My 2 cents is that an overall better solution is to keep your computer
on a small interruptible power supply (UPS). You don't need one that
will last that long (5 or 10 minutes is fine), and there are plenty of
small ones available from companies like APC (www.apc.com), Belkin
(www.belkin.com) and Ultra (www.ultraproducts.com) for well under $100.
(I personally have at least one from each of those companies at home,
with a somewhat larger Ultra that powers a couple of computers, most of
my network gear, and a few other things.)
The advantage of this is that in the event of a power outage, you will
not only have the time to save the QSO, but you can also shut your
computer down in an orderly fashion. Many of these products will connect
to your computer and will shut it down after a specified set of
conditions are met (e.g., backup battery has been running and has 'x'%
power left, etc.), meaning that even if you're not there, your computer
will still shut down properly.
Even with a system that writes to disk upon save, there is still a small
window where a QSO could be lost, although I can understand the
frustration at loosing any data for any reason.
As for your specific suggestion, there are utility programs that will
make a key sequence to any arbitrarily complex set of other key
sequences (and some will get a lot more complicated, simulating mouse
movement and mouse button clicks), though personally I don't use them so
I can't give a recommendation.
W5LT wrote:
> I am not a computer wizard, but is it possible to program an unused function
> key (say F12) to execute: <enter> <alt> <s> sequence ??
> That way you could enter QSO (from a spot) and write to disk with one
> button.
> That would be a neat solution. Just a thought.
> Bob, W5LT
>
>
--
73,
David, K2DBK
http://k2dbk.com
http://k2dbk.blogspot.com
