Topband: Cabrillo 101

[Tree]

It seems that a few stations are having problems submitting their Cabrillo
logs for the Stew Perry Contest.  This information should be useful for 
those having trouble.

First off - we apologize for the web pages being down for the past week,
This was due to a power failure in San Francisco and the fact that the 
server operator was away on vacation and could not turn the server back
on until he returned today.  The pages are all back up.

When e-mailing your Cabrillo log - please make sure to put your callsign
in the Subject.  In fact, only your callsign is the best subject.  

Many people seem to get tripped up by the fact that RSTs are not exchanged
in the contest - but are required by the Cabrillo file.  Most, if not all,
logging programs have the RST supported - so this can be solved in most
cases simply by getting the latest version of your software.  We are sorry
for the confusion this can create - but still feel that switching to a new
QSO format would cause even more problems.  

The Cabrillo spec can be found at http://www.kkn.net/~trey/Cabrillo.

This spec has been constant for 11 years now.

The robot is happy to tell you what, if anything, it sees wrong with your
entry.  Feel free to keep e-mailing it until it is happy.  This saves me,
the log checker, from having to edit your files manually.  Multiply this
effort by the number of logs I receive and this is a big deal.

You can use the INSTEW program to generate a Cabrillo file from you paper
log.  You can download this program from the above web site.  You might 
need to edit the dates (using global search and replace) to make the robot
happy as I forgot to update the program for this year's running.

Some 223 logs have already been submitted - so it is indeed possible!  Keep
trying - and thanks for your patience.

And of course - if you are getting too frustrated, let me know and I will 
try to help.  

73 Tree N6TR
tree at kkn.net