Made a paper log during (part of) the contest? The QSO's have to be entered after the contest. The program has some nice features that will allow rapid QSO entry, and allow you to easily set the date and time via interpolation. (Remember, exact QSO times are not critical for contest sponsors, just within reason) This feature is most useful if you have a bunch of QSO's to enter. If you have one or two QSO's on paper you might as well do it the old way...
Warning: Make a copy of your log, and only use the copy for this process! You cannot (automatically) reverse the time interpolation process below. You have been warned!
Suggested way to enter QSO's
Example:
7000 {enter}
W1ABC 35 CT {enter}
W2XYZ 55 MA {enter}
14000 {enter}
W5JOE 42 TX {enter}
etc.
To change time/date of a series of the hand-entered QSO's
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Note: The utility will average out the time for each QSO in the group of QSO's you have selected. Remember there is no "undo" feature, so make a copy of your log before using this utility. If you have a large gap in time in your hand log, enter the first batch of QSO's, and do the interpolation. Then enter the second group of QSO's and do a 2nd interpolation (by breaking up the interpolation, you can better accommodate gaps in the log. |
This will fix a log where all QSO's are off by a common amount of time
The date will automatically adjust if the offset rolls a QSO into a different day. Time is entered in minutes, and can be negative time to go backwards. (You might need a calculator to determine the offset minutes if your date was off by many days, months, or years)
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Note: While you can easily adjust for a mistake by doing another offset, it is advisable that you backup your log before doing any changes. |
Cabrillo is being used by the major contests.
In the chapter Technical Information there is some more information about files the program can make on your command. (Cabrillo, summery sheet, log, ADIF etc.)
Well, there is no print function 'as such', and I don't think many of us print logs. Paper? Ouch! ;o)
Go to 'File | Export', where you see a broad variety of choices. Make an ADIF file for importing in another program, to import the contest QSO's in the general DXlog. It is possible to make a summary sheet, save the file, open it in WordPad and then print it. CSV (comma separated value) format is also an option.
The program does have very nice statistics by itself. Also there is a external tool from I8NHJ. Below some possibilities.
ARRL and CQ need a cabrillo log file for each contest.
Submitting the files
Log files to the ARRL have to Cabrillo files and need to be sent as attachments (not as text)!
Below a possible response from the ARRL contest Robot.
(This is an automated response).
Thank you for your participation in the contest and for submitting your log in Cabrillo format. While the robot appears to be able to process your log, it appears to have discovered irregularities in your log. These do not affect its ability to be processed but correcting these problems will help ensure the entry is properly scored. These irregularities appear in a report at the bottom of this message. You are encouraged to review and fix these irregularities. You may then re-send it to dxcw@arrl.org. You may have to resubmit your log two or three times to get everything just right. Don't worry, the robot replaces the previous file as long as the callsign remains the same. We want to make sure that we have your information right! If you have any questions regarding this, please contact me at n1nd@arrl.org or by phone at 860-594-0232.
Your tracking number is [3044.dxcw]. Please save this receipt until verifying that your log appears on the Logs Received web page at
http://www.arrl.org/contests/claimed/
Thanks for your cooperation. 73
Dan Henderson, N1ND
ARRL Contest Branch Manager
ARRL DX CONTEST LOG WARNING MESSAGE REPORT FROM THE ROBOT
CATEGORY-OVERLAY: N/A
Line 7 was discarded. The CATEGORY-OVERLAY: tag is not used in ARRL contests. You may delete this line from your log.
Delete the line and send the log again. Now the log is accepted without warning messages.
N1MM logger doesn't have a qsl cards sent/received feature. Why? If every general logging feature people want has te be implemented, the program would be neither a good contest program, nor a good general logging program. It has been decided early that this was to be a contest program with a few general logging features. To print qsl cards use a dedicated qsl manager (like BV) or use your daily logging program. Almost all logging programs who can print qsl cardcan accept ADIF input.
By Franki, ON5ZO
N1MMLogger can be used for DX-logging but this is not where it was written for. You are missing some basic features of course, like award and country tracking and QSL'ing options. There is no way around this than using a specific DX logger for DX, or at least to do the "bookkeeping" afterwards. You can do this by exporting your N1MM log to ADIF and importing this file in the DX logger.
What I mean is this: N1MMLogger provides the ADIF-export feature. This creates a simple and plain ASCII file from your log-database. You can open and edit this file with any ASCII-editor, like the old DOS "Edit", Windows' Notepad or Wordpad. In this file, the different parts that define a "QSO" (time, QRG, call, reports etc. etc.) are separated by field identifiers or tags that are defined in the standard of the ADIF-format. Read all about it at: http://www.hosenose.com/adif/adif.html
You cannot simply use this file for DX logging, but you can import this file in any casual DX logging program.
When I entered a contest, and I made -let's say- 300 QSO's, I export this file to an ADIF file. ADIF specifies a field named "comment", so I put a comment like "QSO in ARRL DX CW 2002" in the first QSO and save this. Then I have WordPad replace all the 299 empty "COMMENT" tags by "<COMMENT>QSO in ARRL DX CW 2002", so each of these 300 QSO's gets this comment added. When I import this file in my general DX-log containing a few thousand QSO's, these are marked with the specific comment. This is what I mean with "interacting". Other feature is that, in that same contest, the RST from the American stations, i.e. their state, is automatically filled in, in the "state" field in DX4WIN.
I never log a rag chew QSO or a DXpedition with N1MMLogger, and I never enter a contest with my DX-logging software. Yet all my contest contacts end up in my "general DX log", with a special note indicating what contest it was...