[Elecraft] FD at N4ZI! Some issues

[Brett Howard]

Why does it have to be a Dell again?  Lenovo has a REAL winner in their
new T400s!!!  Keep in mind this comes from a guy who probably spends at
least 12 to 14 hours a day at a computer...  I have a Dell right now
that is recently out of Warranty and I don't expect it to make it too
much longer.  I have a few spare parts in anticipation of these things
going out.  I've been though several palm rests and keyboards on this
Dell Latitude D610.  But the Lenovo stuff is just built rock solid and
designed for years and years of use...  They last longer than they have
any right to!

~Brett


On Tue, 2009-06-30 at 17:50 -0700, Bill Maddock wrote:
> I ran FD with my K3 and an old Dell C610 laptop this weekend - I had some
> issues with it keying the cw port by itself when the laptop was off. I found that rebooting computer and radio worked the best. I also found that
> it was much more manageable when the USB mouse was not installed. I was
> using N1MM for logging. It seemed pretty stable even at 100 watts. I used
> my Group 29 deep cycle batteries in parallel so power was solid and clean.
> Most the issue was on 20 meters - I was in a Camper and the antenna
> for 20 meters ran right overhead!. I never have these issues at home
> with my Elecraft supplied USB com adapter. Now the COM adapter I used
> was a standard DB9m to DB9f which I assume had no shielding. I assume the
> Elecraft supplied one does, as I can see the external braid under the
> plastic. The older computer did not like the USB adapter type interface
> so I had to go with the older DB9 cable and COM 1!
> 
> Question is this - want to purchase a newer laptop - another Dell.
> I want it to be stable for contesting with N1MM - thinking of either
> the Studio 15" model or a Latitude 15"? Also Studio has Vista
> where the Latitude you can still order it with XP Pro - What does
> everyone recommend? Vista or XP - If you get Vista you can get a free upgrade to Window 7?  Scarey Huh! Tell me what you think!
> 
> I made 845 Q's in about 17 hours with K3 - noise blanker worked real
> well Used my newer K3 SN 2914 this year!
> 
> 73 de Bill  N4ZI  K3's sn # 1059 and #2914
> 
>  
> 
> 
>       
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