When I’m out activating a SOTA summit, which
is where is where most of my logged contacts come from, I put them into Outd
logging software on my iPhone. It makes
it super easy to upload to the SOTA database.
(I’ve done a review of outd
(ACLOG) on my PC. I’ve also been known to use a paper log when
things get wet on a summit.
Think of ACLOG as the clearing house for all of my amateur radio logging. (updated 6/2/2023) (Presentation on this topic
ACLOG
N3JFP’s Amateur Contact Log (ACLOG) is pretty
well known in the ham community. ACLOG
is software that runs on Windows (sorry mac users) that hams use to log their
contacts with other stations. The software
is very inexpensive and the author also publishes add-ons for contesting. It was designed and developed by a ham for
other hams. Here are the things that I
like most about it.
●
It’s highly configurable. For example, it has the ability to add custom
fields. (see more about this below).
●
Ability to change the order of
fields.
●
Data is exportable in the portable
ADIF format used by other apps and services.
●
You can import from other logging
apps (see more below on this).
●
The import feature is very
smart. If you name a custom field the
same as a field that is being imported from another app, it puts from that
source into the right place.
●
Using the app to log contacts is
very simple (or you can make it complex).
●
It integrates with Logbook Of The
World (LOTW). (More below)
●
Call lookup using the online
service QRZ. It does callsign lookup
against QRZ when you are entering a contact callsign and fills in name, state and other data
automatically.
●
Cool automation features, like the
ability to highlight a bunch of contacts and tell it to fill in the blanks by
using a lookup against QRZ.com You’ll
see this is important when importing logs from my iPhone, where the data for
state and some other data is missing.
●
It talks to my radio home radio by
reading in the current frequency and mode, saving you from having to enter
that. That’s super handy during a fast
paced contest.
I tried only one other logging app out there, Ham Radio Deluxe. It
was expensive and it was a hodgepodge of multiple applications smashed
together, so it felt a little kludgy at the time. I'm sure it’s improved over the years and
there’s probably other great software out there too, but I’m sticking with
ACLOG until something breaks with it.
I’m not going to delve into a full review of
ACLOG, you can probably find that somewhere else. I’m going to move onto the main purpose of
this article, explaining how I use ACLOG for SOTA and my general workflow of
how I ingest, update, and push data out into LOTW and QRZ for confirmations.
My Configuration Of ACLOG
I configured four custom fields for my use,
and most of these are key for importing and managing my SOTA activities. My
custom fields are named, “Other”, “MY_SOTA_REF”, “SOTA_REF”, and “QSL Sent?”.
The first custom field is “Other” (bad title I know). This field contains mainly three possible
options right now, Home, CHASE, and SOTA.
- Home is what I flag
contacts that I made from home when I’m playing with my setup in a contest
for instance and trying to work stations in the US and around the world.
- CHASE is what I flag
contacts with to indicate that I was chasing a SOTA operator. It allows me to identify which contacts
I should export and then push up to sotadata.org.uk so I can track my SOTA
contacts there and get my points.
- SOTA is the designator that
indicates that the contact was made from a SOTA summit. Most of my log entries (currently about
9,000+) have the SOTA designation.
The next custom field is “MY_SOTA_REF”. This is a
standard ADIF field used by Summits On The Air logging apps and sotadata
website for import. This field indicates
which summit I was on when I created a SOTA log entry for a contact. This field happens to match the field name
for the ADIF export of my logging app, Outd.
Because my custom field and the
import datafile from Outd match, the import logic correctly pulls my sota
summit id into this field. This is
super handy for multi-summit days!!!
SOTA_REF is another custom field that I added.
This field is used for holding the summit ID of a “chased summit”. That is, when I chase a summit either from
home, or from my summit while doing SOTA (summit-to-summit), this field holds
the summit ID that the SOTA operator was on.
Because it matches the Outd ADF format, it comes across perfectly. I really enjoy chasing other summits while on
a mountain top. It’s challenging and I
feel a bit of comodery with the other operator that is battling some of the
same things I am, cold, wind, dirt, etc.
“QSL
Sent?” is my final custom field. It
indicates the date that I sent a QSL card to an operator. I enjoy sending one of my custom greetings
and thank you cards to other Ham operators.
