G'Day,

The DARC Worked all Europe Contest is one of those love it or hate it contests. Personally I find it a lot of fun, particularly on RTTY. This year I was able to operate for a short time in the SSB seciton, and thoroughly enjoyed the process. The process was simple and easy to do, but a bit daunting the first time I sent QTCs. There is nothing like "competition" to make one feel more than a little stressed. But, all I worked laughed along with me and my errors as we exchanged QTCs, and great fun was had all around. Next year I will attempt the CW section.

For my small SSB effort, I intended to use LOGic, but after some analysis of the mechanisms, I used the new version of N1MM, N1MM+, which provides the QTCs to be sent at the press of a button - provided you press the correct button. One simply needs to read them out or type into the log.

When I tried the process with LOGic it was not so easy. Out of the box, LOGic will already ...

Log your WAE QSOs.
Record what QTCs you sent to whom, provided you know what to do.

... but has no facilities to ...

Tell you what QSOs you can send as QTCs.
Record what QTCs you received from whom.
Automatically generate a Cabrillo log for the contest with all QTCs correctly reported.

As implemented currently in LOGic, because of the way it currently stores QTCs, it is impossible to generate QTCs in the Cabrillo log. If you run in the contest, and exchange QTCs, neither you nor the other party will benefit in any way - unless you manually type the Cabrillo log by hand.

Now you know why I used N1MM+ in this contest. But, I persisted with LOGic using the WAE, and the Ukrainian DX Contest, as a tool to develop my skills in using LOGic for contesting.

The following is done with nothing more than the standard facilities of LOGic. There is no special processing, no programming, no changes to LOGic, just creative us of LOGic and the facilities it provides as standard.

Overview
Contest QSOs are recorded in the normal way. QTCs are recorded with a callsign of QTC, and the QTC data stored in user-defined fields. The default settings for QTCs remove them from any QSL, LOTW or eQSL processing.

For WAE, we need ONE contesting logform to log QSOs, and three other standard logforms. One to hold a filter to show WHAT QSOs can be sent as QTCs, one to SEND QTCs, and a third standard logform to RECEIVE QTCs. Now that QTCs are stored consecutively in the log, we simply need a new Cabrillo template file to generate the Cabrillo log including all the QTCs. You, and those you work, can add the QTCs to your score.

The logforms are used one at a time. While working QSOs the other logforms can be ignored. When a contact asks "do you have QTCs for me?" or "do you want QTCs?" you simply press ESC to stop logging QSOs, and switch to the SEND/RECEIVE logform. To receive QTCs, simply type away as you listen. To send QTCs, simply read from the list of QTCs in the WHAT QSOs logform browse form. You can type into the SEND QTC logfrom as you read, or wait until you have sent all the QTCs in this batch, and then log the QTCs sent at your leisure. When you receive acknowledgement that the QTC list is finished and correctly recorded, press ESC, switch to the WAE QSO log form, and press CTRL-N. Now you can continue to log QSOs.

When the contest is finished, export your Cabrillo log, check the log, and email the log to the organisers.

I have completed the prototype and am now in the testing phase. Watch this space for further details. Ask questions if you wish.

The DARC WAE DX RTTY is this coming weekend. The CW and SSB sections are many months away. I have been doing this work now so that I can import my RTTY logs into LOGic, including the QTCs sent/received, using the new technique. I needed to make sure the techniques would work before next week when I need to process my RTTY log.

While the next WAE is this coming weekend, because of the way LOGic RTTY logging works with external programs, I have not tried, and wont be trying to use LOGic for WAE RTTY. I don't think it would be possible. WAE CW/SSB is definitely possible.

Your feedback is welcome.