[WriteLog] SSCW 2010 K0HB

Mon Nov 8 13:18:59 PST 2010

I too had some weird behavior from the CW in Writelog (v 10.81f), 
W3YY interface and FT2000.  It just seemed like jibberish, would hit 
the ESC key and re-strick the appropriate F-key and all was good.  

For what it is worth.

Jim/KC4HW

On 8 Nov 2010 at 19:38, Radio K0HB wrote:

> Good conditions, poor station performance.  We pledged 150K and had an
> actual goal of 175K, but missed by a big margin.
> 
> Call Sign: K0HB
> Operator(s) : K0HB K0CKB
> Category : MULTIOP (High Power)
> 
>     Band    QSOs    
>      80     262
>      40     235
>      20     324
>      15      41
> 
> Mults: 79 (No ND)
> 
> Total Score: 862Q´s x 2 x 79 = 136,196
> 
> Contest started strong on 15M capturing almost all W6/W7 mults in the
> first half hour, and then things started to go downhill.
> 
> We use WriteLog and the rig interface is a microKEYER-II (embedded
> K1EL "winkey").  Upgraded to the latest version of WriteLog just
> prior to the contest. 
> 
> Over the past several seasons this combination has been bullet-proof,
> but about a half hour into the contest started to have odd keying
> behavior.  The keying stream would randomly drop a character or two
> for no apparent reason.  For example, if I sent an exchange like
> "K1ABC 11 M K0HB 65 MN", it might drop the "H" in K0HB and
> insert a space there, resulting in "K1ABC 11 M K HB MN".  But the
> missing "H" did not die --- it would appear later at some
> inappropriate time, either keying up the rig when I was in receive
> mode copying an exchange, or in the middle of some later transmitted
> string!  These come-back-to-life characters were not random - they
> were always the actual AWOL characters previously dropped.
> 
> The problem was not predictable, but would show up after about a half
> hour operating, give or take, and get progressively worse quickly, to
> the point of transmitting a gibberish consisting of the current
> transmit string (often missing characters) and inclusion of previously
> dropped characters come back to life.  
> 
> Closing WriteLog and restarting it did not clear the problem.  In
> fact, while out of WriteLog, sometimes a vagrant character would
> surface and key the rig!  It was if some characters were delayed in
> the OS (Win7) between the application and the USB output port.  The
> only way to resolve the issue was to reboot the computer.  After
> reboot, things would run nicely for usually about a half hour.
> 
> Did I mention it is a new computer?  We replaced our shack/office
> computer back in May.  It´s a 64-bit Win7 machine with oodles of
> memory and a quad-core processor.  Before this weekend, we´d only
> done some casual CW contesting with no problems on  this machine, but
> it seems the problem takes about a half hour of activity to manifest
> itself.
> 
> Well, after a couple hours of operate/reboot/operate/reboot we decided
> that the patient needed a computer-transplant.  The previous computer
> had been given to a grandkid, so we had to resurrect a 2nd-previous
> machine out of the garage rafters.  Bear in mind we were well into the
> contest, and wanted to continue our log without manually retyping all
> the existing Q´s.  Best way to do that would be a thumb drive, but
> they´d all gone into hiding, so before decommissioning the current
> machine, I sent my log to myself as an email attachment and closed
> down quickly before it "came back".
> 
> Transplanted the old machine into the station, and found it had no
> WriteLog installed, so then had to download/install the current
> version.  Also had to update the microHAM router program to match the
> new firmware in the microKEYER-II.  Then gathered my email with the
> log attached and copied it into the appropriate directory.
> 
> Finally got the transplants and transfusions complete, and after some
> sleep the old Win-XP machine performed like a champ for the remainder
> of the contest.  So it wouldn´t seem to be a WriteLog problem. 
> Seems more like some characters stopped in the OS someplace for lunch
> before heading out the USB port.  So is it a Win7 issue, or a
> RF-sensitive computer?  The problem was manifested ONLY in the CW
> keying problem --- otherwise the computer and Writelog did NOT hiccup
> in any other sense.  Seems like RF would affect other things in
> addition to this keying problem?
> 
> Ended up with about 19 hours operating time, but missed a lot of good
> rate-time on Saturday evening, so missed our goal by quite a bit.  No
> sweep - missed ND. Never even heard one, although I heard a pileup
> working a whisper-thin K5xxx on 15 Sunday afternoon which seemed to be
> NW of me.  Other than that possibility, never even smelled something
> likely to be ND.
> 
> 73, de Hans, K0HB
> --
> "Just a boy and his radio"
> --
> Proud Member of:
> A1 Operators - http://www.arrl.org/a-1-op
> MWA - http://www.W0AA.org
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> LVDXA - http://www.lvdxa.org
> CWOps - http://www.cwops.org
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> TCFMC - http://tcfmc.org
> --
> Sea stories here ---> http://k0hb.spaces.live.com/
> Request QSL at ---> http://www.clublog.org/logsearch/K0HB
> All valid QSL requests honored with old fashioned paper QSL!
> LoTW participant 
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> 

Jim/KC4HW
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