D'oh! His QRZ page said "Buro only", so that's how I sent mine.

Hopefully ZK3N will give me a LoTW confirmation well before the bureau card comes back.

I had a similar issue with my Pro 2. I sent it off to Icom and they returned it with a note indicating they made several adjustments to the power, ALC, and other pots. It works like a champ now.

Requested mine via OQRS on December 12th and received it February 26th. I suspect the OQRS ones went out first and others may still be in process. It seems that enough are still waiting that they are still working on them... or something's gone horribly awry.

Right, but the question still stands - what if you're giving out multiple states at the same time by working the border? The WAS rules don't address this. Would they accept one QSL card that showed 3 states worked for a WAS award? If not, would they accept 3 separate cards (one for each state) that showed the exact same date/time, mode, band? I see the latter as no different from the former, except that it is a lot more work to produce.

This ---->>> http://www.dxuniversity.com/showpage.php?id=20&title=Best_Practices_for_DXpedition_Operating

If you want more details, N7NG has an excellent handbook at www.dxpeditioningbasics.com

While this would work for mobile, I don't see how this could work for closely consecutive calls on a county line. LoTW uses call, mode, band, and date/time (within 30 minutes) to determine a match. If I work a county line operation and give out 3 counties in quick succession (less then 30 minutes on the same band and mode), even if I upload separate locations on my end, I don't see how more than one of our QSOs would match. The LoTW FAQ even outlines this exact scenario and indicates only one match would occur - https://p1k.arrl.org/lotw/faq#datamatch

Of note is the N1MM just released an update today with better support for logging and operating county line operations. Details at http://n1mm.hamdocs.com/tiki-list_file_gallery.php?galleryId=15


Yeah, that's not a very good option. I'm going to have a long, complicated exchange as it is - no use complicating it with a complex call sign too.

Everything indicates that at most only one of the QSOs will match, so I'm going to set up my LoTW uploads with the rarest county - Rich County, Utah where there are currently no active hams on HF.


I hope so! I'm planning to operate from the Utah / Idaho / Wyoming "three corners" intersection - one contact with me will net you 3 states and 3 rare counties. More details at http://www.qrz.com/db/N7SMI

I'm planning a multi-county / multi-state line portable operation for the 7th Area QSO Party. I'm curious how one would go about setting things up to provide LoTW confirmations for each county and state. I'm assuming one would set up one location for each county/state combination, then upload distinct logs for each location.

If N1ABC works me and I'm on a border of two states (and thus 2 counties), if I set up distinct locations and upload the QSOs for each county/state, and N1ABC uploads two QSOs (one for each county/state), will we both get the appropriate confirmations?

Based on what the LoTW FAQ states is used to make a QSL match, it seems that only one would 'take'.

Thanks for the recommendations for Romania and Bolivia. I'm not at all worried about chasing them down - they'll find there way into the log sooner or later. It's just interesting which ones are elusive. I hadn't worked Switzerland either until very recently.

Interestingly, a YO was one of my very first amateur radio contacts, but he was maritime mobile off the coast of Cuba.

I've only been in this game for a year or so, but with 175 entities worked, two that have oddly eluded me are Bolivia and Romania. I've never even heard them on the air even though I've worked everything around both of them.

Ding, ding! I think we have a winner!

I actually don't mind too much if someone doesn't do LoTW if they QSL via the buro, but if they only QSL direct and require exorbitant postage, one can't help but question their motives. I generally check folk's QRZ pages before I work them and if I see these demands, I'll usually spin the dial.

I think "Please - No LOTW" generally means "Please stop pestering me about LOTW".

I use Ham Radio Deluxe. The logbook program has most of the functionality you're looking for. The new awards tracking is very easy to use - shows you what you've worked, what you need to work, what you need to QSL, what you've QSLd but haven't yet received back, etc. All of the major awards programs are in there. For example, it takes just a few seconds to see exactly what you need for WAS for mixed, modes, bands, Triple Play, etc.

I also use a highly customized version of Cloudlog to create an online logbook that has mapping, zones, grid squares, etc. - http://smithplanet.com/logbook

I still use N1MM for contest logging, then import the ADIF into HRD. The only thing you discussed that HRD doesn't have is good contest log analysis, but there are plenty of other tools that can do that.

It looks like there's a pretty good chance we'll have Heard Island and Amsterdam Island on the air at the same time, which is a good thing for the pileups - which are going to be EPIC regardless.

In fact, based on the dates, it's likely that both teams will be on the same boat - the Marion Dufresne II, the only ship that regularly services these islands with a helicopter (which is required for both islands).

"TAAF issued them a permit to land and conduct a DXpedition from Amsterdam Island for up to 18 days between the dates of January 15 and February 20 of 2014. Landing, set-up, and take down are included in those 18 days."

There's more information out there... if you know where to find it.

I think Marathon and other awards (5 band and 9 band DXCC, for example) have created a demand for DXpeditions to work every band/mode which results in more folks in the pileups, but fewer unique calls getting logged.

To demonstrate this, go to http://www.clublog.org/uniques.php and sort by "% Unique" from lowest to highest. Almost without exception those stations with the lowest percentage of uniques are the ones that have had the biggest and most unruly pileups. They are also the ones that worked every single band resulting in all of the big guns battling it out for a band fill along with the pop gun stations hoping to just make the log once.

I'm no genius, but it seems like one solution to larger, more unruly pileups is working fewer bands longer (or focusing more strongly on one or two bands) to get more folks in the log even once, then the big guns can battle it out alone for their much-needed 27 band fills.