Ascension Island - ZD8UW · 21 December 2008 by Michael Wells
Between 31 December 2008 and 09 January 2009, six members of the Cambridge University Wireless Society will be QRV from Ascension Island using the call ZD8UW. I will be on 160m and 80m CW – the other expedition members will be on SSB or CW depending on personal preferences.
Expedition members:
Hugo M0HSW
Tom M0TJH
Simon G4EAG
Michael G7VJR
Gordon G3USR
Martin G3ZAY
Modes will be SSB and CW on HF bands. Operators will give their name occasionally – just ask, if you are interested in who you worked! Logs will be uploaded to LoTW shortly after the expedition. QSL via G7VJR.
K3VOA - Voice of America · 14 November 2008 by Michael Wells
I had a great time at K3VOA for about 90mins today. Being a work day, Ken K4WZ took a long break to give me access to the station. I am extremely grateful to him. You may have worked Ken recently when his VoA job took him to EY8 where he did some DXing with EY8MM.
Anyway, it is a fascinating place to visit, with studio after studio packed with amazing broadcast gear and a lot of foreign chatter – they are of course focusing on getting their signals into the more oppressed parts of the world – not much English broadcasting to be heard!
I could not take photos in those parts of the building but I did get a few around and about, and in the K3VOA shack. They are on the CDXC site here.
73
Michael G7VJR / N3QI
Photo of G7VJR at K3VOA:
Guernsey EU-114 · 3 November 2008 by Michael Wells
Along with Martin GU3ZAY and Phil MU0DEG, I was QRV from Guernsey for a short weekend dxpedition between 31 October 2008 and 2 November 2008. Conditions on LF were pretty good – I was especially pleased to work JA and west coast USA on our greylines. In total I logged about 1300 QSOs, mainly on CW with some SSB on 40m.
Log search: http://clublog.g7vjr.org/l.php?log=GU7VJR
Long : -2.6031 W (-2° 36’ 11’’ W)
Lat : 49.4739 N (49° 28’ 26’’ N)
QTH locator : IN89QL
QSL via the bureau or direct, or LoTW as usual. Many thanks for the QSOs!
HFC presentation on JX/G7VJR expedition · 4 October 2008 by Michael Wells
Between 10-12 October the RSGB HF Convention is taking place at Wyboston Lakes, Bedforshire. On Sunday 12 October I will be presenting a talk at 9am on my Jan Mayen trip (see www.jx08.eu). Hope to catch you there!
Guernsey 31 October - 2 November · 28 August 2008 by Michael Wells
I’ll be QRV on HF bands with Martin G3ZAY from Guernsey between 31 October and 2 November, signing GU7VJR/p. I’ll be uploading the logs to LoTW and the QSL route for this trip is via home calls.
I am also planning a short trip to the Isle of Man for this autumn, but have not confirmed dates yet. Lastly, between 2 January and 9 January 2009 I will be QRV from ZD8, Ascension Island.
GB7HQ in IARU · 8 July 2008 by Michael Wells
Whilst you are tuning around the bands this weekend, the RSGB team in this year’s IARU World HF Championship would really appreciate your support! I will be operating as part of the team in Suffolk and look forward to some SSB (for a change!).
The RSGB will be represented in the IARU HF Championship by GB7HQ from three separate DXCC entities this year (G, GW, GM). The contest runs 12th – 13th July (1200z – 1200z)
G3LZQ is handling special certificates for working GB7HQ:
Bronze award – contact GB7HQ on three band/modes
Silver award – contact GB7HQ on six band/modes
Gold award – contact GB7HQ on nine band/modes
Platinum award – contact GB7HQ on all twelve band/modes
Further details of the award can be found at http://www.gb7hq.com/Award-Info.html. To assist in making contacts, when you contact one operator he can give you the next frequency to find them on. QSL’S are being handled by G3TXF: direct, bureau, or LOTW.
Jan Mayen Dxpedition · 6 July 2008 by Michael Wells
I have a whole web site dedicated to my Jan Mayen expedition (JX/G7VJR). Click here to visit http://www.jx08.eu/.
I also made about 130 QSOs from Dalvik, northern Iceland. You can check if you are in the log by clicking here.
