[VHFcontesting] Logging between various software programs

[David Olean]

I have had all sorts of problems with logging software and contest entry 
software that processes logs.  Maybe I missed it, but It is hard to find 
documentation that gets down and dirty to tell us what responses are 
allowed in each block where data is entered.  In this past contest I 
used N1MM to log for the 222 and Up contest, and it allows certain 
entries for MODE. My regular logging program is VQ-Log and it has 
various modes allowed.  When you make an ADIF file to submit to the ARRL 
LOTW, those choices may be incompatibile.  The ADIF format allows only

SSB
CW
RTTY
TOR=AMTOR
PKT
AM
FM
SSTV
ATV
PAC=PACTOR
CLO=CLOVER

N1MM recognizes CW, USB, LSB, SSB, AM, FM,SSTV, RTTY, PSK31, PSK63, 
PSK125, PSK250,  DIGITAL, FT8 and FT4.

Note that many of the modes allowed by N1MM are not listed in the ADIF 
specification. This means that any program with the wrong mode might be 
bounced out of the LOTW log and you are out of luck. The contact is 
discarded.

If you supply a Cabrillo file to the ARRL for your contest submission, 
the modes that are allowed are only

CW
PH
FM
RY
DG

It gets better. My daily logging software VQ-Log and is primarily aimed 
at VHF ops. There is a field for propagation type. If you read enough 
you might find a comment telling you that the propagation mode is not 
required in ADIF,  but I found out the hard way that only certain prop 
modes are accepted by the ARRL adif files.  TR means tropo but TRS in 
VQ-LOg indicates tropo scatter which is a primary means that we VHFers 
communicate with. I hand copied almost all of my old paper logs and 
entered the prop mode as TRS and only later found out that all of those 
submitted files went into the bit bucket in Newington.  So I have to go 
back and modify all my entries from TRS to TR to make things work. 
Really, my life is too short to have to deal with these glaring software 
compatability issues.

Somewhere, I have an email that delineates all of the prop modes 
recognized by ARRL LOTW and the adif input file.  I wish it had been 
published somewhere.

So I submitted my 222 & Up file to LOTW. Please let me know if you do 
not get a match. I ended up calling everything either CW or SSB.  There 
was no real good choice for FT8 or MSK144, or Q65. You would think that 
maybe DIGI might be a good name for all of these VHF modes, but you 
would be mistaken.  Your choices are SSB or maybe RTTY.    There must be 
some patches between software to fix some of this, but it sure has 
gotten me in trouble very often.

grumble grumble!

Dave K1WHS