[wt4hq] Win-Test at HQ Stations

[John Warburton G4IRN]

Hi guys

Now that the IARU contest is finished for another year (thanks everyone for the QSO's with GB7HQ) I wanted, please, to make a request for next year.

Larry/Oliver - do you intend to improve the tunnel/server technology for next year? GB7HQ would really like to use WT but at the moment, we don't feel in a position to do so. I am sure that other HQ stations would like to use it over the WAN also.

We did extensive testing early this year with WT over Hamachi VPN and with the WT server/tunnel software; our testing gave the following results:

  1.. WT works well as stand-alone software and on a LAN with many PCs, however the WtTunnel and WtTunnelServer do not work reliably or predictably enough in their existing forms for WT to be used with the wide area network. 
  2.. The existing WT server uses a 'broadcast' technique, with no attempt to ascertain whether every PC on the WAN has received each broadcast correctly (one of the issues of UDP!) 
  3.. There are random 'timeouts' when connected stations disappear for a few seconds or minutes from the WT 'status' (Alt/J) window. 
  4.. In the event of a PC disconnection, log updating/synchronising is relatively slow (100 QSOs/min via VPN, 400 QSOs/min via WtTunnel) - this could be a major problem late-on during the contest. 
  5.. Remotely-issued logfile emptying commands (as will be needed at the start of the contest) were not received consistently by all PCs on a 7-PC WAN. 
  6.. VPN technology gave more robust peer to peer connections (as indicated by Alt-J) 
  7.. Non-transactional - messages can be lost 
  8.. De-centralised (peer to peer), as opposed to serialised through a central server 
  9.. Unacknowledged - no peer can vouch for the status of any other peer.
After the contest, I sent emails to nine HQ stations that were using WT, to find out if the WTserver/tunnel worked OK.

One HQ station was using WT over Hamachi VPN and reported that it worked fine.
One HQ station used the server/tunnel software but started having problems and needed to restart the WTserver frequently.
One station had no problems whatsoever!! - they have a certain 'je ne sais quois'!!
All the other stations that replied to my email could not use the server/tunnel arrangement over a WAN because it was too unreliable.

I do not wish this to be a criticism of your work - WT is the BEST contest logging software and that is the reason why we would like to use it at GB7HQ.  It would be EVEN BETTER if we could use it, reliably, over the WAN.

Having spoken personally to Larry, I kind of get the feeling that the server/tunnel software is low on the priority, but think guys - if more HQ stations could speak highly of WT then that would generate more money for FY5KE !

Yours, hoping that GB7HQ might be able to use WT one day...

John G4IRN
(op @ GB7HQ, 20m CW)










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