How to prepare and send your log...

Sunday, 20:00 UTC, the ARI International DX Contest is just finished. We hope you had fun in the contest! The next step is to submit your log but not now... take your time, there are no prizes for who submits his log immediately. It's much better do it after several days and, most of all, after you read and checked your log a couple of times.

Remember: we need your log even if you did only few QSOs. It will help us checking all the other logs that we will receive. So, PLEASE, take 5 minutes to send us your file within the deadline that will be a month after the end of the contest. Guess what? You might even end #1 in your country (who knows?) and win a nice colorful certificate.

In these days, E-mail is the best way to submit a log...

• You will receive a acknowledgement of the reception of your log within few minutes so you will be sure that we have it,

• You will not need to spend money using regular mail,

• You will not risk that your envelope will get lost or damaged in the mail somewhere between your mail-drop and our mail-box,

Anyway, if you like to send us a paper log, we will accept it but remember that someone will need to type-in all your QSOs. We got some volunteers but this is a work that we don't like to do. Computers are very common in these days so we would appreciate very much is you would type-in your QSOs by yourself. There are a large variety of programs that handle our contest and some of them are FREE. Visit the software page to see the list of the available programs.

Please, if you logged on a computer, do not send us a computer printout by regular mail. Please send us a disk or an E-mail with your data. If you are not certain, if you can send the correct files, send us what you have - including an ASCII readable summary sheet and stating what type of software (if any) was used to compile the log.

A log on CD/Floppy disk would work fine but it would be much easier and faster sending us the files by E-mail. Anyway, the right mail address to use is this: A.R.I. Contest Manager, c/o ARI, Via D. Scarlatti 31, 20124 Milano (MI), Italy.

Just few words to help you locating the right files to send us. Most of the modern programs can produce a Cabrillo file. That would work fine for us so if you are in doubt about which could be the right file to send us, just use the Cabrillo format. We put together a page dedicated to Cabrillo, just to help who is not familiar with this format, yet. Please remember that if you send us a Cabrillo log, then you don't need to add anything else (no dupe-sheet, no summary sheet, no multipliers' list).

If you used an old version of your software that doesn't has Cabrillo capability, just send us a regular ASCII contest log file in chronological order. CT by K1EA creates a .ALL file, TR by N6TR creates a .DAT file, SuperDuper by EI5DI creates a .LOG file and so on. We will convert your file into the format we need. Just and important recommendation: please do NOT edit the log file. Just leave it as it has been created by the software. In this way we will be able to use our automatic file converters that won't work if the file has been changed.

If you like using a homemade contest software, please be sure to implement one of the common ASCII contest log formats. Remember: we don't need to print your log so please do not fill it with special printing characters, these will only make more difficult the conversion into a more friendly format.

Guess who are the two worst enemies for a log checker? A log made with Excel (.XLS) and a log made with Word (.DOC). These are the two worst formats that we can receive. They will require a lot of time for the conversion and, sometimes, it's easier typing-in all the QSOs from the beginning than spending time with the conversion.

So, now we must assume that we have been able to convince you to handle the contest with one of the most common contest logging software and then to send us your log by E-mail. Here is a checklist for sending logs by e-mail:

• this is the E-mail address for your log: aricontest -at- kkn -dot- net .

• your callsign must be in the message subject,

• your log is preferred in Cabrillo format (but we will accept all formats),

• all times must be in GMT format,

• when you send an electronic log, you don't need to split it by bands or modes, just send a single file in chronological order,

• if you're not familiar with Cabrillo format, please take few minutes to read the Cabrillo specs,

• the contest name in the log looks like this: CONTEST: ARI-DX. Be sure a space follows the colon,

• your claimed score is not important, we will re-score your log anyway,

• it is not necessary to sign your electronic log. By submitting your log, you automatically declare that you are accepting the contest rules,

• please attach all files to a single E-mail message. Do not split your logs over several messages,

• please do not send logs from different stations in a single message. Send one E-mail per callsign and mode,

• click here to see some samples,

• make sure that the category is one of the standards shown on the dedicated Cabrillo information page:

  CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP CW

  CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP SSB

  CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP RTTY

  CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP MIXED

  CATEGORY: MULTI-ONE

  CATEGORY: CHECKLOG

If you have any question, feel free to contact the Contest Manager that will be able to suggest the best way to submit your log. After the submission, you may check the Received Logs page to see if your callsign is listed correctly and with the right category.

Many thanks for your entry!