WPX CW · 23 May 2008 by Michael Wells
I operated from G6PZ for the first time this year (24/25 May during CW WPX). We operated multi-two. What a difference a stack of yagis facing JA makes! There is more info on G6PZ here: www.g6pz.com.
GJ7VJR/p Jersey · 7 April 2008 by Michael Wells
I was QRV from Jersey between 11 April and 13 April, very briefly, to recover a generator left last summer during GH6UW.
Callsign : GJ7VJR/P
Mode : MIXED
QTH: St. Peter, Jersey (EU-013)
WAB : WV55
Operating time : 15h59
BAND SSB CW RTTY OTHERS DUP
----------------------------------------
160 0 0 0 0 0
80 34 75 0 0 2
40 221 523 0 0 6
30 0 268 0 0 1
20 199 0 0 0 2
17 2 10 0 0 0
15 0 3 0 0 0
12 0 0 0 0 0
10 0 0 0 0 0
50 0 0 0 0 0
----------------------------------------
TOTAL 456 879 0 0 11
====================================
TOTAL QSO : 1 335
QSL via my usual call (G7VJR) or direct as usual. Online log search: http://clublog.g7vjr.org/l.php?log=GJ7VJR/P
Club Log · 7 April 2008 by Michael Wells
An brief introduction to Club Log
Club Log – ‘The ADIF Acrobat’
Club Log is a web site designed to produce reports and competitive league tables from participating members’ logs, which they can upload, much like Logbook of the World or eQSL. It’s being actively used by CDXC members, and you are invited to join in.
How did it start, and how does it work?
In 2007, I started designing a tool to provide a chart of DXCCs I’d worked, with a log search function for people who wanted to QSL or were curious if they had worked G7VJR.
I wanted this tool to be completely automated. The idea was to process my ADIF logs (exported from my logging software) and create the reports and search features, just by analysing the QSOs.
I hope you are not lost at this point – have a look in your logging software and see if you can find a menu that lets you “export to ADIF” – as you will find most do. It’s a common way of storing radio logs in computer format.
While I was doing some planning, I decided that it would be quite interesting to extend the idea, and create a service anyone could sign up and use, not just me. As well as being useful to other radio friends, I reasoned that if the database grew to have more participants, then it could mined to make league tables of DXCCs worked, including making league tables for specific modes or clubs (both rather intensive to do by hand).
The other thing I decided to do was take the manual labour out of creating most-wanted lists. It is quite a simple task for a computer to work out which DXCC entities are logged least often, and even to break this down by mode or by time periods. It just needs to be fed a lot of QSOs and the information can be readily processed. Ideally, millions of QSOs…
So, Club Log was born. It is a web-based application which uses a database to analyse amateur radio log files, which are uploaded in the common ADIF format. Using the logs, it builds band-mode league tables of amateurs’ QSOs, provides efficient log search tools and creates most wanted lists for DXCC entities (both over all time and in recent history, or by mode for example). Also, Club Log can give back to its users the ability to find “wanted” DX spots, and other analysis of their logs which might be hard to do with normal logging software.
How to sign up
I realise that using new web sites can be a little daunting. Please don’t be put off by all the jargon. Remember, to take part in Club Log you just need to sign in and upload your ADIF file from your logging software. If you do this, you will enrich the database and improve the quality of the most-wanted lists, so please be encouraged to join in. Obviously, it’s free.
To join Club Log, simply go to http://clublog.g7vjr.org (no ‘www’) and then click the button labelled “sign up” in the top menus. Signing up involves filling in your name and e-mail address, and typing in a single number from a sequence of about eight digits. You will be emailed a code to confirm your email address is valid. Unfortunately, I have to do these things, to stop the system being abused. Thanks for your understanding – just follow the instructions and you’ll be registered in a minute or two.
After you have signed in, you will find you can set up one or more callsigns. For example, you might have a ‘G’ and a ‘GM’ logbook, so they are both separate callsigns.
After you have added your callsigns, you can go onto upload your ADIF files. Simply export your entire log (yes, even if it’s really big!) and save it somewhere on your computer. Then, click on the button that says ‘Upload’ in the menu of the Club Log site, and follow the instructions to upload the file.
