[CQ-Contest] Pre-emptive QSLing - was:Contesters and LOTW

[Pete Smith]

Well, what I, at least, would like is to see LOTW evolve into a 
free-standing, international entity which would service ARRL, CQ, RGSB, 
DARC, etc., so as to support maybe 90 percent of the world demand for 
awards.  I think the ARRL solution so far isn't bad, but I'd like to see it 
de-nationalized as a route to broader international acceptance.  Wouldn't 
it be great if LOTW (or its evolved offspring) could be interfaced to the 
log-checking databases of the major international contests, such that a 
verified contest QSO would automatically be entered in the database for use 
toward any awards.

Another logical next step would be to enable a QSL-printing facility like 
that on EQsl, such that stations wishing to do so could download a 
printable QSL card for any QSOs they particularly wanted to put up on the 
wall.  Carry it a step further, and any station could, for a small fee, 
upload a customized QSL that would be used when others requested a 
printable QSL from that station.

Paper mail is slowly going away - why shouldn't QSLing go all-electronic?

73, Pete N4ZR

   At 11:20 AM 8/9/2007, Don Field wrote:
>The question Pete is surely "universally accepted" for what?
>
>Why do people want QSL cards?
>
>1. To decorate the shack wall and show to friends and family.
>2. To apply for one of the thousands of awards that exist (see K1BV web page
>for an idea of how many there are)
>3. Specifically to apply for DXCC or WAS (only awards currently supported by
>LoTW)
>
>I would suggest, outside the US at least, that (3) is in the minority! So
>"universal acceptance" of LoTW, whatever that means, is a loooong way off.
>
>Don G3XTT
>
>On 09/08/07, Pete Smith <n4zr at contesting.com> wrote:
> >
> > What I've done for about 7 years is to pre-emptively QSL from my own logs,
> > using a sorting routine that only generates QSLs for the first QSO with a
> > station on a given band/mode combination.  Then when QSLs come in from the
> > bureau I just cull through them for the ones I need, and figure that I
> > have
> > already covered the rest.  DX4WIN does the sorting of outgoing QSLs,
> > described above, very easily.  Both cost and time (in particular) are much
> > better than going through each card, and I find that year by year I am
> > producing QSLs for a smaller percentage of total QSOs made.  I still QSL
> > direct for all cards received directly, though not always right away.
> >
> > That being said, I would love to see LOTW become universally accepted - I
> > have 96,000 QSOs on it now, so a lot of people could get my QSL for DXCC
> > or
> > WAS a lot more easily than paper QSLing.  But back when LOTW started, I
> > asked the question whether I should rely exclusively on LOTW, and the
> > consensus was that it was way too soon to stop paper QSLing.
> >
> > 73, Pete N4ZR
> >
> >
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