N2RI asked: 'Wasn't that how it was done in the old days [to get DXCC credit
without a physical QSL]? From what I gather, LoTW was designed to be a
modern version of that.'
I thought that I ought to document a small but important step for ham-kind
(yes, I know who said it first :-) ) Back in 1997, the net was in its
infancy. Another Swedish ham and I had started to think that there must be a
better way to verify QSOs than the postal system. We thought that logs could
be stored locally, accessed, and QSLs downloaded to be printed (still).
I programmed a prototype system. At the time, a Swedish group of hams were
planning a contest expedition to Cuba to work the CQWW CW together with hams
on the SE of the island. Cuba was semi-rare then, mainly due to the
difficulty of getting cards from the country, so it looked like a good time
for a field test. Surely this would gain the idea exposure. We got it to
work, the biggest problem was actually the first leg, getting the logs out
of Cuba. They were uploaded to a simple server in Sweden and many used it.
(Of course, we also printed beautiful regular cards.)
People started talking, so we got exposure. Then trouble started. A DXCC
manager claimed that he could flip through a batch of cards in a few seconds
in order to verify them, at a convention, for example. So it was his time
against the cost for the ham to produce that batch. He also ridiculed the
idea by showing that files that was the QSL to be printed could be changed
at will, even though the system was a proof of concept.
Eventually, sanity prevailed, modern technology could not be stopped, and
the ARRL decided to start the project that eventually became LoTW. However,
they also decided that every QSO had to be treated like top-secret
intelligence 'to prevent fraud', and a task group investigated a solution
for uploading logs with state-of-the-art procedures to ensure that files
were not changed en-route, authenticated etc. I followed the group's
discussions loosely and remember that they said that the issues were
complex, indeed. I don't know if encryption was used, even. It took them a
long time.
I suppose the many-step procedures for uploading logs still exist. We argued
that essentially the worries only concern the so-called integrity of DXCC
and mainly a few hams at the honor roll, and that non-IT solutions exist to
punish any fraud, like in the real world. Deaf ears.
At the ARRL, IBM mainframes were used to store each QSO. Expensive, and
soon-to-become dinosaurs, as the world was moving towards minicomputers.
Still, a solution now is in place, fulfilling the original objective of
enormously lessening the ham community's costs and workload (printing,
postage to ask for a QSL, green stamps, QSL managers) at lightning speed.
Makes me happy.
Göran Fagerström, SM0DRD
Stockholm, Sweden
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