[CQ-Contest] Growing New Contesters with LOTW - suddenly it's 1977 again

[kl7ra]

Pete mentions logs that were submitted for contest credit could
be used for award credit as was done many years ago. The
problem is LoTW has many steps or hoops that may be a show
stopper as it is right now. It has also been my experience working 
with local Dxers that some think using LoTW seems too difficult to 
mess with.

I assume some contesters like myself  submit our contest log to the 
log robot, do the dance, then wait until after the log submission 
date, (or not) to sign this log and upload or e-mail it to LoTW.  
After awhile a low percentage of the Q's gets 'QSLed' and you 
can watch your WAS awards, for example, fill in. Slowly.

We are very lucky we have really smart computer people 
checking our logs. I know there has to be one person in the 
system that could make all this work for log transfers. The 
question is are two logs sent in for cross-checking equal to 
one certificate signed log? Could the signing step be skipped
for contest logs? 

In the next perfect contest world we will upload our log to the 
Robot, maybe within some short window this time and all Q's 
will be cross-checked and scored. Then this "clean" log will 
be piped to LoTW for "all" awards and the master log archive. 
The final scores will be sent to the contest sponsors web site 
so we can go there to claim any certificate we may have won 
for instant downloading. 

I have faith in the system. Using the present contest log checking 
software/techniques for super clean logs piped to LoTW can only
improve the awards program not to mention more people getting
in contests knowing they can confirm every QSO. 

Strong work Pete.    

73, Rich KL7RA  Kenai