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LoTW "Strange" but is it ??
K8ZM
#1 Posted : Sunday, August 14, 2016 1:18:46 AM(UTC)
bwilliams

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I had an existing 2m VUCC award issued in 2006, all via paper QSL's. I had been requesting the ARRL to link that "hard QSL" award to my LoTW account for quite some time so that I can get credit for grids already confirmed. Yesterday I got notification that my previous "hard QSL" credits were now linked to my VUCC account and now I had 100 confirmed grids being recognized in LoTW. Great news !!

I then tried an import of new QSL's into LOGic thinking they should show up as "new" like any other QSL, but none imported. Ok, well I did already have them marked as QSL Received "F" (paper) back when I had received all those cards years ago. Today after the 6m Spring Sprint I started looking at my LoTW account on-line and began cross-checking what they showed as confirmed to what I had in LOGic and I was surprised to see that ALL of my newly recognized LoTW credits now show the LoTW received status as "F" in LOGic.....so I'm surprised that the import actually did do something, changing the LoTW QSL Status from blank to "F", but it also imported the LoTW QSL Received Date and put it in the Received date field for paper QSL's!! Is there some way to get notification when an LoTW import changes anything in LOGic?? LoTW also gave me VUCC credit for multiple QSO's with the same station even though I didn't have confirming QSL cards for more than one QSO, and, the import also changed those QSO's in LOGic marking them as confirmed with a QSL received date matching the LoTW QSL record date.

Has anyone ever seen this before ??

Brad, N8GLS
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W5GA
#2 Posted : Monday, August 15, 2016 8:01:59 PM(UTC)
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As best I know, Logic doesn't do anything with LOtW unless you tell it to.
WN4AZY
#3 Posted : Tuesday, August 16, 2016 8:03:49 PM(UTC)
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Right-- it isn't going to do anything unless you click AUTOMATICALLY CHECK IN THESE QSLS or ADD QSOS FOR QSLS NOT FOUND IN LOG.

Here are the steps it goes thru:



For now, let's assume the DOWNLOAD QSLS ON OR SINCE is set to blank. When you click IMPORT DIRECTLY FROM WEB, any QSLs that you have will be downloaded from the ARRL and will appear in the grid in the UPDATE LOG tab. LOGic goes thru the QSLs and tries to match it to a QSO in the log. It does this matching by comparing CALL, OPERATOR, and DATE & TIME, with and without seconds. If no match is found, NOT FOUND IN LOG is checkmarked. If a match is found LOTW RCVD is already marked as Fulfilled, ALREADY UPDATED will be checkmarked.

Clicking AUTOMATICALLY CHECK IN THESE QSLs reads thru every record on the grid that is not marked as ALREADY PROCESSESED, finds the matching QSO, and changes LOTW_RCVD to Fulfilled. It also updates CQZ, ITUZ, County, IOTA, VE PROV, STATE, and Grid square, overwriting whatever may already be in LOGic. The info on the QSL is presumed to be correct. (However, if you log a 6-letter grid square it will not be overwritten with a 4-character grid square from LoTW.


What do you mean by "New"? A "new" QSL, as I see it, is one that shows up and does not have already LoTW RCVD set to Fulfilled. That date box on the first page -- it sends it to LoTW so it doesn't send down every QSL you've ever received. All it does is make LOGic get fewer QSL records to process. Presumably there are no QSLs before that date that you haven't previously processed. But it isn't going to hurt anything to blank it and every time. It will just give LOGic more data to wade thru and cause the ARRL servers to send more data.

I can't find where I am doing anything with the QSL Rcvd Date that LoTW sends back.

Quote:
LoTW also gave me VUCC credit for multiple QSO's with the same station even though I didn't have confirming QSL cards for more than one QSO, and, the import also changed those QSO's in LOGic marking them as confirmed with a QSL received date matching the LoTW QSL record date.
LoTW gives you credit for multiple squares on the same QSO. LOGic used to require you to add multiple QSOs. Now, you can enter multiple squares separated by commas. We got hung up on awards tracking or contest duping or something and have not finished that yet. There is a thread elsewhere about this -- I will look for it and review it.

