I used CT (CT386) v8.52 at XE2EBE this past weekend and have a few
observations and suggestions. This was the first time I've used CT in
a major contest with thousands of QSOs, and it worked VERY nicely.
BUG:
The "QSY OK" ten minute timer does not work correctly. I don't
ever remember seeing it function correctly. It may work correctly
when you first enter the program, but then something gets it
messed up. If you QSY to another band, make a QSO, and then page up
to look at a previous page of QSOs which are on a different band
than you are currently operating on, it seems like an additional ten
minutes get tacked on to the countdown. At one point, the timer was
up in the 45 minute range.
SUGGESTION:
Instead of having a ten minute QSY countdown timer, why not have a
count up counter when you start operating on a new band. In addition
to seeing if you've been on a band ten minutes, it would also let you
know if you've been on a single band "too long".
OBSERVATION:
The program crashed "hard" twice and went to the DOS prompt with a
"GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT 8" and mentioned something about an
empty string or invalid string. I didnt have time to jot down the
details because I was in the middle of running a nice pileup.
When it crashed, it left the rig keyed for about fifteen seconds
until I got back into the program and pressed ESCape. (The second
time it crashed, I realized I could unkey the rig by pressing the
VOX/MAN switch). I don't know if you have control of the exception
handlers, but if you do, you might want to make sure the rig is
unkeyed before exiting. Both times when it crashed, I hit ALT-V
to change the CW speed and just hit <CR> without entering a new
speed. I did this while the program was in the progress of
sending. Maybe there's some sort of contention with this command
and in interrupt handler?
OBSERVATION:
If I edit a previously logged QSO, CT seems to use some additional
memory which it does not release. A number of times thru the
contest, especially at the end, I had to quit CT and restart it to
get the "lost" memory back.
OBSERVATION/BUG?:
When I started getting low on memory (down to the 150 QSOs left range),
the MEMLEFT command would constantly give me the same number QSO after
QSO.
OBSERVATION:
The laptop I was using this weekend only had 1MB of RAM, but CT said
there was room for 3750 QSOs. I figured this would be good enough.
Unfortunately, it doesnt appear that this calculated QSO count takes
into account memory used for saving text windows and maybe other
data structures used during operation of the program. When I finished
the contest with around 3450 Q's, MEMLEFT said there was room for
48 QSOs left! Talk about cutting it close! Maybe you could preallocate
all memory before entering the program, or figure in a rough estimate of
memory used for "other" purposes into the "Room left for #### QSOs"
figure.
73 de Doug
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Doug Brandon [NF6H] Placentia, California dab@kaiwan.com
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