I'm a CT person and have seen a few mis-representations here which need to
be corrected. First I run, and have for years, CT on an XP SP2 machine with
no problems and no work arounds. I have my FT1000 connected through the
serial port for band tracking and the parallel port for CW keying(I don't
operate ever in any fone contest). My setup BTW is also a dual monitor
system with the Maxon card.
Quack used the word simple to describe CT & NA which is as it SHOULD be for
contesting. I want one window covering my entire screen with minimal
information to deal with. The purpose/goal of a contest is to log as many
stations & multipliers as possible in a given amount of time. Therefore the
only info I want on my screen is logging and multiplier and I want it to
cover my entire screen. I don't think Quack has been as successful as he has
been because his time was being wasted with a bunch of windows containing
unimportant info. I realize it is fashionable these days to create and use
'bell & whistles' but let's remember why and what the purpose of entering a
contest is.
Unfortunately/sadly CT is out of business and we need to move on. Making
comparisons of CT to N1MM is unfair because CT was designed by a contester
for contesters. N1MM was designed by computer geeks for computer geeks.
CT is still very useable for the vast majority of contests so I will
continue to use it. Maybe someone someday will pick up the CT format and
continue to up-date it.
MAL
N7MAL
BULLHEAD CITY, AZ
http://www.ctaz.com/~suzyq/N7mal.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Dougherty
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 3:40
Subject: [CQ-Contest] CT vs. N1MM
At 09:29 PM 10/18/2006, you wrote:
>I have used CT for contesting since I bought my first copy in Dayton in
>1987. I have not kept up with developments in the N1MM contest software
at
>all. So now, 19 years later, I am wondering what the pro's/con's of each
>package are. Has anyone published a comparison? Is it time to change?
N1MM is probably the best piece of contesting software you'll ever
use. Not only is it immensely powerful, but support is first-rate,
it's completely free to use, it can network for multi-multi in a
breeze, supports distributed databases (in case one machine crashes
you won't lose the log), it has amazing documentation and it boasts a
featureset to die for. It also has built-in voice and CW keying, and
most importantly, you can get it up and running and start using it
with a very shallow learning curve.
Put another way, if Tom decided to charge $100 a year for it, I'd pay
it, not bat an eyelash and *still* consider it a bargain.
If you have a relatively modern PC I'd say give it a try. Download
the install (version 5.7.2), then apply the latest updater, load the
most recent help and cty.dat files and give it a whirl. Create a fake
contest, go run Europe or stateside for an hour and check out the
features it has, explore menus, etc. Sure it will take a while to
master, but to get a contest configured and running takes very little
effort.
Personally, my favourite feature is what they call ESM mode (Enter
Sends Message). Once properly configured and tested you can run an
entire CW or even SSB contest with only your ENTER button and a few
mouse clicks (S&P) or typing only callsigns (if running).
Cheers,
Peter,
W2IRT
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