Logging in ham radio.
When I first started in ham radio I was required by the rules of the F.C.C to keep a log of my activities. Personally, I thought it was a good practice and most everyone complied with the requirement. Oh, you had some that did not, granted there were those who did not want to be bothered with paper work. Back then you had only paper logs, there were no computers to do the job for you.
About twenty years ago the FCC in all its infinite wisdom decided to drop the requirement for keeping a log. I for one believed it would lead to the type of ham that never logged a thing, failed to qsl and we would have those that would never respond to any form of confirmations. I also felt that if you sent a qsl request to another ham in the states, he/she had no log and could not honestly confirm the contact.
I also felt that the interest in certain programs, namely WAS, DXCC and various other awards would suffer from the lack of confirmed and logged contacts. In these categories I was correct, the interest in exchanging qsl cards stateside has dwindled to near nothing. I rarely receive any paper cards from stateside stations.
However, some have drifted toward various logging programs, while some have fabricated their own program on their computers. Paper logs for most hams have become a thing of the past, even this old man has switched over to the QRZ.com logging and I am in the process of transferring contacts of about 50 log books. Granted, my handwriting has never been very good, anyone else would have trouble reading the entries in my paper logs.
The old paper logs have served me well, my qsl rates of return from DX stations is very good and my information logged matches theirs and thus a card is returned.
Before I tell you how to log contacts, consider some of the responses I have heard on the air about logging. “I wrote it down somewhere?” “ I may recall the contact, maybe not?”
“I forgot the other guys call!” “ I cannot recall the date” all these are worthless to the fellow seeking an award and may need your qsl to confirm a state, county, new band state or various other awards. In other words you dropped the ball!
So what is required for a logged contact?
Call Letters of the station you worked, get it right and copied.
Date of the qso, the accepted format is year, month, day.
Time of the qso, most express this in GMT or Zulu time. Now if you are not sure of how to use this it is simple. Of course you know what time zone you are in at this moment. From our side of the Atlantic you add five, six, or seven hours to the local time.
Example of this say it is 11 AM in my time zone I add six since we have six hours difference in time compared to Zulu time. If I had a qso at 11AM it would be 1700Z. Use the 24-hour clock, why? By using Zulu time we are all on the same time worldwide. If you work someone in Europe and you state on your card it is 11 AM well in Europe it is 5PM. Your contact on the other end of things does not care about your local time; in the scheme of things this is worthless.
Is the time of the contact important? Well only to the degree that it helps the station you sent your card to find you in his log. Make the time as accurate as you can, use your computer clock, or if you do not have a clock in you computer use some type of timepiece and set it to WWV. Yes, the times may vary a few minutes either way, but really this is not that important to the actual confirmation? Within reasonable error and that is fine with everyone.
List the band you worked the station you are sending a card some fellows are working for band endorsements, DX challenge, or DXCC on certain bands. Same with stateside, WAS or 5 Band show the band. Exact frequency is nice, but you can use generic entries, say 7 MHz cw, or 21 MHz ssb. Exact frequency is of really no importance unless you have some special award in certain nets, say YLISBN on 14.332 or some other net, group or gathering, otherwise generic entry can be used and accepted.
Signal reports: Be sure and enter something, it is of no real issue in this case other then to have a valid DX contact, or stateside some type of report has to be exchanged. The normally accepted practice is the RS or RST system. Most DX expeditions use 59 or 599.
Do not become lengthy in writing your signal report a 59 is often the most accepted form and a 599 on cw. If you do not know the rs/rst system then look it up on the ARRL web sight, or find it on the Internet and print a copy. Thing is a signal report of 3X5 or 4X4 is not good copy and it is time to say 73 and move on to other stations.
Log the mode you worked, cw, and ssb, AM RTTY etc. Many fellows are seeking mode endorsements and this is important to them, I for one want my contacts to confirm cw, or ssb. No one cares what you use to log your contacts, you can use paper logs, QRZ, or a computer program, but if you are a serious minded ham, chase awards, confirm contacts via qsls made of paper, or the electronic services you need to log your contacts.
When years go by you will have a written record of your activities and you may find some qsos were never confirmed. You easily find those contacts and based upon the information you logged you just might confirm a needed country, state, country, grid, or endorse your other awards.
