K2, WriteLog, and NAQP

[Craig Rairdin]

I don't get on the air much but do enjoy working the major contests. Last
weekend I fired up the K2 and WriteLog and worked the full 10 hours of NAQP.
The K2 did a great job; its little fan fired up on cue during long sessions
of transmitting but otherwise no complaints. WriteLog did its normal job of
being obtuse and confusing but worked great except for three times when it
lost comm with the K2 and I had to exit and re-launch the program to get it
back. It could talk to the K2 but apparently wasn't getting frequency
updates.

I talk to the K2 through the microHAM microKEYER via a USB port on my
computer using the microHAM software that makes WriteLog think I have a
bunch of serial ports. I use the WinKey keyer that's in the microKEYER.

The comm losses seemed to happen at times when I was switching between
WriteLog and its keyboard window with ALT-K or switching back to WriteLog
from the keyboard window. If anyone has found the secret to making it work
right all the time, let me know. And if anyone has any insight into why
WriteLog has to be so freakishly difficult to configure (hundreds of
settings can only be adjusted by editing an INI file in your Windows
directory) that might be interesting, too. :-)

Craig
NZ0R
K1 #1966
K2/100 #4941
KX1 #1499
KX1 #1541 (still in the box)

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[Craig Rairdin]

> I suppose you really have a reason to want to stay with
> WriteLog in spite of how difficult it is and can be
> (although it certainly does not sound so in your post!)  
> so my suggestion may be moot - but - why not try N1MM
> Logger....

When I purchased WriteLog I looked at several other logging programs. I use
N3FJP and like it for general logging, so I was looking for contest logging
in particular. I looked at N1MM and others a year or so ago when I bought
WriteLog.

I tried lots of demos and freeware programs and dumped any that gave me any
trouble at all during installation and initial setup. I don't remember if
N1MM was in that group or not (i.e. if I had trouble installing it and
getting it to run).

N3FJP has problems with its internally generated CW and I wanted something
that did a better job at that. The write-up at the WriteLog Web site about
how they do their internally generated CW made sense to me as a programmer
(it's interupt-driven, not software-loop driven). That was a plus in its
favor, since I eventually want to run this on my 750MHz laptop instead of my
2 GHz desktop.

I was also looking for something that decoded CW since contests tend to run
at a higher speed than I can easily copy and I was looking for a backup to
my ears. WriteLog can decode CW in six or seven frequency ranges so it works
even if the other guy does a bad job of zero-beating your freq. In a pile-up
it will often decode two or three of the callers simultaneously. I don't
believe N1MM does that, and would have required me to download another
program for that function. I tried CWGet, which works OK but for best
results seems to require more manual intervention than I can give it during
a contest.

Of course WriteLog doesn't tell you that you'll have to decode its .ini
files for many of its advanced features. Once you figure that out, it's not
a huge deal, but it seems unnecessarily complicated. If I had an afternoon
with the documentation I could write a program that would let you read and
write the options using more conventional Windows controls instead of
Notepad. (Hmmm....)

As far as its loss of comm with the K2, I haven't narrowed that down yet. I
don't know if it's the microKEYER, WriteLog, my K2, cabling, or what. So I
hesitate to dump the program for that reason only to discover that N1MM or
some other program has the same problem.

As far as sounding negative about WriteLog, I sound negative about almost
all the software I use (except the programs I write) so you have to discount
that a little bit. :-) The point of my post was to see if anyone else had
similar experiences and how they solved them. But I appreciate the
recommendation.

Craig

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