[UK-CONTEST] LOTW 50 million Qs and counting!

[johndunnington]

Hello Jim

Yes it is great I joined LOTW from Day-1 and in May when it opened for DXCC
Business claimed my first ever DXCC. Never fancied sending QSL's across the
pond. When field checking started had too many to start sorting but LOTW
gave me the push and slowly working through the heap of 2500 Band Countries.

Currently have 143 Mixed and 140 CW with 535 Band Countries from 55K QSO's
with 4075 hits in LOTW.
It was dominated by USA stations but now lots of interesting stuff including
some very exotic stations. Once WAS is released I now have all 50 US States
in there. It is still in a minority cult status but grows each week. What is
nice is that I have more USA QSL's for the ARRL 2004 DX Contest than the
previous 5-years of paper QSL's. You will also be surprised how many hits as
a result of AFS Contest entries from UK stations who you dont receive paper
QSL's from. All good fun.

What is nice is the vast data base of information on the "Hits you have" and
extensive search routines.

I use DX4WIN logger and keep a separate log for LOTW hits as well as a
merged log for both paper and LOTW in case one day I reach the point of
claiming some paper QSL's.At least I now have them all filed away by Country
in a very large wooden chest so finding them is not a problem anymore.

To those still thinking about it, join the fun as it is straight forward
once you send them a photocopy of your licence and some form of ID. You do
of course need an electronic logger there are many freebeebies which handle
the situation.

73

John



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