LOTW different locations

[VK5PL]

I have only just installed LOTW & have a few hundred QSOs in LOG4OM.
Some of these are from my home location & some from various portable locations.
DO I need to upload these as separate uploads or can they all be loaded as one? LOTW appears to want separate locations.
I have had a look at previous QSOs & there does not appear to be somewhere to put in a location ie Home or park portable or SOTA portable.
On a new QSO there does not seem to be a place for this info either to enable a quick sort for different locations.
It would be a pain to have to set up a different configuration for each portable location.

[G4POP]

I have only just installed LOTW & have a few hundred QSOs in LOG4OM.
Some of these are from my home location & some from various portable locations.
DO I need to upload these as separate uploads or can they all be loaded as one? LOTW appears to want separate locations.

How many LOTW locations do you have registered with LOTW?

I have had a look at previous QSOs & there does not appear to be somewhere to put in a location ie Home or park portable or SOTA portable.
On a new QSO there does not seem to be a place for this info either to enable a quick sort for different locations.
It would be a pain to have to set up a different configuration for each portable location.

There is not an ADIF field that corresponds to the LOTW station location, when there is we will include it but so far it has not been required.

If you opperate from several different locations you have presumably set your station info in Log4om accordingly, if so sort on any the following: MyCounty, MYSOTA, MYLat, MyLon, MyState, MyGrid Square, or Station callsign (If you were signing /P, /MM, /M,/A ) fields etc

[VK5PL]

I don't really understand how to sort on these different locations. ( My County,My Grid Square etc)
In my setup for VK5NQP in LOG4OM, I only have my home address, you can only have one location, that is what I am asking about.
In LOTW I have my home address registered & setup, but have added 6 or so locations I have operated portable from in the TQSL section.
In SA there are 269 conservation parks & I think 21 National parks, plus Hundreds of SOTA locations & if I operate from all/some of these I don't know how to set this up as there appears only one place to put a location in LOG4OM & at present that is Home.
Is this what different profiles are for? BUt I would not like to add in several hundred different profiles if I operate from all these parks & SOTA peaks.
A field for alternatae location would be much easier.

[G4POP]

I don't really understand how to sort on these different locations. ( My County,My Grid Square etc)
In my setup for VK5NQP in LOG4OM

The latter part of our YouTube video "Log4OM Archive manager 2" which can be found here covers this

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Ppcj ... yavI-azOug

As does the user guide page 78 >>>

I only have my home address, you can only have one location, that is what I am asking about.

You can set up as many "Configurations" as you like so for example - Home (Your main location) Port Augusta (Your holiday home), Mooloolaba (Your brothers house on the Sunshine coast)

Each "Config" can have separate and totally different information regarding LOTW, EQSL, HRDLog, Clublog, Address details, Rig and antennas etc etc etc

In LOTW I have my home address registered & setup, but have added 6 or so locations I have operated portable from in the TQSL section.
In SA there are 269 conservation parks & I think 21 National parks, plus Hundreds of SOTA locations & if I operate from all/some of these I don't know how to set this up as there appears only one place to put a location in LOG4OM & at present that is Home.

This is where I think you have gone wrong!

What I would have done is just set up a couple of LOTW "Station Locations" for example

VK5NQP - Home (This is your main location at Williamstown

VK5NQP - Mooloolaba (For when you are at the brothers place)

and perhaps a VK5NQP/P for when operating from all of these different SOTA locations or national parks etc, however even this is not really necessary.

However when you are running a portable, Marine Mobile or Mobile operation I cannot see a reason for setting up a LOTW Station Location for each different location, whether it be SOTA, National parks or Lighthouses - You will end up with thousands of unnecessary LOTW Station Locations.

When you operate from VK5/SE-017 South Hummocks you sign VK5NQP/P and the same for every other SOTA, NP or Lighthouse etc

If its a SOTA operation just enter the My SOTA reference in the Log4OM Option/Station Info tab and then every QSO that you have from that location will be identified in the My SOTA ref field as such. (See screenshot below)

Now its a simple task to search for all QSO's where the "My SOTA" field contains (=(Equals)) VK5/SE-017 using the methods depicted in the Youtube video and user guide

Alternatively if its a National Park, Lighthouse or something that does not have an identifier like My SOTA Ref then just sort on date and time like ...

Date = 25/12/2015
start time > (More than) 0900
end time < (Less than) 1500

This will provide a filtered list of all QSO's made on 25/12/2014 between 0900 and 1500 hrs

Alternatively sort on the "My Grid Reference" field there is always something specific to that particular operation!

A field for alternatae location would be much easier.

You need to be aware that logging programs use the fields listed in the ADIF format so if the field does not exist in ADIF neither Log4OM or other software will provide it.

See the list of ADIF fields here http://adif.org/304/ADIF_304.htm#QSO_Fields

Logging programs do provide some program specific fields when they are required but the LOTW Station location is not a field normally required because users don't normally have more than a couple of LOTW Station Locations and these are easily catered for by the different user configurations.

I have been involved with logging software since before LOTW began and this is the only time a user has requested such a database field.

Now I am going back to my Christmas dinner, let me know how you get on please
.
.

[VK5PL]

I did not mean to interrupt your Christmas celebration Terry , but thanks for the info & video guide.
I think I am understanding it better now.

You can set up as many "Configurations" as you like so for example - Home (Your main location) Port Augusta (Your holiday home), Mooloolaba (Your brothers house on the Sunshine coast)
Each "Config" can have separate and totally different information regarding LOTW, EQSL, HRDLog, Clublog, Address details, Rig and antennas etc etc etc

When in a configuration would you only see the QSOs for that configuration. Is that right?

