Welcome back! It has been a long, hot summer but it looks like the fall rains are finally starting to return. Time to start cuddling up to the fire with a keyboard and sharing some ham thoughts and ideas.

Judging from the title, you might think this is about forestry, and those of you with a Monty Python-esque bent might be gleefully humming ‘The Lumberjack Song’ to yourselves. (For those not in the know, do a search on Youtube, I’m sure there must be at least ONE copy of it somewhere 🙂)

Anyway, no, this about keeping a ‘log’ or record of your communications on the air. Back in the dark ages of radio (the 70’s, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth) Canadian Hams were required to keep a record/log of everytime they transmitted on their radios. We also had separate transmitters and receivers and a big switch between the two — transceivers were just starting to come into the fore, and they were pretty expensive. People back then still made extensive use of radio waves to get their information and entertainment. Almost everyone had some sort of antenna on their roof to pick up the local television stations, and most listened to AM radio for news and FM for music.

Given that everyone had wire in the air to pick up signals and we hams were ‘broadcasting’, the possibility for interference was huge. Most hams were on HF (short wave) and the possibility of completely blocking out your neighbour’s radio or TV every time you transmitted was fairly high. The log was one way to prove either way whether you were causing problems. (“You say Walter Cronkite was all snowy? Couldn’t be me, I wasn’t on the air then!”)

Beyond that, when you got your ‘Basic’ licence back then (yep, it was an annual ‘licence‘) operation on short wave was limited to morse code only. To get voice privileges, you had to operate for a year, then apply for your Advanced Licence and show them your log. Having 3 or 4 contacts during the last year just wouldn’t cut it with the inspector.

In those dark ages, there were no ‘personal computers’ so logging was a pencil and paper affair. No spreadsheets; no downloads from the internet; no printer in your home to rip off a couple of pages when needed. There were numerous pre-printed log forms available from various sources like the ARRL and the various ham radio magazines, but these were expensive for a teenager with only a paper route for income. For me, it was taking sheets of regular lined paper and drawing columns with a ruler. Unfortunately, those early logs are lost to the annals of time, as university, work and family took over my life.

Fast forward to 2015 and my getting back into my favorite hobby once the kids were grown up and gone! Now, direct-wired internet in your home is king and the possibility of interference in normal, day-to-day communication and news/entertainment is remote. Use of the radio waves at HF frequencies is mainly relegated to some older industries, talk-radio, and us hams. (There may be a resurgence in interest as the ‘troubles’ in the world make it more obvious that internet access is not to be taken for granted, but that’s a topic for another blog…) Logging of transmissions is no longer a requirement but for me, since I spend a great deal of my radio time on the HF bands, it’s great to be able to look back at my ‘radio career’ and remember friends I’ve met on the airwaves and my accomplishments. It’s kind of like writing a daily journal or diary.

Falling back on old habits, my initial logs were pencil and paper but now I could make them up in a spreadsheet and print them off on my own home printer. Here’s an example of what it looked like.

My spreadsheet log. I’d print off 2 or 3 of these blanks at a time.

I would dutifully fill this out after every contact and then stick them in a 3-ring binder. Unfortunately, my handwriting gets pretty poor when I’m in a hurry, so some of the entries were pretty much unreadable a week later. “Who was that I talked to? That time/date doesn’t make sense. I must have got it wrong.” (By the way, if anyone wants a copy of this log sheet for their own use, I’m happy to share)
That led me to looking for some way to type and print my logs in a more legible form. I could have simply typed entries into the spreadsheet, but when you’re working on the radio, moving from cell to cell and typing on a keyboard is a bit odious. At the same time though, I became aware of various online log books which would allow hams I had communicated with to confirm/acknowledge the contact. I’ll talk about these ‘acknowledgments’ or QSL’s in another blog post, but the ubiquity of the internet nowadays has made this exchange of acknowledgments a lot easier.

The first online log book I encountered was the ARRL’s Logbook of the World, aka LOTW. It’s located at lotw.arrl.org and it provides a central repository of QSO’s from hams who contribute and then provides QSL’s/acknowledgements of contacts as they count toward the various awards that the ARRL supports.

In this way, hams can simply upload their logs to the LOTW and it would compare logs for matches and award the appropriate ‘points’ toward each award. While this works well for its intended purpose, the information retained on each contact is minimal and there’s no neatly formatted printable output available for my binder.

Next was EQSL.cc. Similar to LOTW, this site also provides a database for contributing hams to upload their logs and will compare entries to find a match. The difference here is that each ham can also upload (or generate) a template of an electronic QSL card which will be used by the site to fill in the appropriate information then notifications to each party that a card is available for download. Here’s a few examples from my account. (Note, I’ve redacted addresses, etc. for privacy reasons).

Again though, the information contained on each contact is minimal (enough to confirm you’re both talking about the same QSO) and there’s no well-formatted way to print out the log.

The one I settled on was QRZ.com. The site itself basically a searchable database of information on every ham in the world and it’s an invaluable resource. There is also a free log book available and the format is clear, informative, and fits well with what I wanted in a ‘hard copy’ of my log. Here’s an example page from my log.

Example page from my QRZ.com logbook

As I say, access to QRZ.com and the logbook is free, but if you buy an annual subscription to the site, you get additional features and capabilities which I will discuss in a later blog post.

There are many other log/QSL sites such as QTH.com, CQQRZ.com, and Clublog.org. All have different foci.

So now my process was:
a) fill out the paper log in pencil as I was making contacts.
b) when I reached the end of a page (about 25 or so), use a guide to go through each line of the paper log and transcribe/type in the info to QRZ.com, then repeat for LOTW and eQSL.
c) Print off the last page or so of the QRZ online log to insert into my 3-ring binder.

It was quite a bit of work, but I was happy with the results and didn’t mind the redundant effort.

As I mentioned before, it’s a lot of fun to go back and look at my radio history. I like having the paper log as my permanent record (I don’t like depending on ‘the cloud’ to retain important information). Having the log online @ QRZ.com also means that I can quickly look up a callsign to see if I’ve talked to them before and include that nugget in the conversation.

Next time, we’ll talk about my current solution which involves the use of a logging program that directly interfaces with my radio and eliminates the redundant typing effort. It’s pretty cool.

Until then, 73.
Don VE7ATJ drtolson at outlook dot com

DONALD TOLSON

By DONALD TOLSON

Licensed in 1972, upgraded to Advanced in 1973. Out of the hobby until 2015 and moved to Parksville/French Creek in 2021. HF, VHF/UHF

One thought on “QSO #8 — Logging”
  1. Thanks for the great article, Don! I did find a lot more than one or two posts of the lumberjack song on YouTube!
    I still have my paper logs from 1976 through 1980, including one that Radio Shack sold when they had a few amateur radio items for sale back then. I do enjoy the convenience of an electronic log book application but there’s something about opening up one of your old log books and being immediately transported back to that first ham shack at your parents’ home all those years ago.
    73, Dave VE7TE

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