[VHFcontesting] Rover Logs for LoTW

Thu May 17 13:29:27 EDT 2018

I wrote "hostility", not "punishment". I'm aware if you want ARRL awards you have to do what the ARRL says to do. That's a tautology.

A *bit* tedious? With grids in VHF contests, parks in NPOTA, and counties and grids in mobile HF contests & activities like QSO parties and WWFF, and signing with no / or /M or /R, I had over 200(!) locations in TQSL. That's hostile. And the only way to look up locations is to have a personal naming system planned ahead of time, because there's *no* database-like location lookup function.

And it's not just maintaining a long list of locations and hoping my names accurately reflect the data in the location record <sarcasm> because TQSL couldn't possibly display that information to me before I sign the log </sarcasm>. I also have to break up a single contest log into multiple logs so I can apply a different location to each part based on where I was. 

But what could they possibly do to make it less hostile? Glad you asked -- get location and / "prefix" information from the log itself when possible. My VHF contest logs have grids, my QSO party contest logs have counties, and they all have "/" indicators. That would also be enormously less error-prone because when you get information from multiple sources (logs *and* these TQSL locations), you're all but guaranteed to get mismatches.

Or, here's a small improvement ... let me specify the location information when uploading, because maybe all I care about is the right grid or the right county, rather than having to create a location in a separate step hoping to name it well enough to find again.

The TQSL "location" system is fine if you have a few locations like vacation homes or remote stations or operate /M sometimes, or if you activate the same 6 grids in VHF contests. If you're really into operating on the road to do counties, and grids, and parks in many states ... LotW is downright hostile. And it could be made a lot less so.

[I'm aware this is a VHF reflector and most of what I wrote was HF-related, so I regret my post was OT to that extent. Unfortunately, there's only one LotW, so comments about it's shortcomings cannot be limited to VHF.]
-- Pete K0BAK

________________________________
From: Pat Patterson <ppattrsn at swbell.net>
To: Pete K0BAK <rxr978-vhf at yahoo.com>; Steve Kavanagh <sjkavanagh1 at yahoo.ca>; VHF Contesting <vhfcontesting at contesting.com> 
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2018 12:31 PM
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Rover Logs for LoTW

I don't think the "location" requirement is a punishment for /P, /R folks.  If you want to use /P or /R LOTW confirmations for VUCC you need the location data.  It's a bit tedious to set up but not much effort after that.

73,
Pat, W5VY/R

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy Note5

-------- Original message --------
From: Pete K0BAK via VHFcontesting <vhfcontesting at contesting.com> 
Date: 5/17/18  11:05 AM  (GMT-06:00) 
To: Steve Kavanagh <sjkavanagh1 at yahoo.ca>, VHF Contesting <vhfcontesting at contesting.com> 
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Rover Logs for LoTW 

Yes, you do. It's the only way to get a /R (or / anything) signature on your logs, and therefore the only way you and your contacts will get matched if they logged you with /R.
The good news is that you can use your existing certificate to request the additional one; you don't have to start from the beginning like with the mailed code. Look for help on the lotw.arrl.org website for additional (not replacement) certificates, and follow the directions carefully.
Bad news is, continuing LotW's relentless hostility to us mobile/rover/portable operators, each "location" in TQSL applies to only one callsign certificate.
-- Pete K0BAK

      From: Steve Kavanagh via VHFcontesting <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>
To: vhfcontesting at contesting.com 
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2018 11:56 AM
Subject: [VHFcontesting] Rover Logs for LoTW

I am trying to work out how to best upload contest QSOs made as a rover (signing VE3SMA/R) to LoTW.  Does anyone know if I still need to get a new callsign certificate for VE3SMA/R?

73,
Steve VE3SMA
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