Re: [Tlf-devel] Feature request

[rein couperus PA0R]

Hi Chris, thanks your your reaction...

On Thursday 11 September 2003 20:10, Chris HB9FBL wrote:
> Hi Rein,
> I'd like to use TLF as a logging software for the next big contest: CQWW.
> In set up a couple of slackware and installed TLF on it, just for testing
> at our local club station.
>
> I have a couple of comments:
>
> 1)  Arrows for changing band is a little bit confusing (we are all using
> TR), is it easy to change that?

Yes, thats easy... I guess you want alt-V and alt-B

>
> 2) TLF will accept calls even if it is evidently a wrong call: example:
> YYYYY it is accepted. Is it possible to just check if the call contains a
> number?

It is possible to build that in, so tlf will not log a call without a figure. 
I will make it switchable with a parameter.

>
> 3) I had problems using the spot feature, when connecting to the cluster,
> it shows every single bit of text even if it is not a valid call.

The spot feature takes lines starting with "DX de" and cuts and pastes part of 
the line into a table. In the beginning sometimes 1 or 2 spots are missing, 
this is a known bug which is quite low on the list... If this is a real 
problem I will have to dig into it..... Maybe your cluster has a different 
line format? You could try the PI5TUE cluster in Eindhoven to see the format 
I am using (DX spider format). If necessary I will have to generate the other 
format, please let me know!!

>
> 4) Multi connection and lancode.c: TLF doesn't check if the network is up
> or down... If I understood your code, it will send the info just once. TR
> is a little bit different, TR trasmits the info many time before giving up.
> It is possible to add something like PAR (positive ack retransmit) or
> something similar? We will use a wireless link and if the link goes down it
> will be nice to be able to "resync" the two logs.
> Any idea?

As the logs are supposed to be the same on all connected nodes, the best way 
to sync is to ftp one master log to the station that was off line.
What I do here is to have one node just doing housekeeping stuff like 
connecting to the cluster and keeping the master log, which is fed by the 
others. 
For the future some kind of handshaking will be introduced, just for logged 
qso's. The rest of the traffic is non-critical. I am also thinking about a 
way to keep logs identical on the nodes. This is not easy, and I have never 
seen it done by either TR or CT. My last cqww at home (2001) I got 2 
perfectly identical logs out of tlf :-) with over 2500 Q's
By the way, tlf is now as secure as CT which uses a very similar protocol. TR 
with its daisy chain principle is theoretically safer in this respect, but 
suffers other nertworking problems. With our last cqww effort at CT9L we had 
several crashes of the CT network.

It is all a matter of time and resources :-)
>
> Sorry if I tell you only comments and i don't contribute with C-code (for
> now)...

>
> Thaks in advance
>
> Chris HB9FBL

73,

Rein PA0R
-- 
Email: address@hidden or address@hidden
http://www.couperus.com, http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/tlf