[Dx4win] WARNING: truncated LoTW downloads

[Jim Reisert AD1C]

Hi Folks,

I have been investigating why my QSOs with W1AW/4 in NC were not
confirmed in DX4WIN, even though LoTW said they were confirmed.  It
turns out that of the dozen or so incremental LoTW reports I've
downloaded this year (incremental => new confirmations since last
download), two of them were truncated before all the QSOs had been
downloaded.

There is no way to tell by importing the confirmations into DX4WIN
that the file is incomplete (maybe Paul can detect this in a future
version).  However, there is a way to tell if you look at the .adi
file in a text editor like notepad.  Scroll all the way to the bottom
of the lotwreport.adi file and look for this line:

    <APP_LoTW_EOF>

This indicates that the download is COMPLETE.  If that line is
missing, or you see something like this, then the download is
INCOMPLETE.

    <CALL:5>ZF2AM
    <BAND:3>80M
    <MODE:2>CW
    <APP_LoTW_MODEGROUP:2>CW
    <QSO_DATE

Notice how the last QSO record ends in the middle of the "QSO_DATE"
ADIF field name.

If you have saved lotwreport.adi files by date like I have, you might
want to check if any of your files are truncated.  If you do not have
the old report files, you may want to download your LoTW confirmations
again.  I recommend using this tool instead of the LoTW web site:

    http://www.rickmurphy.net/lotwquery.htm

Check the "Report on QSL Records Only?" box.  Optionally, also check
the "Include location data in report?" box if you want to download
state, county, grid square, etc.  Restrict the download to one year at
a time by setting the "Report on QSOs starting on what date?" and
"Report on QSOs ending on what date?" boxes appropriately.  The fewer
QSOs you try to download in a single query, the more likely it is that
the download will be complete (not truncated).  Even I have had
trouble trying to download only one year worth of confirmations from
2007, I had to try multiple times to get a complete download.  And
this wasn't even the biggest year -- 964 QSOs vs. 4052 QSOs confirmed
in 2009.

It's important to note that some people re-sign their old logs with
the wrong station information, and then upload those QSOs to LoTW,
over-writing the previously correct ones. I have seen several
instances of this by going back and comparing the more-recently
downloaded LoTW confirmation with the same QSO I had downloaded in the
past (and I wasn't looking very hard to find them).  You will get
mismatches when you "Import from LoTW".  This only happens if you
"Include location data in report" in your LoTW report download.  You
will want to investigate each and every one of these mismatches, using
the "Review QSOs not found" feature in the LoTW menu.  Look for the
QSOs with 'X' in the first ('F') column in the editor.  You may need
to get in touch with the station you contacted to verify which set of
information is correct.

73 - Jim AD1C

p.s. the above is probably worthy of adding to the existing LoTW
application note, or creating a new one.

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