[WT-support] Problem with wtDxTelnet V2.0

[Dave Zeph]

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!

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.  

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

73 ---> Dave, W9ZRX

 

 

 

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