[Xlog-discussion] Log editor "free field" labels, awards and contests

[Jacob Anawalt]

Hello,

I've been enjoying xlog for a couple of years ago. I feel like such a 
novice in ham radio despite the reading and listening I do. I rely on 
programs like xlog to 'just work' so that I can learn from how they do 
things - and it's been doing a fine job.

When I started out I mostly used xlog to note where I heard simplex 
qso's. I had modes and bands as listboxes, so I used one free field for 
the exact frequency and another for the antenna I was using.

A little later I decided to start a new log for the repeaters I could 
hear. By this time I had started using hamlib and realized that the 
exact frequency went in next to the Mhz button if "Bands" was an edit 
box. I put the freq. from the free field into the MHz/Band field on my 
listening log and hid that column. In the new repeaters log I renamed 
the first free field to PL.

Now that I have HF privileges I am looking into getting awards and 
considering contests. I've made a couple dozen contacts and tried 
exporting to ADIF format and then uploading to eQSL.cc and LoTW. Both 
uploads worked out, compliments again to xlog.

As I get more serious about this, I find myself wondering about how to 
best make use of the free fields and exchanging information with eQSL.cc 
and LoTW.

I saw in the changelog a note about QSL_VIA. That sounded like a good 
field, so in my new simplex log I edited the columns to be QSLSDATE and 
QSL_VIA. When I went back to my repeater log (tab) later, I saw that 
it's free field names had changed as well.

Each log seems to remember what columns are shown. Do they not remember 
what their field labels are, or am I doing something wrong?

I was planning on using a different log for different activity so that I 
could use the free fields differently. For example, SRX and STX or their 
_STRING variants for contests and PROP_MODE and SAT_NAME to log 
potential satellite work for awards.

I wonder how other xlog users do these things. Special mode operation is 
more of a distant prospect at the moment. I am more interested in 
knowing how people run contests and get the right logs together.

I've searched the archives and found one note that tlf may be the way to 
go for HF contests, but there seemed to be more threads saying that xlog 
was working out for people. I also learned about adding the serial 
number to the end of the RST. I'd sure love to read through a document 
that lays out this common knowledge.

Sorry for the long post on a few related topics.

--
Jacob / kd7yko