It’s been a tradition in the hobby for quite some time. Originally, it was the only way that
operators could prove that they had a particular contact with someone in order
to earn credit toward some award, like “worked all states” for example. Now confirmations are made electronically via
qrz.com or Logbook Of The World (LOTW).
I don’t send a card to everyone that I contact, and if I do, I don’t
want to keep sending them cards every time I make a contact, so I use this
field to keep track of who I sent a card to.
Sending QSL cards is still a fun part of the hobbie and if you send
cards, you are more likely to receive a “QSL card”. I have quite a few with very cool art from
all over the world.
ACLOG is my logging
clearinghouse.
As I mentioned, I run all my logs through
ACLOG. That means that no matter where I
log a contact, paper, phone, or directly using the app, those log entries will
be loaded into ACLOG.
Confirming:
Because ACLOG has a cool integration with
LOTW, I can upload new logs directly to LOTW with a click of a button. When I’m done, I export one or more days of
contacts and then import them to QRZ.
Some operators really want you to confirm the contact so that they get
credit as they are working toward some goal or award. By uploading all my contacts to LOTW and QRZ,
it covers most everyone's needs. If it doesn’t, they can request a QSL card. I’m happy to send a QSL card in the mail but
they really aren’t needed anymore and I’ve yet to have someone request one
except when they send me one.
Export from Outd and Import to
ACLOG
As I mentioned, I use Outd on my iPhone to log
contacts when I’m out doing SOTA. At the
end of the day, I export my contacts from one or more SOTA expeditions and then
do a quick pre-process prior to import.
Here are the steps that I follow:
- In Outd, I
use the export feature to export to ADIF and use the email option, sending
it to myself.
- On my PC, I
open the email and download the attachment and move the file to a folder
for that day.
- I upload
that file to sotadata.org.uk
so I can get my SOTA points and summit-to-summit points. (I can also upload directly from my
phone if I want to).
- I then open
the file with a text editor called textpad. (any text editor will work)
- I use “save
as” and change the file name suffix to “.adi”.
- I replace ALL “QPMSG” with “Comment”. This puts that data into
the comment field in ACLOG which typically contains “SOTA <my summit
ID>”. The data is there so I figure why not bring it over to the
comments field in ACLOG. In
addition, this is a standard field in QRZ logbook and since QRZ doesn’t
have a “MY_SOTA_REF” field, this is an easy way to see what summit I was
on if I’m browsing that logbook.
(Not sure if comments are visible to others).
- I replace ALL “<eor>” with
“<Other:4>SOTA<My_Gridsquare:4>DM53<eor>”
This populates my “Other” field in ACLOG and I populate the grid square
field in ACLOG with the proper one for this summit.
In the example above, I use the grid square that the summit is in (so it’s
not always DM53), and I only use
the first four characters of the grid square. A four character grid square is close
enough for users who want to prove they chased a county for example.
- If I also was in a park and want to document and push into pota.app on the web then I also append the POTA Park ID into the field MY_SIG_INFO which is a out of box field in ACLOG. (eg. "<MY_SIG_INFO:6>K-0070"). Although you can upload the log as-is without this field in pota.app on the web and choose the POTA park ID when you upload, why not document it in ACLOG too. I don't do a lot of POTA right now, but when I do, I populate MY_SIG_INFO.
- Save and
close the file.
- In ACLOG I
import the recently edited .adi file using File/Import
Note: N6ARA created a python script to do the
file post processing a little quicker.
He may use a tad different scheme but check it out, he also distributes
the source code located HERE.
Now all of the contacts that I made on one or
more summits are loaded into ACLOG. The
one last thing that I do is go into ACLOG and fill in the blanks for name,
state etc that are not captured in Outd.
I do this by highlighting all of the calls that I want to update, then
use the edit menu, then “Fill Fields Determined by Call” then choose “selected
records”. ACLOG then quickly goes
through all of the records, looking them up in QRZ via an API, and fills in the
blank fields where it can. This is a
super cool feature in ACLOG.
Push records to LOTW using ACLOG
As mentioned above, I confirm via LOTW and
ACLOG as a built in tool that does all the work for you. The one thing you need to ensure is that
you’ve created a new “location” using TQSL tool for each grid square that you
will upload records for. Because I only
use the first four characters of the grid square, I didn’t have to create that
many “locations” because a four digit grid square can contain a LOT of
summits.
