I had the same problem....still do and posted generally the same notes
that I see on the reflector today. Below is a response from Wayne that
he posted last November (11/29) on the subject. Hope it helps but the
bottom-line is that there is no guarantee of pure CW unless the outboard
keyer is used:
73/Greg
K9IG
===============================================================================
"I'm sorry about the problem transmitting good CW. I have
discussed this before in private email, but don't have
a record of having said this on the reflector:
Windows 98/NT don't guarantee response times to applications.
That's why game programs that need guaranteed response times
simply take over the whole machine. WL doesn't take over the
whole machine because the ability to share with other Windows
programs is one of its selling points. That means WL is at the
mercy of other programs on the system. Some other logging
software author might make a different decision, in which case
perfect CW will be guaranteed, but sharing with other
applications will be sacrificed.
At 30WPM, the CW elements are roughly 30msec long. Hearing a
stutter means, I assume, a time abberation that's noticeable,
but is short comparted to a full length "dit". So you're hearing
something on the order of 10msec up to maybe 30msec. The only
reason that a CW element would be delayed by that long is a
process running on the PC that locks out WL for that long. Since
you're probably not running any other Windows applications, the
lock out is probably coming from a device driver. I look first
at the driver for an ethernet board. I look there first because
WL users have found them to be the problem before. If that
can't be the problem, then maybe the sound board, or even
the video board, but those are much much less likely to be
the problem. Others have reported that removing winspool.drv
fixed CW problems.
The WL manual describes an "outboard keyer" which has a
dedicated 4MHz microprocessor that solves this problem. A
bare chip is available if you want to homebrew, but I don't
recommend it these days because it has some limitations that
prevent implementing some desireable features. There will be
a new outboard keyer available in the next few months that
does not sacrifice these features.
The "features" lost by the current version of the outboard
keyer are:
1. WL can't control PTT when running that keyer (because
WL doesn't know when the CW stops and starts)
2. WL can't back out a CW character once it has sent it
to the keyer. This ability to back out a character once
it has been typed will be available in WL 10.12 for the
"PC Generates" CW and for the "W5XD multi+" keyer, but
won't ever be available for the "W5XD keyer".
Wayne"
====================================================================
Brad Nowak wrote:
>
> About 25% of the characters are cutoff or not sent. Most are cutoff either
> at the beginning or end. I know this has been a problem with CT if one
> tries to run it in a "window" rather than directly from DOS. I presumed
> that since Writelog was originally written for windows, it wouldn't suffer
> from this... :(
>
> Yes, I did make sure all applications were shut down and not just minimized.
> I intend to try a different computer (laptop running Pentium@233Mhz)
>
> Does anyone know if keying via a serial port is any better?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Steve Baron - KB3MM <SteveBaron@StarLinX.com>
> To: Bradley Nowak <bnowak@worldnet.att.net>
> Sent: Sunday, June 18, 2000 14:02
> Subject: Re: [WriteLog] Strange pauses at CW.
>
> > I use the original CT interface (dates back to version 7 or so) and have
> no
> > problem with writelog.
> > Running into an OMNI V so QSK tracks the keying.
> >
> > Do characters simply never ever complete ?
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Bradley Nowak <bnowak@worldnet.att.net>
> > To: Listas - WriteLog <writelog@contesting.com>
> > Sent: June 18, 2000 4:00 PM
> > Subject: Re: [WriteLog] Strange pauses at CW.
> >
> >
> > >
> > > I'm a newbie to Writelog and am having a similar problem with CW. I am
> > > trying to use a "CT" type of CW interface via LPT1. It seems that this
> > > configuration suffers heavily from "stutter" i.e. many of the characters
> > are
> > > cut short or cut off completly. One thing I tried is to make sure all
> > other
> > > applications are shut down but no joy. I of course double checked my
> port
> > > setup. The computer is an AMD running 233Mhz/64M ram.
> > >
> > > Can anyone offer suggestions/solutions to this?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > B. Nowak - N8SNM.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > WWW: http://www.writelog.com/
> > > Submissions: writelog@contesting.com
> > > Administrative requests: writelog-REQUEST@contesting.com
> > > Problems: owner-writelog@contesting.com
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
> --
> WWW: http://www.writelog.com/
> Submissions: writelog@contesting.com
> Administrative requests: writelog-REQUEST@contesting.com
> Problems: owner-writelog@contesting.com
--
WWW: http://www.writelog.com/
Submissions: writelog@contesting.com
Administrative requests: writelog-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-writelog@contesting.com
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