<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Wingdings;
panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Over the weekend, we had 13 PC’s Networked at the K3LR
Multi-Multi. For the first time we went through the 48 hours without a
crash, and all of the PC’s had identical QSO Totals and Scores at the
end. It was truly painless. All of the PC’s ran Win-Test V3.5
and Windows-XP Professional. All of the op’s were very familiar
with CT, but most of them had only seen a screen shot of Win-Test sent to them
before the Contest. When someone who has never even seen Win-Test before
sits down and starts off with a 171-QSO hour, you’ve got to congratulate Laurent
and Olivier!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The 160 Multiplier Position has no associated radio
equipment (at this time). However this PC is always On-Line and serves as
a “hot spare” which can be quickly substituted for any of the other
PC’s should one of them fail.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The 12 Band-Position PC’s are built with ASUS A8N-VM
Motherboards, AMD 64 4000+ CPU’s, 1Gb RAM, and a Turtle Beach “Santa
Cruz” Sound Card. We also have one additional 1Ghz Pentium-III PC that
serves as a Status Display of COUNTRIES and ZONES. All 13 PC’s
support 10/100 LAN. The PC’s and the Linksys RV042 Router are
connected using a 16-Port Linksys SD216 10/100 Switch.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>We ran both Win-Test V3.5.0, and wtDxTelnet V2.0 on the 160
Multipler PC. The 160 Multiplier PC linked our LAN to the N3RA AR-Cluster.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>The problem we experienced, repeatedly, was
loosing the ability to SEND ANYTHING to the N3RA Cluster. We always
RECEIVED SPOTS / WWV / TALK, but consistently lost the ability to SEND SPOTS,
or run commands on the N3RA Cluster via the Packet TALK Window. <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This happened at random intervals …. perhaps every
couple of hours? It’s impossible to give an exact interval because the
problem would only be discovered when one of the op’s tried to send a
Spot and HAPPENED to note that it hadn’t been added to the BandMap, or
didn’t show up in the ALT-O display. Not everyone had the Packet
Window open or was looking for the problem.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>When this happened, shutting down and restarting Win-Test
and wtDxTelnet on the 160 Multiplier PC didn’t seem to restore the
outbound communications. wtDxtelnet would reconnect to N3RA
correctly. However, commands entered via the Packet Talk window on any PC
on the LAN would NOT “show” on the wvDxTelnet Window – nor would
they be transmitted to the Cluster.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>All of the PC’s were set up with two accounts –
ADMINISTRATOR and CONTEST_USER. The CONTEST_USER account is a Limited Account
and was purposefully limited to preclude WEB Browsing and other activities
unrelated to the Contest. The ADMINISTRATOR Account has a Password –
the CONTEST_USER does not. The PC’s are configured to automatically
boot into the CONTEST_USER Account and load Win-Test. The simplest way we
found to reset the wtDxTelnet problem was to LOG-OFF CONTEST_USER, and then
immediately LOG-IN – restarting Win-Test - which was set to automatically
load wtDxTelnet.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This was the only problem we experienced – and we hope
that the cause can be discovered and fixed before the CQ WW CW Contest.
Tim, K3LR will be detailing a list of features / options we’d like added
or changed – but this problem is one that is REALLY important.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>73 -</span></font><font size=2 face=Wingdings><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Wingdings'>à</span></font><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> Dave, W9ZRX<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>