[WriteLog] IARU log rejected--Solved

[John E Bastin, K8AJS]

At 8:56 AM -0700 7/18/02, Jim Reisert wrote:
>The ARRL prefers the log as an attachment.  It's easier for the robot to
>extract it that way.
>
>The robot is probably NOT seeing an attachment in your message, and therefore
>isn't complaining, but some staffer will have to dig the message out and
>extract the log manually - more chance for error.

When I sent the IARU log, I got an acknowledgement from the robot in 
minutes, with the confirmation number. This was on a Sunday afternoon 
- I don't think a human intervened. In the past, the robot has not 
been hesitant to bounce my lags as incorrect format when they were 
sent as attachments.

>Plus, if this is done a
>month or two after the contest, and they ultimately find something wrong in
>your log (wrong format), will you be able to quickly and easily find 
>the binary
>log and create the format that they really wanted?

Well, the answer to that question is yes, all my log files are 
cataloged and I can find a given log in minutes if necessary.

>
>If the attachment format isn't working for you, then it's best to root cause
>the problem, rather than performing some work-around that makes the job harder
>for the recipient.

If the job was harder for the ARRL, I would expect them to let me 
know, rather than just sucking it up and doing the extra work, 
especially since they are very specific about wanting only the 
Cabrillo format for computer logs.

I'm not sure what the problem would be. The Cabrillo format is a flat 
text file, my e-mail messages are flat text files, why should there 
be a problem in the interpretation? When the mail is sent, the 
attachment is just converted to text format and tacked onto the end 
of the message, so the whole thing is one text file. I would assume 
the robot just scans the text file until it finds the Cabrillo header 
and starts reading the log from there.

I'm not sure what the problem is with my attachments, but a couple of 
years ago or so Dan and I went through a log I submitted as an 
attachment multiple times and never could get the robot to accept it. 
He didn't have any explanation, and he finally extracted it manually.

It's probably some problem with the way Eudora Pro formats 
attachments on the Macintosh before it sends them. Since I've been 
sticking them in the text of the message, I haven't gotten any 
messages from him saying they couldn't handle my log.

That's my experience. YMMV.

73,
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