[RTTY] ADI State Tagged filed

[Dave W7DPW]

With reference to the suggestion that WriteLog, or any other
contesting software include in its ADIF file the field for <STATE:2>XX
even  for those contests that do not require the state as part of the
contest exchange for the use of a General Logging application program
to identify the state for each entry in the exported ADI file inorder
for these logging programs to track for awards such as W.A.S.  ..

There are several contests that contain STATE fields in the exchange
and a number that do not.  The ones that require it, may require the
QTH, and may tag it in the ADI file as <QTH:2>xx and not <STATE:2>xx
as required by the logging application.  In some cases it may be
possible to edit this field tag and change it from <QTH:2> to
<STATE:2>, but the field may contain more that just states. It may
have Canadian Proviences,  ARRL Sections,or DX QTHs etc. So in this
case, one would have to view each entry to verify that only the actual
state tag had been changed.

My current General Logging application, Logger, rejects those entries
that has a tagged field for <STATE:2>xx  that does not reflect a valid
state. So if other logging programs do similar validation, one would
have some QSOs imported and others rejected.  Have fun.

The Contesting program is to track, score and make life easy for the
specific contest, not make it easy to track AWARDS. My suggestion
would be to lobby the General Logging program author to include the
necessary code to check the imported ADI, or other imported file, for
a <STATE:>xx tagged field for a "W" station and if not found, to
automatically look-up the state through the use of one the  Call
Look-Up programs such as HamCall, QRZ and include this information
with each of the entries that did not have its own STATE tagged field.

My general logging program, LOGGER, when used stand alone, has an
option for using a state lookup using one of these look-up
applications.

I can relate to tracking for W.A.S.  When returning to the air waves
in 1998 after a period of inactivity, I decided to try for 5BWAS-RTTY
and found that looking up all the calls after the contests very time
consuming and frustrating.  I did manage to get my W.A.S-RTTY #352
,with endorsements in March  2001,  and used the same QSLs for my
5BWAS at the same time.

I solved my problem by writing several PERL scripts to add a STATE
Tagged field in every record that was imported into my general logger.
I realize that not all are able to do this, but I would raather
suggest that it is a situation for the Logging program author and not
the contesting program author to address..


Dave   W7DPW
(DoubleProofWhiskey)