(By clicking on the image above, you can see that records in blue are "confirmed" via LOTW.)
When you are ready to upload directly from ACLOG to LOTW, highlight the records
you want to upload, then select the “eLogs” menu and choose LOTW. On the upload dialog, use the pulldown and
choose the matching grid square for the records you will upload, then click on
the button “Selected Contacts from Main Form”.
Once you’ve pushed records to LOTW, you can
use the “eLogs” menu / LOTW, and then choose the “All Since” button. This pulls down all of the confirmations in
LOTW into ACLOG. It’s a super easy way
to to integrate with LOTW.
Export chase logs from ACLOG for import
The sotadata ADIF import supports exports from aclog because of how I named my optional fields (see above) so that it would accept the chased SOTA summit. The process is simple:
- I just highlight the chase log entries and then export to a file.
- Upload it to sotadata using the ADIF format.
Importing Contacts to QRZ.com
I upload my contacts for
the day to my qrz.com logbook, a cloud based logging app used by many hams. Some hams use the automated feature that
looks at the logbooks of the people you contact to see if they also logged you,
which is a good way to “confirm”. It’s a
simple way to prove that you really did make a contact with someone at a date,
time, band and location.
UPDATE 6/2/22: ACLOG now supports pushing data into QRZ just like LOTW. They have also added comments upload so it works perfectly via a push of a button.
- In ACLOG,
Highlight the records you want to import to QRZ
- Choose eLogs dropdown menu.
- Choose "QRZ Logbook".
- Click on "Selected Contacts from Main Form" or you can chance the "All Contacts Not Uploaded"
- I “Import from
LOTW” once in a while. If LOTW has completed
processing your file, all of your records will turn green and it will have
a special icon that shows confirmations that came from LOTW.
The above is a snapshot of my from my QRZ log
A star with a circle indicates a confirmation via LOTW
A star without a circle indicates a confirmation from QRZ only.
You may wonder why I don’t just import from
LOTW since we used ACLOG to push the records up there in an earlier step. This
is because fields like comments aren’t in the LOTW database so if you want the
comments to come along, you’ll need to import a file you exported from ACLOG.
This process of importing from the iPhone then
using LOTW, and exporting, and importing to QRZ may sound like an all day
affair, but in reality, all of this just
takes a few minutes. Also, I might only do this once per week.
There is no rule that says that you need to
keep a log of all your contacts, and my hams don’t (I don’t log all of the
contacts that I make using my hand-held or VHF radio around town for
example). Over time, it’s kinda cool to
see all of the people and places that you’ve contacted. ACLOG has a bunch of stats as well so it
provides a bit of entertainment for data geeks like me.
I hope my approach to centralizing my logs for
statistics fun was helpful.
Importing Contacts to POTA.app
Use the "My Log Uploads" menu page to upload your log. Because we added the POTA field at the top, it will correctly guess the park number but if you didn't add that field to the ADIF file, don't worry, the upload page allows you to choose the park during the process.
Reference:
Example ADIF Record:
Below is an excerpt from my log after doing SPOTA (SOTA & POTA). It shows the mods after export from Outd.
<CALL:4>WU7H<QSO_DATE:8>20231018<TIME_ON:4>2044<MY_SOTA_REF:10>W7Y/TT-139<FREQ:6>14.062<OPERATOR:5>N1CLC<STATION_CALLSIGN:5>N1CLC<SOTA_REF:0><MODE:2>CW<NAME:15>Joshua J Gibbs
<QTH:0><TX_PWR:2>10<RST_RCVD:3>549<RST_SENT:3>559<Comment:15>SOTA W7Y/TT-139<Other:4>SOTA<My_Gridsquare:4>DM44<MY_SIG_INFO:6>K-0070<eor>
Other tools for logging
- G0LGS log editor for your PC
- Paper (Write In the Rain paper log)
- Fas Log Entry (FLE) is a super fast way to log for contest, SOTA, POTA, and it supports multiple exports.
- HamRS for your phone
- Outd for your phone.
- VKPortaLog for your phone
- RumlogNG for your phone
73,
N1CLC
Chris Claborne
(aka christian claborne)