I have been reading the responses to my previous post on LOTW and find some of
them curiously interesting. First I am at a point in my life that I wont want
any more clutter. Second and more importantly I have made enough contacts over
the years (46 come september) and sent a lot of cards that never elicited even
the slightest response from the other station so I gave up on the idea. In fact
currently I dont even have any. And to be honest I have never been interested
in WAS, WAZ, WAC, DXCC or any of the other awards... until recently. And of
course I have lost many of the cards that I did get over the years from moves
etc. But recently I thought about DXCC.
After a false start with EQSL (which sucks because it isnt recogonized for any
awards that I know of) I stumbled on the LOTW site at ARRL. This seemed like
a natural to me because it directly supports the awards that I might be
interested in. And so I bit the bullet and registered. It was painless, simple
and it works great. If you have a problem there are support staff that can help
even if in a minimalistic sort of way. The only problems I have had have been
self inflicted and easily corrected. In fact I have had more problems with
Logger32 than LOTW.
Now I also said curiously interesting.. curious because I got the impression
from one of the responders (that shall here-to-for remain nameless) sorta
indicated that some DX stations were making money off of this gig. If this is
so I did not know about that aspect and would find it another reason to be
repulsed by card collecting.
Also I kinda figured that some hams would be repulsed by the fact that it was
the ARRL doing the LOTW thing and out of jealousy not want any part of it. I
guess that is called NIH syndrome or Not Invented Here. Thats ok because they
are the losers for their attitudes and it doesnt bother me in the least. Again
I say LOTW works and is painless. I am not an IT professioinal I am a techno
geek to be sure but computers still eat my lunch occasionally and at 63 if I
can learn new tricks so can others. In fact the day I stop learning the might
as well plant me in the ground!
LOGGER32 is a nice program, highly configurable, stable and the author has done
a yeomans job with it. The LOTW utillity I still have not gotten to work to
where it logs on to the LOTW servers yet but maybe in time. Now if I can ever
find all my old log books I will convert them. I guess they are with the QSL
cards that I lost, I am sure no one would want to steal them so they gotta be
around some where.
One thing to consider however is that I dont know if the ARRL has considered
what would happen if all of the hams in the world would join LOTW. BOY what a
massive back log processing those contacts! Even with a BEOWOLF cluster of say
100 processors it would take a good while with all the incoming logs...
They say confession is good for the sole.. well is here is mine. I have found
myself giving preference to the stations that are LOTW users whenever
possible. I admit that this is pruely a selfish act in that I would like to
get DXCC on 160 before I die.
ANyhow guys thanks for the feedback it is appreciated.
Jim WA3MEJ
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
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