[ADXA] LoTW and such _ my decision stays the same...

Thu Mar 30 18:57:13 EDT 2023

  Thankfully when I tried to sign up on LoTW a few years ago, my PC got locked up and died. Never tried to sign up again! 🤢
  Lucky for me, I therefore never have been on LoTW and have always like the paper QSL route anyway despite a bit more money being spent to do so. It all started in 1957 when there was no other way to get a “paper” QSL and there was no computer etc until about 1998 or so..  I have stuck with paper cards all my ham life and will continue to do so.
  Understand that the majority of DXers who chase MANY ARRL awards just can not afford to ask for paper cards for every QSO and then have an ARRL card checker do the occasional confirmations in person when updating things at an in-person meeting. 👍
  As I say, IIWII, and it’s an individual’s hobby, how much to spend on it and how many awards to keep trying to put on the wall, etc! As you get older and unable to ‘chase’ awards every day, then you slowly become satisfied what you’ve done for 66 years. 😄 
  Our CY0S will end up with about 90,000 QSOs, and the on-island team should be leaving Sable by Saturday if the Halifax weather improves and if Sable’s sand is dry enough to land and take off. Doubt another Parks Canada permission for many years to go to Sable Island.
Get ‘em tonight on a band/mode you might need. 👌 
73 all, 
San YY

Sent from Mail for Windows

From: Stan Ross
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2023 5:25 PM
To: ADXA
Subject: Re: [ADXA] LoTW and such

As the last line of my previous alluded to, $$$.

I see the issue as more of a capacity problem, but that’s just my “amateur” observation…

vR
Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 30, 2023, at 5:20 PM, BILL KENNAMER <k5fuv at prodigy.net> wrote:

As they used to say when I was racing, "Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?"

FUV

On Thursday, March 30, 2023 at 05:13:36 PM CDT, Stan Ross <k5vr.stan at gmail.com> wrote: 

I seldom chime in on such discussions, however, in my limited IT experience (just 40+ years in hospital diagnostic imaging equipment) we seldom had networking issues until every piece of equipment began dumping megabytes if not gigabytes of data at once on the network.

 I liken it to thousands of cars getting on the LA freeway every day at the same time versus letting them trickle on a few at a time spread out over a period of time. We never seem to have the slowness issue outside of contests or when someone decides to dump many (large) logs at the same time. 

The old system just needs looking at seriously to be able to handle the increased demand with the increased users, digital modes, logging programs, etc. 

It just takes $$$ and time.

Stan
K5VR 
Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 30, 2023, at 4:44 PM, Steven Rutledge <crownhaven at bellsouth.net> wrote:

I’ve read the thread on the LOTW reflector.  Hard to stomach.  They should build another reflector for “impatient IT experts.”  Dave tries to inject some sanity into the discussion but it always gets out of control.

I’m very happy with LOTW.  Better than waiting over a year for a mailed card hoping your money wasn’t stolen before it got there.

Steve QQ

On Mar 30, 2023, at 4:50 PM, WB5JJJ <wb5jjj at gmail.com> wrote:

I, for one, am not one who likes software that uploads to LoTW one at a time.  If I use such a program, I disable the realtime uploads.  I know many don't care, they just want instant gratification in everything they do.  

I too remember the "good old days" of the paper QSL exchange, and I still love collecting cards as I'm up to almost 1,000 now after 49 years and 11 months of doing so.  

Otherwise, instant uploads are a total waste of LoTW computer resources.  I wish this would be banned so that only batches of say 10 or more are allowed.  Or even a max number of QSO's in a 24-hour period until they work through this server bottleneck.  As they say in pileups, "Spread it out guys".  With FT8/4 and some logging programs that creates a bunch of single uploads that stress on the system for sure.  

Plus, I always double-check my contacts no matter what mode, especially those that I have to enter manually for SSB/CW and such.  Fat fingers always rule.  

And like Joel, I want instant gratification, but that comes at a price.  I prefer to wake up in the morning and check to find that an ATNO has been uploaded to LoTW and I have verification, even if it was several months (or years) ago.  And yes, I've worked folks that use one at a time loggers and I see their confirmation within a couple of minutes many times right after a bulk upload of mine.  But if you are NOT a DXPedition, why do this?  

Which is worse during a contest, one at a time or everybody uploading their log in the first hour after the contest closes, like me?  And then you have guys who finally get around to digitizing their log from the past half-century of operation and uploading it all right at the end of a contest by accident.  

To each his own, but remember you are just one of thousands that use the 20+ year old system on a daily basis.  Until the upload section of LoTW is updated, please be considerate of others.  

Perhaps a seperate computer system (buffer) to handle the uploads and then pass them off to the LoTW computer system in a timely manner without LoTW being clobbered so often by single QSO uploads or massive 30m ones as well?  Take these individual QSO files and merge them into larger files to then be passed on to LoTW as one.  

73's
George - WB5JJJ
HoIP - 100105
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