Radio, Software

JTAlert Stops Responding when Selecting a Non-DX Callsign

Off and on and at random times, JTAlert has gone into a Not Responding state, increasingly more so in recent weeks. It has been a challenge to track down. With bands improving, working DX has been the goal this week. One thing I noticed after focusing on DX stations was the problem would occur when I’d click on a callsign in North America and it happened every time. Looking on the JTAlert support group, a few others had similar issues over the last year or so, but there didn’t seem to be a clear cause. One solution was to create a new database in Ham Radio Deluxe and import the data from backup. Maybe a corrupt database is the issue? Since I’d reinstalled recently and imported the backup into a new database, this didn’t seem likely.

The September issue of the Ham Radio Deluxe Newsletter discussed performance issues with their use of Microsoft Access as a database and their future move to Microsoft SQL Server Express. Maybe the database is the issue. Unfortunately, the move to SQL Express is going to take a few months. Fortunately, HRD has a solution that works just as well – use MariaDB.

I followed the directions on the link below and set up a MariaDB database. I don’t know why looking up a NA callsign versus a DX callsign makes a difference, but it does and the Access database apparently can’t keep up. JTAlert is back to being responsive not only with DX stations, but those closer to home.

https://support.hamradiodeluxe.com/support/solutions/articles/51000054871-convert-access-to-mysql-database