What use is an F-call?

One of the many projects I'm dealing with as a result of attempting to achieve contacting 100 different countries using only 5 Watts, also known as a QRP DXCC, is to log my contacts and upload them to a place where others might confirm those contacts.

Traditionally, the process of confirming a QSO involves sending a QSL card between stations. Think of it as a post-card that has details about the contact you made. The other station in turn sends their card to you, that way, both of you have a confirmed contact.

With the advent of the Internet this has begun to change. There are several websites that provide a QSL service. Each with differing options, costs and facilities.

In theory the process is simple. Create a log of all your contacts, upload it to the website of choice and wait for other stations to do the same, thus confirming your contact.

Of course in practice there is a bit more to it than those simple words convey.

Starting at the log file end, there are many different ways of creating such a file. There are two basic formats, an ADIF and a CABRILLO format. There are hundreds of other formats too, each with their own quirks and limitations. Your logging programme will determine what the native format is for your station. To make life a little bit more interesting, not all log formats support all fields, that is, most support a callsign, an RST code, a name field and perhaps a comment, but some store just the band, not the actual frequency, others have the ability to store power, station, antenna, radio, awards, and many more details.

One word of warning. A QSO is logged in UTC, that is, not in your local time-zone. What that means is that if you upload your file with contacts writing in your local time-zone, they'll be out by several hours, in the case of a contact logged between VK6 and VK2 during summer, that will be 11 hours difference, which means that the contact will not be valid until you update the time to reflect UTC.

If you're in a part of the world where there is daylight saving, your UTC offset will change throughout the year - not to mention fade the curtains and put chickens off the lay.

Actually uploading the file requires that you have an account with the web service. For some of the sites, that means, create an account an you're done. For more reputable services that's not really helpful, since online no-one knows you're a dog. So, many require extra steps, from sending a scanned copy of your license, through to sending a letter with an actual photocopy and some other form of ID.

There's much more to say on this topic, but that's a start.

Check your logs, play with different logging software and choose the one that works for you.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB