO YOU WANT TO SAVE THE CURRENT CONFIGURATION before I can leave the software. Not so with WL. I must save the SETUP with a dedicated SAVE CONFIGURATION and also must save the FILE SETUP but RADIO / THIS WINDOW IS RUN (A) RADIO or THIS WINDOW IS MULT (B) RADIO is still not saved! ??

3. WL Packet Terminal

I may set up this window for a TNC on i.e. COM1 but must set the COMM parameters (COM1:9600,n,8,1,p) separately in the WRITELOG.INI  PORT section as the PACKET TERMINAL WINDOW (Port) SETUP overrides the general PORT SETUP. Actually I would not care but find in the docu first!

So let's see if I can stay with WL during the next contest..?

73
Gerhard, OE3ZK, HSC-519
E-Mail: oe3zk at aon.at
Web: www.kmet.at

























----- Original Message ----- 
From: Georgek5kg at aol.com 
To: oe3zk at aon.at 
Cc: writelog at CONTESTING.COM ; scot at k9jy.com 
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2004 7:20 PM
Subject: Re: [WriteLog] Silly questions and headaches


In a message dated 8/18/2004 9:16:28 AM Mountain Daylight Time, oe3zk at aon.at writes:

Some changed settings are not saved when I exit the program i.e. "Enter
sends exch/QRZ" "This Window is RUN (A) Radio" or a changed FONT for the
Beam Heading setup does not hold after a new program start.

Pse help my headaches!

Gerhard, OE3ZK

P.S.: Finding out how to set the COMM Parameters for a TNC on COM1 and then
to write them directly in the writelog.INI file is not quite the state of
the art anymore....


Gerhard,

Let me see if I can assist you.  I am in the office, and do not have WL available on a computer to look at, but let's see what I can suggest.

Now I'm really stuck in getting a proper CW QSO exchange for the RUN and
MULTI-Radio. i.e. when I set the contest parameters i.e. my zone 15 for the
cqwwcw, my zone is NOT sent in the RUN exchange only CALL and 5NN is sent.
Furthermore I cannot get the MULTI exchange working properly. I set the
A/B radios correctly to RUN and MULT. What I'm doing wrong or what I'm
ommiting?

Your CW QSO exchange is NOT picked up from the CONTEST PARAMETERS.  You must program CW exchange messages into the SETUP CW MESSAGES for F1, F2, F3, etc.  For example, for CQWW CW you would program:

F1  CQ TEST DE OE3ZK OE3ZK K
F2 5NN 15
F3 TU OE3ZK
F4 OE3ZK
F5 %C
etc.

If you are unsure of all the commands for programming the CW messages, read the Help file.  It explains them all.

Some changed settings are not saved when I exit the program i.e. "Enter
sends exch/QRZ" "This Window is RUN (A) Radio" or a changed FONT for the
Beam Heading setup does not hold after a new program start.

You must do two things to save all WL settings:
1.)  SETUP CONFIGURATION - SAVE CONFIGURATION - This will save the Band Map, Packet Window and other settings (which ones I do not know)  to boot up when you reboot WL.
2.)  FILE SAVE - This will save other parameters in W, but exactly which ones, I am not sure.  But it is a necessary step when you close WL.

P.S.: Finding out how to set the COMM Parameters for a TNC on COM1 and then
to write them directly in the writelog.INI file is not quite the state of
the art anymore....

When you set paraemeters in WL, they are saved automatically in writelog.ini.  You will NOT have to go into writelog.ini to save any settings.  

As a matter of convenience, I keep a shortcut to writelog.ini on my desktop.  It makes it handy to quickly take a look at writelog.ini if I have any questions about its contents.

If you have not checked the K9JY website for WL information, please so do.  It is a wonderful source of WL info.

Please let me know if I can assist further.

73, George, K5KG


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