[SFDXA] Missing info in LoTW output

Wed May 14 00:44:42 EDT 2014

I am not completely sure of the problem described by N1NK but I think it is one I also have/had in that when ARRL converted the old 'paper' DXCC records which where essentially the DX station call written by hand along side of the country listed in the ARRL DX Country list.  There was one record for Mixed, and another for Phone.  No separate CW in those days.. I am not even sure that when the first ARRL computer databases were populated and DXCC records were established for modes and bands that calls and QSO dates were recorded.  

The evidence of this can be seen when reviewing one's DXCC  records in the Log Book of the World. LoTW.   You will note that there are many DXCC entity credits that only show the Entity DXCC ID number, not the call.  In addition when seeking addition information via clicking on the ID it gives not valid dates or QSO information whereas when a call is listed the date, mode and band is listed.

If what N1NK is trying to achieve is to have his logging program award status agree with LoTW and/or his total country confirmed history he might want to look at another logging program which I use that I believe addresses that problem;  DXLab Suite, a free logging program has a credit matching process that identifies these anomalies of League credit and log credit disconnects.  They can be mapped to the log database relatively automatically.  

As many of you know I am a strong advocate of the DXLab logging program which focuses on award tracking and virtually one click uploads to LoTW and Clublog.  It is a modular architecture which allows flexibility in what is in play, and focuses the learning process.l  It directly imports DXBase data or any ADIF format as well.  Support is superb with virtually responses to questions within hours by the author or user members of the reflector group.

It is feature rich, and the learning curve can be very steep, but there is a lot of help available.  Try it, it may be the solution you are looking for.  

Norm W4QN

I would be happy to assist anyone in the initial set up, and quick run down on key steps to use some of the features.

On Tuesday, May 13, 2014 3:29 PM, Bill <bmarx at bellsouth.net> wrote:

From the DXBase list:
An interesting thread for those using Logger32.
Bill W2CQ

On 5/13/2014 12:32 PM, Jim Spears wrote:
> One detail that it appears that folks are missing is that there are
> essentially two distinct periods in DXCC history.  For many years, qso
> information was not recorded for credit to one's CW, PHONE, MIXED, or RTTY
> standing.  DXCC records were manually kept.  So one could have DXCC credit
> for various entities including mode but nothing else.
>
  Somewhere along the way, the records were converted to a database of some
> sort but information that had not been previously recorded was not added
> since it was not present.  Additionally, single band awards were added.
>
  When I look at my present LoTW data, there are some entities that I have
> MIXED, CW -and/or PHONE - credit for but no call sign and no qso
> information.  Only the fact that I was given credit for the entity at some
> point in the past.  FT8Z is an example, I have credit for the entity and
> mode=PHONE but no call sign and no qso information.  This will get updated
> real soon as my FT8ZR confirmations showed up in my LoTW account this
> morning.
>
IMHO it is for this reason (perhaps among others) that N7WS's request to
> populate the DXbase Award field cannot be automated.  And this explains why
> some of the example adi records look as they do.
>
This should not apply to folks who started DXCC after the record keeping was
> automated.  But in this case, I am unable to figure out a method to extract
> only the qsos that were awarded for a DXCC mode/band/entity entry.  I have
> often wanted to do the same thing as N7WS but have only been able to see
> that doing it manually is the only way.  This is more trouble than I want to
> go to.
>
Old Timer Jim/N1NK

Jim,

      I am also an "Old Timer" and my DXCC records look just as you
described.  However, since I have migrated to using Logger32 as my
logging program, I find there is a solution to updating your logger
records to those of the ARRL.

      The first solution I used (in 2011) was a program written by
Marek, SP7DQR.  It was called "LoTW to Logger32 v 1.0.1" and it would
read your DXCC records from LoTW and automatically update those (which
it could find the Date and Time for) with the corresponding records in
Logger32.  When I ran this it updated 2,065 QSO's as "Granted" by ARRL
but gave me 211 QSO's it could not match.  Those I had to do by hand.

      Logger32 has now added a stand-alone program called "ARRL Scraper"
which does the same thing.  Here is a link to the Help file describing
that process:

http://www.logger32.net/help/Logger32/arrl%20scraper.htm

      I have used the ARRL Scraper program for another ham and it worked
similarly to SP7DQR's program.  That is, about 90% of the QSO's were
able to be automatically updated to "Granted" status and the remainder
had to be done manually.

      Some of my DXCC records would look like this:

Callsign    Date Band    Mode    ADIF #    QSL/LoTW
   381     19451115   UNKNO   SSB     381       QSL

      Without even a callsign and an obviously wrong date (I wasn't born
until 1948!), it is very hard to find that QSO.  The 381 in the Callsign
field is just the ADIF number for that country (9V, Singapore) so you
could search for that country and try to figure out which one had been
submitted to ARRL.  However, the lack of a "Band" on that ARRL Credit
meant that I needed to find those QSL's and submit them again to ARRL to
get credit for Singapore on whatever band it was.  Without the Band
credit, I had no credit on the Challenge Award for that QSO/QSL.

      So, there is a solution (sort of) that can give you "Granted"
status of approximately 90% of your DXCC records (more or less depending
on how long you have been a DX'er.)  I thought I would supply this
information so that Joe or Neal would be aware of the possibility of
doing at least part of this in an automated way.  I think the ARRL
Scraper program just matches those that it can and then dumps out a list
of those that it could not match and you need to do those manually.

      If no one writes such a program for DXbase, you could import your
log into Logger32, run this ARRL Scraper program, update your log with
the "Granted" status, and export it from Logger32 to be imported into
DXbase.

73, Clark, W8TN

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