[W8MWA] ARRL’s Logbook of The World Tops 1 Billion QSO Records

[Spence Graham]

As of December 19, more than 1 billion contact records have been entered
into ARRL’s *Logbook of The World*
<http://www.arrl.org/logbook-of-the-world> (LoTW) system. And, while 1
billion QSO records represents a significant milestone, a more important
statistic may be the nearly 187 million contacts *confirmed* via LoTW over
its 15-year history.

The one billionth record was uploaded by 7X3WPL, the Sahara DX Radio Club,
at 23:32 UTC for a 20-meter SSB contact with with Davide Cler, IW1DQS, that
took place on December 28, 2016. The upload resulted in a match (QSL).

LoTW debuted in 2003 after a lot of behind-the-scenes planning and
development. Initially LoTW got off to a slow start. While user numbers
gradually grew to about 5,000, a lot of hams didn’t fully understand what
LoTW was or how it worked, and opening an account could be cumbersome.

LoTW continued with few major changes until October 2011, when a perfect
storm struck — a large ingestion of logs after the CQ World Wide DX Contest
and a freak snowstorm that knocked out power for more than a week in most
places.

Field Services and Radiosport Department Manager Norm Fusaro, W3IZ Fusaro
said uninterruptible power source (UPS) back-up power quickly depleted in
the days-long power outage. “When the system came back online, it was
overwhelmed with the amount of data coming in and could not keep up,”
Fusaro said. “The water was coming in faster than the pumps could pump it
out. *Crash!*”

The disaster was a blessing in disguise, though, because it revealed
weaknesses in the LoTW software and hardware.

Fusaro said the League spent tens of thousands of dollars for new hardware
that was express-shipped and installed at HQ. IT Manager Mike Keane, K1MK,
started implementing some code changes to expedite log processing by giving
priority to small- to medium-sized logs and inserting mega-files as
openings occurred. Fusaro said a lot of the large files contained duplicate
data, bogging down the process so much that users were resending logs
already in the queue. Through all of this not one QSO record was lost
because LoTW uses a redundant backup process.

“A big problem was communicating to the public what was happening,” Fusaro
said. An LoTW users’ group reflector and a queue-processing status page
were set up. With better communication, Fusaro said, the system attracted
additional numbers. Today, LoTW boasts some 112,000 users in all 340 DXCC
entities, and 75% of all DXCC applications are filed via LoTW, which
accounts for 86% of confirmations applied.

Now, ARRL is looking at the development of LoTW 2.0, Fusaro said. “Over the
years we have added more awards that can be applied using LoTW QSL credits;
VUCC, Triple Play, and two CQ awards — WPX and WAZ.”

“The service still has room for a lot of improvement, but it continues to
grow and is the preferred method of confirming QSOs because it strives to
protect the integrity of DXCC and all awards,” Fusaro said.

-- 
73,

Spence

*Spencer W. Graham, II*
*WT8WV*
*73 Crosby Road*
*Morgantown, WV 26508*

*2017-2018 VP of Monongalia Wireless Association http://www.w8mwa.org/
<http://www.w8mwa.org/> *
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*Check Out My Ham Radio Blog Site...  http://kb8fir.wordpress.com
<http://kb8fir.wordpress.com>*

*(ex-KB8FIR and ex-KA8LJO)*
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