Try this I've cracked win2k, win XP passwords with it in very little time.

http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

There is no problem with TS870 transmitter.  I've had one for years and get great reports on CW and SSB.  I suppose you can screw up the the processor adjustment and get bad results.

I wonder about eham posts that don't feature any call letters.

I can use the CW filtering on my TS870 down to 50Hz on PSK31.  The bandwidth of PSK31 is very narrow.  I have to use RX TX split because there is an 800 Hz shift for the CW beat note.  I use some software I wrote to provide the automatic offset and mode change (USB on TX CW on RX) for PSK31.  Works great and i can copy signals down to the noise level.

Some more modern DSP rigs allow narrowing the passband on SSB RX down to very narrow values.  Then you don't need the offset and mode change.

This is the best way to do PSK31.  With narrow RX filtering you will stop being one of those grumpy old guys complaining about excessive power.

The guy with the 61KHz has a switching power supply with common mode radiation connected to his router or the network cabling somewhere.  I've never seen the ethernet traffic produce RFI on a good cable.

Another thing to consider, is the network has many other computers and displays hooked to it.  Any of the attached computers or their displays could be producing RFI that couples to the Ethernet cabling as common mode.

Most of the time RFI comes from the switching power supplies of the router.  Most routers run on 5V or 8V or up to 12V.  You can look on the device and the power recepticle will say what it runs on.  Then find an old style linear power supply and attach to it.  Quite often that fixes it.

I have seen TVI to cable boxes and TVs from wireless routers.  Then you need to add some clip on ferrites to the ethernet cables because the wireless router is emmitting common mode on the cables.

When ever I hear the "I changed everything and nothing works", it usually means you misdiagnosed the source of the EMI and everything you changed had nothing to do with the cause.  Thats why nothing works.

Check the file structure produced by the install under wine.  Compare with working Windoze PCs you have.  Maybe a file is missing.
This sounds likely because of the install from original CD message.

Many problems with Wine involve DLLs and overrides.  Refer to Wine documents for explaination.

To trouble shoot problems with Wine / Windows it many times helps to execute the program from the command line under Wine.  You can type Wine <program name> and the program will produce output to the std err (which is the terminal window)  Look for missing DLLs or DLLs you need to steal or override from windows.  When executing from Wine from terminal, be sure to get the complete path correct or change directories until you are in the wine Cdrive programs/... etc.

N3FJP software will run under wine without problems.

It's usually the power supply.

The first line of defense is to wind the AC power cord around a large diameter ferrite toroid with high permeability.
You want about 5 turns or so.  Adjust the number for best results. 
The use of clamp on beads is usually ineffective because the impedance of the beads is low at HF, you might have to use say 10 of them or completely cover the entire line cord for them to be effective.

The second line of defense is add another toroid to the DC output line.  Again something around 5 turns to 10 turns.

The third line of defense if you are really desperate.  You have to put the power supply in a metal box.  You need to modify the mains coupler and add an EMI filter to the AC line.  You can buy them at Digikey.  You need to ground the third wire to the box.

I usually add a toroid choke to the output wound common mode, and some bypass caps to the metal box.  You need to use radio type construction techniques.  Many times mounting is much better if you crack open the case and mount the PC board to the box with nylon spacers.  There are High Voltages so you need to use "tube type" radio techniques.

I have done the metal box mod, and it works, but you really need to be adept at safe construction of the things with high voltage.  To the point of which I think if you know enough to do as I described, I probably didn't need to tell you.

Fortunately the toroids on the input and output usually works well enough.

For just browsing the web, try a Linux live CD.  Use one of the minimal ones like Slitaz or an old version of Knoppix.  This eliminates windoze altogether.

Another useful idea is to bag IE and down load the last version of firefox that runs under win98.  You can find it at a web site callled http://www.oldapps.com/firefox.php  look for the OS level on the left and navigate to the down load area for the OS you want.  I have some ancient computers running Win 2K that benefit from running old apps.  You have to be on your guard for viruses etc cuz there is a reason for all the patching etc.  You can get the absolute rock bottom anit virus at Clamwin.

If you really want to continue running ancient hardware and your emphasis is browsing and maybe ham radio aps, you should consider Linux.  Browsing is well supported, without the virus problems.  Old ham aps tend to work under wine (linux) just fine.  You have to learn to use it so it will be about like running some old ham gear, you have to tune it and adjust it and repair it sometimes.

If you wanna be cheap, you gotta be resourceful.

Dipole 1/2 wave on lowest frequency, fed with window line.  Hopefully you have trees, so use a sling shot launcher to put up the dipole using a tree.  If possible get the legs up a so there isn't too much droop.  This time of the cycle, 20m and 40m CW should be your main bands.  If you are SSB then I would consider 15m to be a substitute for 20m since SSB QRM on 20 is very high unless you are a big dog.

This system has proved its worth in many FD outings.

