[ILQSO] LOG PROGRESS

[James Funk]

To date, something over 170 logs have been received.  All but a couple
of dozen of these have been electronic logs, for which we thank you!
Paper logs are perfectly acceptable if that's the way you logged the
contest.  Those received so far are being typed into Excel by NA9Q and
NB9Q (thank  you!!!)

Of the electronic logs, nearly all are in formats that have been easy to
process.  Not all "Cabrillo" are created equal, as most of you know.
The logs that list multiple counties in the same line take an extra step
for conversion, but it's not a problem. Though there are others that
work well, I can't say enough good things about N3FJP's output.  When I
see one of those, I know it will take 3 minutes or less to process it,
start to finish, regardless of the size of the log!

Several have submitted logs in Excel format, and almost all of those
have been easy to handle as well.  I know that in many cases, the
initial logging was done on paper and you have typed it into Excel...and
I appreciate it!!

Interesting phenomena that continue to occur are the non-standard county
abbreviations and the confusion they cause.  When Illinois was founded,
I know no one thought, or cared, that at some point "WILL" and "WMSN"
would be confusing, nor that "WHIT" and "WTSD" would cause distress.
Don't even get me started on "MCON", "MCPN" and "MCDN".  We *may* make
an attempt in the next few months to modify the "standard
abbreviations"; however, it would take years for all of the software out
there to catch up with the changes, and I'm not sure it's worth the
trouble.  At this point, I am making allowance for those who log "WHIT"
and mean "WTSD" or who log "WMSN" and mean "WILL" and vice versa.  In
other words, you'll get credit for the county you worked, not what you
claimed, in most of those cases.  NG9R says I am being "too nice".
Maybe so.  I've also hit some Excel entries where someone has logged
K5ZYV and has him in "MSSC".  This will happen if you have previously
entered "MSSC" in the column and type "MS" for Carl's QTH and don't
notice that the program has appended the "SC" part.  I have been
treating these on a case-by-case basis; and yes, this is probably "too
nice".  I am at least trying to be consistent.  

The "Master Log" currently has over 25000 entries.  The more logs we
get, the better job we can do with fairly scoring each one.

Keep 'em comin'....

73, Jim N9JF