It takes a while for Club Log to process new logs, because it does an exhaustive analysis of each DX call you work to try and determine where the callsign is (for DXCC purposes).
While your log is being processed, you can access the following features:
•About
This is a page of information about Club Log, including a graph of how many people and callsigns are active, and analysis of the SSB/CW/data modes splits for the complete set of logs in the system.
•Upload
This is where you can upload new logs. You’ll find it is in several steps. Please follow the instructions carefully and you will have no problems.
•League
From here, you can access DXCC band-mode league tables. There are options to break the charts down by club (you can choose the clubs to which you belong on the ‘Settings’ page – see below). You can also access the ‘5 year league’, which is specifically aimed at newer ham radio operators who can’t hope to compete with the old timers!
•Search
This is a log search function, designed for Dxpedition users who want to offer a log search on their own homepage. If you perform a search, the results will show a breakdown of bands and modes, but of course the exact times will not be disclosed, to protect the integrity of QSLing.
•Most-Wanted
This tool builds a ranked list of DXCC entities which are ‘wanted’. It is based on the percentage of users who haven’t worked the entity, and can be filtered by mode or time.
•Charts
Club Log will generate a chart for any of your callsigns, which will show each entity against bands. At the top of the page, you can change the way the chart works to filter by mode and date. At the bottom of the chart, a graph of your QSOs per year, and your CW/SSB/Data split as a percentage are displayed.
•LF Challenge
This is a special report which shows 160/80/40 QSOs worked during the month of March. This in turn can be used to enter the LF Challenge, and perhaps win the CDXC Penallt Trophy. Competition is fierce – for further details see http://www.cdxc.org.uk/awards/lf-challenge.
•Spots
Using the information contained in your log, Club Log is able to easily work out which DXCC entities you haven’t worked. Using this list, it can filter the DX Cluster and give you a personalised cluster that only lists spots that are about the DXCCs you need. The list updates about once a minute. Of course, if you’ve worked them all then you will have to wait for a new entity like Kosova to be approved…!
•Settings
Use this page to manage your password, add callsigns, change the clubs of which you are a member, or (if you really need to) delete logs from Club Log. You might need to do that if you have made a mistake, like uploading a duff log or sending a log to the wrong callsign.
•Log Out
If you’re on a shared PC, don’t forget to log out to protect your account.
About ADIF and special callsigns
Skip this bit if you’re not interested in an autopsy of how ADIF works.
In an ideal world, all callsigns would resolve to one and only one DXCC entity. In practice, though, there are lots that don’t, like VP8, ZK and (increasingly) USA callsigns used on expeditions in the Pacific. In fact, there are lots of annoying exceptions and more appear every year.
Some logging tools are very advanced. When you enter your QSO, these tools generally have a specific DXCC entity number encoded against each callsign you work, and they include this in ADIF files they generate. If so, then Club Log will use this – by far the best solution provided you haven’t made any mistakes.
However, some logging software doesn’t encode a DXCC number (I can appreciate why – it’s not easy to get it right). In these cases, Club Log will try and work out the DXCC number for you. This is fairly accurate. It uses a combination of lists, Dxpedition records from the past, manual rules added by me and other Club Log users, and it also mines existing logs to see if other users have been consistently recording the callsign against a particular location. Between these sources, it can usually be sorted out. It just takes a lot longer.
If your log is being analysed by Club Log (ie. you don’t export DXCC entity numbers in your ADIF file), then, when you upload your log, especially if you’ve been active for a long time, you can help me and other Club Log users by identifying any mistakes Club Log has made, and emailing them to michael@g7vjr.org.
Acknowledgements
Club Log was inspired by a clever idea from Dominic M0BLF (called HamELog) which provided DXCC charts and log search for a single callsign. Dominic has a knack of inventing and implementing ideas like this. Thanks, Dom.
I would also like to acknowledge Marios 5B4WN, who was able to give me some good code and ideas on how to turn callsigns into DXCC entities reliably. Derivatives of this code are in use on the RSGB IOTA site, and also on DX Lite. It’s funny how acorns grow. Cheers Marios.