Keep it simple and have fun.

if the reinstall over-wrote the data area that contained the original file, you are not likely to get it back without the help of a forensic firm.

if it is in an unused area a linux too like testdisk might recover it.  it can be found on the systemrescue linux iso.  You need to be quite knowlegeable to use it.

good luck

I had a buddy who put one of the marine type SGC tuners inside a plastic dog house to protect it from the direct rain and other elements.  The plastic enclosure of the SGC kept the bugs out.  The system worked well with a few radials and a vertical piece of wire run up a small tree about 40 feet.  Maybe you could try some thing like that.

I would tune for zero reactance on each band starting from the highest frequency.  This is because the traps successively disconnect the upper parts of the antenna the lower you go in frequency.

I would measure directly at the antenna terminals.  Record the data.  You can use the zero reactance frequency to determine if you should make the antenna longer or shorter.  Shorter should raise the frequency.

What i would guess you will find is the zero reactance (resonant) frequency will have a resistance higher than 50 ohms and therefore a high SWR.  The resistance of the antenna over perfect ground should be around 35 ohms.  The amount over this is roughly the ground loss. 

Changing the length of the antenna does not change the high ground loss situation, so getting a low SWR is not necessarily going to happen by changing the antenna length.  Sometimes the feed line length is such that you get some impedance transformation on some bands and might be able to get a low SWR at the transmitter end.  Unless you are a smith chart guru this would be completely by chance.

You  have two options:   Use a tuner and some low loss coax and live with the loss in the feed line due to mismatch (this is the 43 foot vertical approach).

Or add radials until the loss part of the resistance is around 20 ohms giving a total feed resistance of around 50 ohms.

You could also add a matching network to the base of the antenna but I ruled this out because it would have to be switchable for multiband operation.

There is no reason to think you sould be able to magically get a good match on a ground mounted trap vertical with an unknown quality ground system (loss).  Lenghtening and shortening the antenna just changes its feedpoint impedance but there is no assurance you get a 1:1 match for any particular situation.

I think it is interesting to ponder that a 20 ohm loss resistance means that 20/55 or 36% of the power applied is going to warm the worms.  Its also interesting to note that if you make your ground system very good, you will not have a "good" 1:1 SWR in a 50 ohm system because the feed point would be 35 ohms.  So all those vertical owners bragging about their 1:1 swr and broad band operation are just bragging about their ground loss.

My guess is that you will add some radials, get an acceptable SWR under 2:1 and call it good.  If you have a long run of coax or its lossy, just invest in something a little better.  Then get on the air and have fun....

The only thing I notice about my IC7000 is that it does not excel at overload performance.  It really gets clobbered on 160m during a contest with locals running 2Kw.  It suffers from being very small and therefore not having enough space for the filtering needed for high dynamic range.

I bought it for a mobile rig.  It excels at that, and is plenty sensitive.  The dsp is outstanding for selectivity especially on CW.

I would not use it as a home rig unless I was space limited.

I've used the K3.  It is very good for overload and dynamic range.  Especially if you add the narrow roofing filters.

If I were getting advice on choosing a rig, I would not rely on the advice of an eham member who seems to be a ham but doesn't use his call.

You could look at some of the computers targeted at corporate and small business like dells vostro.  I think some of them still have PCI slots and traditional ports.

You could consider a new mobo and power supply.  You could inquire about the terms of your windows license and see if you can revalidate your win XP in a replacement system.  Depends on if you have backups or install media.

If your windows license can be moved, you could run something like ubunut linux, put your XP in a virtualbox virtual machine and run your ham software in a virtual environement.

You could buy a Win 7 machine and run XP in a virtualizer and then all the old ham stuff would work.  Again, you need to be able to recycle your windows XP license.

The thing about a virtual system is that you can move the image from machine to machine easily.  As long as the new machine has the virtualizer software on it.  The image is like an operating system in a bottle.

Lastly, I offer the idea of installing win95, 98, or win2k in the virtualizer.  Win9x and Win2k don't validate and have generally escaped into the wild.  If you have a copy of these systems, they run well in the virtual environment of virtual box etc.  You can safely run your old software inside under their old environment and still have them run safely bottled up in the virtual image.

I hope these ideas give you some more off the beaten path ideas for a "new" system.

go to distrowatch.com and look at the distros at the top of the chart.  If they are compatible with Debian respositories, you will have the best chance of finding the applications you want in the form of packages.

Generally you need to consider the hardware you are running on.  If you run old (8-10yrs) system like I do, you try not to run the heavy KDE / Gnome centric distros.

Since Linux is free and easy to try out, I'd recommend you just start trying them.  I'd also recommend testing them as live CDs or USBs and then progressing to a HD install.  I would avoid dual booting with Windows unless you have a fool proof windows backup system or know how to debug the boot loader system.  Check the forums of any *Ubuntu and you will get page after page of pleas for help with messed up dual boots.

My last recommendation is that when you find a distro you think you like, try asking questions on their forum.  Its important to have a community to help you through the rough spots.  So forums are very helpful and some are filled with clueless hackers or demeaning uber geeks and you will quickly learn where you are welcome.  If you don't get the help you need, move on to another distro or forum and find where you get what you need.

Have fun with Linux, its truly the geeks tinkertoy set.