[WriteLog] Networking Ops per Help

[Ford Peterson]

Bob, W4MYA called me tonight to discuss some of my angst with WL's network ops.  Here is what I believe the "gotcha" that buggered up our weekend...

Under the help file topic "Network Operations" we found the following instructions:

Step 2: share and copy a common WL file
All stations participating in the network must be logging the same contest and the same exchange format. An easy way to ensure this is for at least one workstation to place a WL file in a directory shared on the network. **********************************************************

Our log was located in the "Shared Documents" folder on the "MAIN" computer running XP.  Apparently, this is not the way Bob set up his network, and I would like clarification from those more knowledgable than me.  Wayne, I'd love to have you weigh in on this too.

By having a common log file, the log is actually spooling stuff through the network.  Bob set his up to save locally, and Links each PC to the network.  Then at a common computer which he also calls "MAIN", he selects "Accept Network Connection" from the file menu.  With each PC selected to operate the same contest, then any PC going up and down simply does the handshaking routine, and each PC relinks the log.

The way we did it, each log is actually located on the "MAIN" computer on the network.  The relinking seemed to work most of the time, but we have hundreds of duplicate records in our main log--all marked dupes--all scored correctly--but duplicates in every respect none-the-less.  Some computers with Qs in the buffer would go down, and these would be lost forever.  Pity actually.

So what is the correct procedure?  To link-or-not-to-link, that is the question.

Ford-N0FP
ford at cmgate.com