[Dx4win] Award management

[Jim Reisert AD1C]

On 1/12/2008 8:54 PM, Ernie Walls wrote:

> I have somewhere about 2500 DXCC credits in LOTW, working toward a whole
> host of awards. 
> 
> I have NEVER used the DX4Win 'Award management' process - when I first
> joined LOTW, and wanted to apply to the ARRL for a few awards, which was not
> long after I had switched from WJ2O to DX4Win, the instruction verbiage in
> the DX4Win Help manual was too hard for me to cope with! No jokes about dumb
> VKs, please.
> 
> Now, after much fiddling with DX4Win, and a somewhat improved understanding
> of the power of the program, it may be the time to use it for any further
> award submissions.
> 
> In a nutshell, is there an easy way to 'update' DX4Win to reflect the 2500
> credits, before marching forward. 

Hi Ernie,

It won't be a straightforward process.  But I can give you some hints. 
I'm going to be a little pedantic so that you (and everyone else) 
understands the process.

Each DX4WIN QSO record had three DXCC award flags:

  - Mixed
  - Band
  - Mode

You can see these flags if your expand the QSO window large enough 
(using the F5 key).

These award flags normally follow the progression of Blank -> Submitted 
-> Checked.  When you make a DXCC submission (Reports -> DXCC -> 
Submission), DX4WIN changes the award flags for QSOs that are to be 
submitted to "Submitted", depending on your DXCC award preferences (i.e. 
whether you are interested in DXCC Mixed/Band/Mode awards).  When you 
receive your cards or endorsement back from the ARRL, then you change 
the award flags to "Checked" by using Reports -> Change Award Flags.  In 
the DXCC case, you will have to do this three times - once for mixed, 
once for mode, once for band.

Since you have not followed the submission process, in order to get your 
credits to match, and if you want to be absolutely precise, you will 
need to identity each QSO that the ARRL gave you credit for, and for 
which award that that was given, i.e. BY1PK credit for DXCC mixed or 40 
meters or CW, and set the award flags yourself (wow, that's a run-on 
sentence!)

If you don't care about being precise, you can just have DX4WIN mark any 
relevant QSO as submitted, even if it doesn't exactly match your DXCC 
records, just to get the award credits to match. For example, DX4WIN 
might mark up to three different BY stations for mixed or 40 meters or 
CW credit.

So here's how to proceed:

1.  Make a backup copy of your logbook.  You may want to restore it if
     something goes awry.  I do not recommend saving your log until you
     are satisfied with the submission results.

2.  Download the lotwreport.adi file from ARRL.  This will contain all
     your LoTW confirmations.  Import this file into DX4WIN, following
     the application note I wrote.  Make sure that "Confirmed QSOs" in
     your QSO preferences is set correctly before doing the import
     (again, see the app. note).

3.  Now go back into your QSO preferences and make sure that "Confirmed
     QSOs" is set to "Upload Conf".  You want to do this so that when you
     do the DX4WIN DXCC Submission (next step), DX4WIN will not consider
     paper QSL cards as submitted.

4.  Check your DXCC preferences to ensure that all award boxes are
     checked that ARRL has given you credit for.

5.  Perform a DXCC Submission (Reports -> DXCC -> Submission).  This
     will mark the DXCC award flags in your logbook as Submitted.

At this point, you have told DX4WIN to create a DXCC Submission, using 
only the QSOs in your logbook confirmed by LoTW.  The number and type of 
award credits now marked as Submitted will probably NOT match what the 
ARRL says you have.  Here's how to fix it:

6.  Refer to this program to compare your ARRL DXCC credits with DX4WIN:

     http://dx4win.ad1c.us/dx4wlotw.htm

     When running the program, you must put a check mark in the box that
     says, "Treat DX4WIN Submitted as Checked."  This is because your
     DXCC award credits are only marked as SUBMITTED at this point.

     The program will identify mismatches between your DX4WIN logbook and
     the ARRL.  To resolve these differences, you can search for them
     in DX4WIN using F8.  Generally, you will only need to search for the
     DXCC prefix and the particular award flag that mismatches, in order
     to find the QSO.  There will be two possibilities:

     - You have a QSO marked as Submitted but ARRL does not have a record
       of that credit.  Just change the award flag from Submitted back to
       "--"

     - ARRL gave you credit for a QSO but DX4WIN does not have a record
       of that credit.  This could be because you submitted a paper QSL
       instead of LoTW credit, *or* the ARRL DXCC Desk made a mistake.
       It is up to you to figure out how to resolve this.

7.  Once you have made the corrections, generate another DXCC listing
     (Reports -> DXCC -> Listing) and feed it into the checker program.
     Continue along this path until all differences are resolved.

8.  Once the program reports that there are no mismatches (or at least
     none that you can resolve through DX4WIN), your DX4WIN award flags
     are up-to-date.  SAVE YOUR LOG, maybe giving it a different name
     than your original.

9.  Now it's time to change the DXCC award flags from Submitted to
     Checked using Reports -> Change Award Flags.  You'll have to do this
     three times - once for DXCC Mixed, Band and Mode.

10. Assuming your satisfied with the results, you can now save your
     logbook.  Going forward, use the DXCC Submission process to keep
     your log and ARRL in-sync.

Having written all this, I will admit that when it comes to working with 
  LoTW DXCC award credits, there is no way to tell DX4WIN to 
automatically update the award credits from the LoTW database.  In fact, 
on December 31, I made my first DXCC submission using LoTW credits, and 
I still have not updated the Submitted flags in DX4WIN.

73 - Jim AD1C

-- 
Jim Reisert AD1C/Ø, <jjreisert at alum.mit.edu>, http://www.ad1c.us