[Dxbase] Combined LOTW/Card DXCC submissions

Fri Feb 23 21:41:17 EST 2007

Oh and one more reason to use the 'special 1 code' system
Say you have two cards, that have Montenegro on 40 meter cw.
One card is a single qso and the other has multiple qsos confirmation.
Naturally you would want to use the card that has the multiple qsos to save 
on the number of cards you must mail.
(when I made my big 9 band dxcc submission many years ago, it was darn near 
cheaper to fly there with the box of cards than ship it insured)
So you are able to be 'selective' about which qsl or operation you want to 
submit.
As usually, the Award manager may just find the first instance and not take 
into consideration who the dxpedition was.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Codella, W2PA" <w2pa at arrl.net>
To: <dxbase at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2007 8:03 PM
Subject: [Dxbase] Combined LOTW/Card DXCC submissions
> Hello out there in DXBase land. Is anyone doing combined Card/LOTW-credit 
> DXCC submissions on LOTW using DXBase?
>> I routinely use DXBase to submit log entries to LOTW - it works very well. 
> I also import QSL information from LOTW into DXBase - that too works well. 
> So far so good. I now want to generate a rather large DXCC submission 
> containing *both* LOTW QSLs and card QSLs. LOTW lets you do this kind of 
> combined submission. Here's the problem:
>> In the DXBase's DXCC Award Submission window, you can tell it to select 
> cards, LOTW, or both. But there doesn't seem to be a way to indicate a 
> preference for LOTW if "both" is selected. This would be desirable since 
> it would minimize the number of actual cards necessary in a combined 
> submission.
>> I'm trying to use DXBase to generate a combined submission - but perhaps 
> it's not really set up for doing that because of this lack of preference 
> specification. The alternative is to start with the LOTW web site to 
> construct a submission with LOTW credits, then add card-only credits from 
> DXBase. That can't work completely automatically, since you can't 
> download a list of "what I intend to submit" so that DXB can import it and 
> see it. For this hybrid procedure you therefore need to manually check 
> the Award field in DXBase for those LOTW QSLs (QSOs) you're submitting 
> with the LOTW web site, *then* do a card-only submission from DXBase.
>> I speculate that DXBase computes a list of submission items (confirmed 
> QSOs) working through the log from oldest to newest (this is just an 
> assumption on my part since the help file doesn't say what the scanning 
> order is - doesn't matter anyway since the same problem exists even if you 
> start with the newest and work back). In many cases I have both a card 
> QSL and an LOTW QSL for a given band/entity. In such cases I want DXBase 
> to give priority to band/mode/entities confirmed with an LOTW QSL over 
> ones confirmed with only a card QSL. For example, if I have England 
> confirmed by card in 1990 and by LOTW in 2002 (or vice versa), I want it 
> to choose the LOTW QSL instead of the earlier card QSL.
> I tried a test case with my own fairly large log and checked the generated 
> "worksheet" listing to see if there is any LOTW vs. card preference built 
> in. Of course I didn't do an exhaustive check, but I looked at some 
> common DXCC entities, specifically Wales, France, and Italy, and double 
> checked the LOTW web site to see if there were any cards selected by 
> DXBase for which I also had an LOTW QSL.
> I first noted that it picked a recent LOTW QSL for Wales on 40m even 
> though I have card QSLs too - that's fine. But it also picked a card for 
> France on 20m even though I have several 20m France QSLs on LOTW which 
> have also been imported into DXBase. Same with Italy on 20m - it chose a 
> card over several LOTW QSLs. So it seems evident that DXBase has no 
> preference for either cards or LOTW QSLs when "both" is selected in the 
> Award Submission window.
>> In conclusion, the only sensible way I can think of doing a combined 
> submission using DXBase (as opposed to my hybrid LOTW/DXBase procedure 
> above) is to first generate a submission for LOTW-only QSLs, marking them 
> as submitted in DXBase, then do a second submission for cards-only. The 
> second submission should then pick only cards for which there is no LOTW 
> credit. Maybe that's how you're *supposed* to do it? The help file gives 
> no clue.
>> Please advise on doing combined submissions if I'm missing some easier 
> way.
>> 73,
> Chris, W2PA
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