This is where I think you have gone wrong!
What I would have done is just set up a couple of LOTW "Station Locations" for example
VK5NQP - Home (This is your main location at Williamstown
VK5NQP - Mooloolaba (For when you are at the brothers place)
and perhaps a VK5NQP/P for when operating from all of these different SOTA locations or national parks etc, however even this is not really necessary.

OK I will just have one "portable" location.

When I enter data for an activation in a park or on a SOTA summit, If I just use one configuration, can I change my "My Locator" in the Station Info page to the grid I operate from & then be able to sort on My Grid?
And/Or put the SOTA ref in My SOTA & search on that.
Then change the locator back to the home station afterwards?

Also what are the My Sig & My Sig Info fields for?

[G4POP]

When in a configuration would you only see the QSOs for that configuration. Is that right?

Yes either by applying a 'Search parameter' or by keeping a separate database but keeping a separate database is pointless unless you have specific reason to do so.

If you let me know exactly what you need to achieve I can provide more specific advice on this

OK I will just have one "portable" location.

Your choice but not strictly necessary, again let me know exactly what you are trying to achieve?

When I enter data for an activation in a park or on a SOTA summit, If I just use one configuration, can I change my "My Locator" in the Station Info page to the grid I operate from & then be able to sort on My Grid?
And/Or put the SOTA ref in My SOTA & search on that.
Then change the locator back to the home station afterwards?

Yes basically but see the How to file that I have just written for you which is attached to the posting

Also what are the My Sig & My Sig Info fields for?

SIG = "Special Interest group" e.g.. The left handed CW operators guild, Australian Royal Signals Group or Radio Association of Old Timers (RAOTA)

Therefore
My SIG = RAOTA
My SIG Info = 12349876TG

[yt9tp]

> I have been involved with logging software since before LOTW began and this is the only time a user has requested such a database field.

I asked solution for the very problem. Although, I did not specifically ask for database field, I asked if Log4OM can have separate storage for locations data where we can set all data needed for location and simply apply it to current record when needed without need to fiddle with configs and profiles, or worse having to type in all that info over and over.

After all, ADIF format does not forbid having custom fields, if necessary.

I understand issues VK5NQP is facing with because those are the very same issues I am facing. This is specific for portable and mobile operations, but it seems there is lack of understanding for developers who are not deeply involved in such operations themselves.

[IW3HMH]

Hi Pedija,
probably you're true. I've implemented Log4OM with "Multiple configurations" to allow users to have completely indipendent configurations to be used under very different conditions.
As example, you can have a different LOTW or EQSL profile, different cluster band filters, different backup locations and so on, for every profile you create.

This has been made to give the maximum flexibility to everyone. Every configuration is, except for some small shared things like external source updates, a completely indipendent instance of Log4OM.
This could make some operations less "fast", than the "address switch" you required, and i've had this on my mind when i developed that functionality.

My thought was:
transmit location is not something that changes so fast. An user will probably last for some hours in a single location before changing place, and with high probability it will shut down Log4OM while change position. So, in "real life" the needs to restart Log4OM to switch configuration is a "rare" event, that will require a cold restart. This operation, in the worst case, requires 3-4 minutes including creating a new profile or changing the actual one, if needed...

This is why there is not a "fast location change" in Log4OM and everything is demanded to user profiles.

I don't know what i will do in the future, and or in Log4OM NG (V2). I'm open

Regards

[yt9tp]

Profiles are fine approach when very different configurations are needed.

It seems quite frequent case that single person has to create more profiles just to have some small difference in configuration. Problem is when one option that is common to all profiles is changed, user has to open and update each of them. That is why I do not have several profiles. I had them and then decided to cut down as it was impractical.

For portable, I do not use Log4OM as it is nto suitable. Usually I do not even carry laptop with me, ad I log QSO's in paper log. Then, from time to time, when I find time, I sit down and retype all data from paper to Log4OM. That usually covers number of portable sessions from different locations.

Right now, every time, something in group of QSOs info is changed I have to open profile and change data there to be able to continue entering QSOs in a row with similar data, so I do not have to tzpe it in for each QSO over and over.

Then for another group of QSO's from different locations I again have to go to profile, rewrite location info and continue entering data. Then I have new session from previous location, which location info I just erased because I had to type in different data.

Other quite frequent situation is that I like to work QRP and I ferquently do, so i have mz profile set to QRP mode. But, then it hapens that propagations are such that i have to go with higher power. I have to goto profile and change powe rinfo or I have to edit and set powerinfo for each QSO. If I change power info in profile it stays set so insome other seesion, several days ago, when I again go in air, i have to remember that I have to set it back to QRP.

It is obvious that some profile info is of long term and some of short term nature. For portable work, location info is temporary and should not be forced to main profile data. It would be more practical if we could have separate list of some kind of subprofiles of some kind which we can save and use when needed. Those subprofiles do not have to not be full profiles but settings that override profile info if they are set. List of those subprofiles should be available in main screen (in form of dropbox list) so user can simply select which one to apply.

For example in my profile I have set main location, but if I can create subprofile and just set different location info, when I add QSO, all data will be used from profile, except location data which is set in curently selected subprofile.

That would allow me to have few subprofiles with different power levels set, so I can quickly change power settings for entering QSO's, not needing to go to profile, and more important, it would be in front of my eyes which subprofile is currently active.

I really cannot count how many QSO'os I had to reedit because I forgot to change some profile info and all QSOs were recorder with wrong data (and even uploaded to online log services as such).

Bottom line is, it is needed to have an option to quickly change some of QSO info that is frequently changed but also to keep previously used info as it is common that we will needed it in a future.

[G4POP]

Your request is already recorded on our Mantis list for future development and has been there since you first reported this important shortcoming in the software!