Let me know if any questions or comments.

73,

Dennis WN4AZY
K8ZM
#4 Posted : Wednesday, August 17, 2016 1:59:18 AM(UTC)
bwilliams

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Ok, well, there is disparity. I am an avid LoTW user and upload/import QSO's/QSL's almost daily. All was fine until this anomaly after getting my 2m VUCC award credit from 2006 for QSO's dating from 2006 to 1996. Note that these are all credits for what ARRL considers "paper" QSL's and not confirmed through the LoTW process of electronic log validation. This merely linked my 2006 VUCC award QSO credits to my N8GLS logbook in LoTW providing me credit for those original 100 grids confirmed through that "paper" process.

These legacy 100 QSO's/QSL's had been in LOGic since the QSO date and all had a "paper" QSL status of QSL R = "F", along with a "paper" QSL Received date entry of when I actually received the QSL card. None had an entry for LoTW, they were all blank. After the notification from the ARRL that the VUCC award linking process was complete, I did the usual "Import LoTW QSL's", the grid displayed zero QSL's for any 2m QSO, I did have three or so other QSO's that displayed for check-in, but NONE for 2m. No real activity on 2m for quite some time, and while I have had several of these "old" QSO's confirmed via LoTW its been less than 15 in several years.

Now, the other issue of getting credit for multiple QSO's with the same station (and same grid)is more an issue with the ARRL than LOGic, but these also changed the LoTW R field from "blank" to "F", AND a "paper" QSL Received date was entered, which just so happens to match exactly with the QSL record in LoTW......remember these were QSO's for which I had NO QSL card, and NO LoTW confirmation prior to this date. These also didn't show up in the Import QSL from LoTW grid. Are you sure the grid is completely overwritten ?? I have several QSO's where I got LoTW confirmation with a station in a completely different grid because he didn't remember to upload a revised station location with his log, so my LoTW confirmation and download says say grid DM98 but he was actually in Ohio and logged in EN70....that grid didn't change in LOGic after the QSL import. I thought it compared the first four characters and then only added the last two if a six character grid ?? Or all four or six characters if blank ?? Problem here if it just changes without validation. While I don't have many but there are about ten QSL's that are a problem due to the station I worked not updating his station location, or forgot to add a station location for the four grids he worked portable. I validate QSL data from LoTw on the web before importing after I had that one issue.....once you import, its all history and you'd never know that a rare grid expedition you worked became a "neighboring grid" qso....that would suck. I was probably the one with the thread on contesting and using the multiple grids by comma, yes please work on that one....September VHF Contest is around the corner, scoring is an issue. Also want to stir the flames on SO2R again....need to know if LOGic can assimilate the SO2R protocol as in N1MM, HRD, and others....I'll start another post on that one.

So, I am confused as to how log data can change QSL R date and LoTW R status seemingly without any notification and/or intervention by me at all. I am pretty anal about my log and its accuracy, so its not like I don't look at this stuff long and hard. I just don't get how these fields that were blank are now all of a sudden populated, Surely they imported, but I have received only three or so 2m QSL's this year, matter of fact, the rare time that I do get one its a "surprise" as I haven't been operating on that band anywhere near like I did back in 2007 and years prior !!

I have a long email going to the ARRL on this as my N8GLS logbook is now showing QSL credit ("paper" only) for QSO's I never received a card for that just happen to be with the same stations (and grids) but on differing dates than the original QSO's for which I did get a card for....what a mess !! I haven't finished looking at all the data yet but it almost looks like they gave me QSL credit for every same station QSO after the first confirmed one....so if my VUCC award had a card confirmed for N8GLS on sept 9 1990, every QSO after that got credited as well. Maybe I should have just started my 2m VUCC all over again...!! Yikes.....DXCC next !!!

crap, its 2:50am.....got to get up in an hour....

Brad, N8GLS

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