[UK-CONTEST] Cabrillo Templates

[Dave Lawley]

Some interesting comments about Cabrillo. With a little time
on my hands at present, I'll try to present the current position
regarding Cabrillo. Note that from 2003 it is the preferred format
for disk or email entries in RSGB HF contests.

Cabrillo has some serious shortcomings in my view. However, 
after it was imposed as the standard for the ARRL and CQ, 
the major world contests, many other contest organisers have
started to adopt it, recognising as we do that a standard 
invented in the US and pushed hard there, is going to become
the world standard whether we like it or not. Add to that the fact
that most logging software is written in the US.

If you look at the Cabrillo pages  http://www.kkn.net/~trey/cabrillo/
you'll see that there is no 'standard' Cabrillo - there are several
different templates, though what we probably think of as the
standard is the one used for ARRL, CQ, Stew Perry, Oceania
and AP Sprint. This will do fine for AFS and both field days.

Thanks to Don, G3XTT, there is also a template on the Cabrillo
page for the IOTA contest. We will follow that template for the
1.8 contests, 21/28 and Beru, and that only leaves a few of our
contests for which we have to come up with a brand-new 
template. As Justin says, watch the HFCC web page for
more templates.

Now if you're a CT user and have a version that supports 
Cabrillo, there will be no problem in AFS because if you run
CT for the WPX contest and do the WRITELOG command,
one of the files you get is Cabrillo. You should edit the header
lines, ideally in line with the sample posted on the web page,
but this is always going to be the case as we would like you
to put soapbox comments in.

Other logging programs which support Cabrillo such as TR,
Writelog and SD can similarly be used in WPX mode and
will produce a Cabrillo entry. SD of course supports RSGB
contests but due to a cock-up on our part we have not given
Paul sufficient notice to implement Cabrillo for all our contests
just yet. Apologies to Paul. We have no problem with you 
using SD in AFS mode and submitting the RSGB format 
file, in this case you will also have to submit the summary 
sheet just the same as in previous years.

Dave G4BUO
HF Contests Committee