Your Favorite Awards Tracking Software?

[W6FG]

I'm probably using up my 'New Topic' quota here but I just couldn't get it off my mind...  What's the best award tracking type log program that you know of? Any personal favs?  Most all programs track DXCC and the popular 'big time' awards, but what about the smaller awards; there's a ton of them out there!  I know there's "Paper Chasers' Log" but I don't think anyone with Win 7 can run it.  What's your opinion?

Thanks again,

rf

[AA6YQ]

I'm probably using up my 'New Topic' quota here but I just couldn't get it off my mind...  What's the best award tracking type log program that you know of? Any personal favs?  Most all programs track DXCC and the popular 'big time' awards, but what about the smaller awards; there's a ton of them out there!  I know there's "Paper Chasers' Log" but I don't think anyone with Win 7 can run it.  What's your opinion?

Thanks again,

rf

DXLab

- tracks confirmation and verification of QSOs for DXCC, TopList, WAZ awards, highlighting needed DX spots, automatically generating outgoing QSLs that request confirmation of needed QSLs, identifying confirmed QSOs for submission to the ARRL DXCC desk, and generating DXCC submission paperwork

- tracks CQ Marathon progress for the current year, highlighting spots of DX stations needed for this annual award

- reports progress towards DXCC, TopList, Challenge, VUCC, Marathon, WAS, WAC, IOTA, WAZ, WPX, USA-CA, Canadaward, Holyland, DOK, WAE, WAB, DDFM, SRR, RDA, WAHUC, WAIP, WAJA, JCC, JCG, and AJA awards

- is completely free, and available via www.dxlabsuite.com

[W5DQ]

I'll 2nd the DX Lab Suite and DXKeeper logging software. I have used electronic logging programs since the DOS days when I rolled my own using dBASE III Plus. I looked at many of the packages, free to quite pricey, and in my humble opinion the DX Log Suite out does them all and for FREE. To answer your original question, it will track all the major awards as well as many of the smaller ones - some I never even heard of until I saw them in the software. I am an award chaser and have found that DX Lab Suite does everything I could ask for, quickly and easily. Before you decide, I would highly recommend you take a look at the DX Lab Suite website and see for yourself.

Good Luck in your research. It can be confusing with the myriad of choices out here.

Gene W5DQ

[WB4M]

DXKeeper, which is part of the DXLabs suite, will do everything you want.  I honestly have used or tried almost every program available, and some are nice, some more basic.  I always came back to DXKeeper.  Using both eQSL and LoTW are a snap.  The great thing about DXLabs is that you can use any or all of the programs, and they all interoperate with each other.  Icing on the cake is that it is all FREE, with the best support in ham radio.

[PJ2BVU]

As mentioned in the preceding post: DXLab suite.

- Does everything you need.

- Consists of several programs (7) which seems overwhelming but you do not have to start with all of them: I would recommend DXLauncher which is the only program you need to download directly, after that the Launcher allows you to download the other applications you need, informs you of updates and updates what has to be updated. As its name implies it also launches the DXLab applications. Using DXLauncher download DXKeeper which is the logging program and also PathFinder which does call book lookup and fills various fields in the log.

- Has excellent support via a Yahoo group. Dave generally answers within a few hours and you can expect a fix the next day if it is a bug.

- Is the most up to date program. It was the first to implement upload to LoTW and very simply: one click to upload, one click to verify that the uploaded QSOs have been processed by LoTW and one click to check if you got LotW QSLs. On 10/10/10 Dave used some magic: any one having worked the new PJ entities could produce a DXCC report including the new entities, even before ARRL published the new country codes for these entities. Difficult to beat such a program!

- All of that for the paltry sum of $0.00.

Many thanks to Dave de Jean-Claude PJ2BVU

Note: as of today ARRL did not create the new certificates for the new PJ entities. If you expect frantically LoTW confirmations or these you will have to wait until sometime in February when we will get the new certificates and be able to sign the QSOs since 10/10/10 and upload them.

[PJ2BVU]

F key is failing on my keyboard:

If you expect frantically LoTW confirmations for these ...