[WriteLog] Does RTTY Single TX Lockout work on CW?

[Mike Heideman]

As a follow-up to my pre-SS question about RTTY Single TX Lockout on CW, the behavior changed after we started logging QSOs.  Radio A began to show a green rectangle around "Radio" all the time.  If Radio B or C was transmitting then the expected red rectangles were missing from the other two logging windows and it was possible for the other radios to transmit at the same time.  Red rectangles appeared on Radio B and C while Radio A was transmitting.  Radio A no longer aborted the transmissions on Radio B or C as it had done when we set it up on Friday night.

We left the lockout (First One Wins) on for the entire contest because Radio A was our primary run radio and it worked well for preventing Radio B or C from beginning a new transmission while Radio A was transmitting.

One unexpected consequence of the lockout is that it was not possible to queue up an Alt-K window to ask for a fill while listening to an exchange on another radio when Radio A is transmitting.  You have to wait until the lockout is released before hitting the Alt-K key.  This was very confusing at first to our touch-typists who hit the Alt-K during the lockout period and at lockout release began typing the fill request only to see it overwrite some part of an exchange field since the Alt-K window hadn't popped up.

It would be useful to enable Alt-K messages and other function-key messages to be queued up so that they are immediately sent when the lockout is released.  There is a brief delay between the end of a transmission and the lockout release which often resulted in a fast, but timely, function-key press being ignored.  Queuing up the messages would resolve both this issue and the Alt-K strangeness.

We encountered one instance of the lockout not being released during the contest.  Radio B was not able to transmit even though Radio A had stopped transmitting.  Sending another message on Radio A resulted in release of the lockout on Radio B.

If the lockout feature worked as documented it would be great for multi-ops in Sweepstakes.  As it is, however, it provides some lockout functionality but requires additional hardware lockout to be foolproof.  Paddles and microphones that are not routed through the computer will also require separate hardware lockout that WL cannot provide.

-Mike, N7MH