Logbook of the World
Rick Borken KØXB
køxb@arrl.net
My wife and I thoroughly
enjoy living “up north” on beautiful
Amateur Radio Operators were
required to keep a log of all contacts when I was first
licensed, and I have been in the habit of doing that ever since, at
least for my HF contacts. I started using an electronic log fifteen years ago,
and I began regularly uploading my log to ARRL’s new Logbook of the World
(LoTW) system as soon as it was available last year. WØHT uploads his log files
too. But none of our QSOs showed up as QSLs (confirmed QSOs) on LoTW. Was it a
system error, or was it my error? It took a while to figure out what was going
on, but it turned out the LoTW system confirms a QSO between two submitted logs
only if the QSO times are within 30 minutes. Steve and I usually talk longer
than that, and my habit is to record the QSO at the start and his is to record
it at the end. LoTW was doing exactly what it was supposed to do; the problem
was with the operators.
LoTW is an internet-based
system designed to make it easier for amateur radio operators world-wide to
submit their logs in order to obtain credit for operating awards. Many of the
most popular awards, such as DX Century Club (DXCC) and
I have found LoTW to work as
advertised, and it is reasonably easy to use once you get used to it. It had
bugs at first, but that’s the purpose of a beta
testing phase. Ever since it was released for general
use, it has worked well for me. I have more than 13,500 QSOs on the system,
with approximately 775 QSL’s including rare DX such as VK9XG, JW7QI,
ZD8K, T31MY, ZA1A and even P5/4L4FN. Clearly, it allows me to confirm QSOs much
sooner than waiting to receive paper QSL cards. If you already use a
computer-based logging program and have internet access, I encourage you to
become a LoTW user.
We all know we all are supposed to back-up our computer logs regularly, but
knowing something and doing something about it are two different things. One
feature in LoTW lets you select QSOs from your log based on certain criteria,
such as band, mode, time, etc. and then download these data. This is meant for award tracking, but it also provides a built-in
backup system for your log data. Just clear all the selection filters and
download the entire log back to your computer.
There is no charge to use
the system, but you will have to pay if you want to obtain credit toward an
award. LoTW is available to all licensed amateur radio operators, and there are already approximately 7,250 users who have submitted more
than 41 million QSO records.
To get started, go to the
LoTW webpage at www.arrl.org/lotw . Be
sure you have your FCC license available, and also be
sure you have a place to record several passwords. LoTW requires as many as
four different passwords, and you have to start all over if you ever forget
any. The passwords are case sensitive too.
From the LoTW webpage, you
first download and run the latest version of “TrustedQSL.”
There are versions for both Windows and MacOS X computers. I have not used the
Mac version, but I assume it’s similar to the
Windows program. (Yes, I am an avid Mac user, but I moved over to the dark side
for my ham radio computing.) This will install the programs “TQSL”
and “TQSLCert.” They can
be found under the Start/Programs/TrustedQSL
menu. It should also place two shortcuts on your desktop for TQSL and TQSLCert.
Run TQSLCert.
When TQSLCert asks you to request a digital
certificate, say yes and follow the instructions. Be sure to write down the
password it asks you to define for the certificate request. I’ll
call this PW1. You must use the callsign and mailing address on your current
license to create this first, primary certificate. If you have operated using
other callsigns or portable identifiers, you will subsequently set up separate
certificates for each of them. But you need to get your primary certificate set
up first. When it asks you to digitally sign the certificate request, choose
“unsigned” this first time. Later, if you set up additional
certificates for different callsigns, you will digitally sign those requests
with your first, primary certificate. Finally, it will ask you to save the
certificate request file (called a .tq5 file) which you can either email as an
attachment to the LoTW team or upload it to them from the LoTW webpage. They
then mail a postcard with a second password (I’ll
call this PW2) to you at the address on-file with the FCC.
Once you get the postcard,
go back to the LoTW webpage and follow the link in the yellow box to get to the
page where you will enter PW2. Finally, you will receive an email message
containing your username, which is normally your callsign, a third password (let’s call this one PW3) and your primary digital
certificate as an attachment. This will be what they call a .tq6 file, which
you should double-click. This will import it into TQSLCert.
No one can have too many
passwords. So you can create a fourth password if you want to save or back-up
your digital certificate to a floppy disk or some other storage medium. This
password prevents others from gaining access to your certificate by reading it
off the disk.
Now you are ready to enter
your log data into LoTW. This is easy, compared to getting set up on the
system. First, use your logging program to select the QSOs you want to upload,
and create and save them as an Amateur Data Interchange Format (ADIF) or Cabrillo format log file. If this is the first time you are
entering data into LoTW, you need to define your station location using the
“Station /Add Location” wizard in TQSL. Then use the
“File” menu in TQSL to digitally sign the log file. This will convert
it into what they call a .tq8 file for you to save. The TQSL program will ask
you for PW1 before it creates the .tq8 file.
Finally,
log into the LoTW User Web Site (www.arrl.org/lotwuser) by
using your username and PW3. Get
this right; use PW3, not PW1 or PW2. (Don’t you
love it?) Click the “upload file” link, use the
“browse” button to find the .tq8 file you saved, and upload the
.tq8 file. Piece of cake.