At 8:56 AM -0700 7/18/02, Jim Reisert wrote:
>The ARRL prefers the log as an attachment. It's easier for the robot to
>extract it that way.
>
>The robot is probably NOT seeing an attachment in your message, and therefore
>isn't complaining, but some staffer will have to dig the message out and
>extract the log manually - more chance for error.
When I sent the IARU log, I got an acknowledgement from the robot in
minutes, with the confirmation number. This was on a Sunday afternoon
- I don't think a human intervened. In the past, the robot has not
been hesitant to bounce my lags as incorrect format when they were
sent as attachments.
>Plus, if this is done a
>month or two after the contest, and they ultimately find something wrong in
>your log (wrong format), will you be able to quickly and easily find
>the binary
>log and create the format that they really wanted?
Well, the answer to that question is yes, all my log files are
cataloged and I can find a given log in minutes if necessary.
>
>If the attachment format isn't working for you, then it's best to root cause
>the problem, rather than performing some work-around that makes the job harder
>for the recipient.
If the job was harder for the ARRL, I would expect them to let me
know, rather than just sucking it up and doing the extra work,
especially since they are very specific about wanting only the
Cabrillo format for computer logs.
I'm not sure what the problem would be. The Cabrillo format is a flat
text file, my e-mail messages are flat text files, why should there
be a problem in the interpretation? When the mail is sent, the
attachment is just converted to text format and tacked onto the end
of the message, so the whole thing is one text file. I would assume
the robot just scans the text file until it finds the Cabrillo header
and starts reading the log from there.
I'm not sure what the problem is with my attachments, but a couple of
years ago or so Dan and I went through a log I submitted as an
attachment multiple times and never could get the robot to accept it.
He didn't have any explanation, and he finally extracted it manually.
It's probably some problem with the way Eudora Pro formats
attachments on the Macintosh before it sends them. Since I've been
sticking them in the text of the message, I haven't gotten any
messages from him saying they couldn't handle my log.
That's my experience. YMMV.
73,
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