It seems to me a bit incongruous for people who have figured out how to
install and use WriteLog, N1MM, TRLog and/or CT, and who can find their way
around the menu systems of modern high-end radios, to complain about the
complexity of LotW.
I suspect one solution may be to have the details of signing the files
embedded inside your logging software, the way DXKeeper does it. If more
logging software did that, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation
(although in these summer doldrums, what else would we chat about?)
I have a different comment about LotW. There is no way for it to check for
correctness of state, county, zone, gridsquare, etc., and people seem to
have a lot of trouble getting this information right. I wonder whether this
has something to do with why LotW is not yet used for awards like WAS,
VUCC, and WAZ.
Some examples:
I have received quite a few LotW QSLs which claim to be from ITU zone 5 and
CQ zone 8 (instead of the other way around).
A made-up one: suppose you are looking for WAS (maybe on 160m QRP, or EME,
or on some other difficult band-mode combination) and finally work WE3IAY
(a made-up call sign) in Delaware for state #50. Some time after the QSO,
WE3IAY moves to California and re-uploads his log to LotW, signing it with
the new location (perhaps because he hasn't figured out how to use multiple
locations in TQSL, perhaps because he just can't be bothered). The QSL for
your 50th state just disappeared (replaced by a QSL from CA, which you
don't need)!
Another example (call signs and locations changed to protect the innocent):
WE3IAY/6 enters the CaQP as a rover, and you work him from 20 different
counties, some of them new to you. When he uploads his contest log to LotW,
he signs every one of those QSOs with his home QTH, instead of with the
counties he worked you from. The result is that you have 20 QSLs from one
station on the same band and mode from the same location on the same
weekend, and no QSLs from your hoped-for rare counties.
A real example: recently I received two electronic QSLs from the same
station for the same QSO, one on eQSL and one on LotW. The two electronic
QSLs for the same QSO claimed to be from different counties and
gridsquares. Which one should I believe? (that's a rhetorical question)
With eQSLs the call sign, date, time, band and/or mode are quite often
wrong. With LotW you never even see these mistakes, although they are
probably made just as often.
There isn't really a foolproof solution to this - exactly the same things
can and do happen with paper QSLs. But I think our expectations for
accuracy from electronic systems are higher, so somehow the errors are more
disappointing. And unfortunately, the attempts by the programmers to force
you to think about which location to sign the QSOs from seem to have
backfired: they make a lot of people complain that the system is too
complex, while the people who persevere get it wrong all too often. Maybe
some help from someone with expertise in designing user interfaces might
improve things.
73,
Rich VE3IAY
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