WAS - almost there

[KF7ORO]

I've only been on HF less than a year and was never all that worried about wallpaper. I'm still not really. However, I tried out a couple NAQP contests and had fun doing them. After the CW contest, I was up to about 40 states confirmed on LOTW so I figured I'd try to get the rest.

Had some good luck this weekend. Worked a gent in ND on JT65 Saturday morning and he confirmed on LOTW within hours. Then during the afternoon, I got on the radio for a few minutes and realized the Hawaii QSO party was going on. I've worked a few Hawaii stations before but hadn't got a confirmation yet. So, I worked a few more on PSK31 and just got the LOTW confirmation from one of them.

That puts me at 46 confirmed. Here's what I still need:

MI - really? Michigan? I've had lots of QSOs but no confirmations. Not too worried though. Surely I'll get one eventually.
ME - I've had one QSO unconfirmed.
RI - Haven't had a QSO with RI yet. As small as it is, I'm guessing it's not an easy one.
SD - I'm sure SD's a pretty tough one too.

I'm sure this is one of those things where the last 10% takes 90% of the effort right?

[N7IYT]

Yes, the last few are the hardest, and luck plays a big role. SD was one of my first confirmed contcts on LoTW. It may seem strange, but I had trouble getting Nevada confirmed, lots of contacts, just no confirmations. It was my experience that Hams in the rare States like SD and RI are more willing to confirm the QSO because they know than so many of us need their State. Hams in States like CA, TX, and FL figure you have probably made lots of contacts with their State, so there is less urgency to confirm.
You might consider setting up a schedule with Hams in those remaining States.

[WB7X]

I have WAS in LoTW, but missing RI in eQsl.

[KF7ORO]

I'm missing about 9 on eqsl I think. Just checked and I've got MI and ME confirmed on there so I'm missing mostly different states on both of them. And I just realized I'm missing AZ on eqsl. I got W1AW/7 on LOTW.

Marty, we've really got to log a QSO!

[W6SDM]

I have WAS on LotW for Phone, CW, and for 20 meters. I am working on my 5 band WAS. The hardest state for me to get confirmed was Maine. Dunno why - I worked it several times but nobody was LotW. I probably have everything I need if I ever get around to having my cards indexed and checked. Really, being a DXer, I wasn't even concentrating on WAS but it seemed silly to have DXCC and not WAS. It's unpatriotic.

One way to get the states you need is to watch for the state QSO parties. I did the Kansas and Hawaii parties this weekend - I do Hawaii every year and usually place second for Arizona. I am hoping I did better this year. Take a look at the WA7BNM contest calendar at http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal/weeklycont.php and look for the state QSO parties from the states that you need.

Good luck. Chasing paper is kinda fun. It also saved you having to paint the walls in the shack.

[KT7DAD]

I have WAS on PSK-31, have not really tried on phone yet.
The biggest challenge was to find the guy i RI that have a computer and a hf rigged hooked up to each other, and use LOTW....

[N8KVB]

I would help you out with the MI one, but i'm not on HF. Good luck!

[KF7ORO]

Did anyone check out 10 meters today? It was nice to see it at least a little open.

Had another QSO with Maine on 10m and when I uploaded my log to LOTW, I realized my Maine contact from a couple weeks ago had uploaded his. So, Maine is confirmed. 3 more to go.

[AA1PR]

Like everyone else here I have not gotten my WAS because others will not QSL

on 40 I am missing HI
on 75 it ND I think

[KF7ORO]

I had a pretty tough time getting HI confirmed too. I think it took 6 or 7 QSOs before someone finally QSL'ed. I just worked ND for the first time a few weeks ago and that one was confirmed within a couple hours. I guess it just depends on who you work.

I've found on CW and Phone, I get maybe 30% confirmed on LOTW or eQSL. On PSK31, it's a little higher - maybe 40%. On JT65 though, I'm getting more like 75-80% confirmed. It makes sense that people working digital would upload logs more since they've got everything on the computer already. But there seem to be differences even within the different digital modes.

I've also found on JT65, it's very handy to use pskreporter and you can see who's on each band. This weekend, I was able to see that there were a couple MI stations on and I was able to work one of them. Hopefully I'll get a confirmation but haven't yet. I also saw there was a RI station on. I think he was trying to work DX though. I was hearing him at -24dB on JT65. I replied to a couple of his CQs but he replied to other (probably stronger) stations. I was able to tell that he did hear me though by looking on pskreporter.

[AA1PR]

I had a pretty tough time getting HI confirmed too. I think it took 6 or 7 QSOs before someone finally QSL'ed. I just worked ND for the first time a few weeks ago and that one was confirmed within a couple hours. I guess it just depends on who you work.

I've found on CW and Phone, I get maybe 30% confirmed on LOTW or eQSL. On PSK31, it's a little higher - maybe 40%. On JT65 though, I'm getting more like 75-80% confirmed. It makes sense that people working digital would upload logs more since they've got everything on the computer already. But there seem to be differences even within the different digital modes.

I've also found on JT65, it's very handy to use pskreporter and you can see who's on each band. This weekend, I was able to see that there were a couple MI stations on and I was able to work one of them. Hopefully I'll get a confirmation but haven't yet. I also saw there was a RI station on. I think he was trying to work DX though. I was hearing him at -24dB on JT65. I replied to a couple of his CQs but he replied to other (probably stronger) stations. I was able to tell that he did hear me though by looking on pskreporter.

Congrats on the confirmed HI !

I cant seem to get lotw to work for some odd reason, the league I feel has given up on me.

I tried eqsl & hate it to be honest but it does work, in sorts

never tried jt65, but do hang around on 17 from time to time or 20 psk31

[KF7ORO]

LOTW does seem a little more complicated that it really needs to be IMO. I got it working by following the directions though and the HRD logbook makes it pretty easy to upload all your QSOs.

If you're set up for PSK, you should be able to get on JT65 just by downloading the software and setting it up. JT65-HF is pretty easy to figure out. I haven't tried the original WSJT software but apparently it's a little harder to get the hang of.

[KE7KUS]

LOTW's "complexity" comes from the fact that it is a double blind system with secure input on each end to confirm the QSO's. This makes it difficult to "fake" a contact and is one of the reasons that I prefer LOTW over something like eQSL. In fact, I quit using eQSL last year because I prefer LOTW's security and interface. I have found an overall QSL rate via LOTW on the order of about 40%; however, about half of my confirmed contacts came from my T6KK DXpedition, which would obviously yield a higher QSL rate than the average stateside operation.

I have been working quite a bit of JT65 lately...all at only 5W, which is about 2W ERP out of my loop on 40m. I am five states shy of JT65 WAS, and 1 state shy of PSK31 WAS. I still have about 10 states to go to knock out CW WAS...then it's about 20 states on SSB for the Triple Play. Funny...when I started WAS chasing, I never thought that phone would be the last thing I'd clean up in the logbook. Radio is awesome.

[W6SDM]

Since March of 2010, I have uploaded 11,632 QSOs. I have 3,340 confirmations, so about 30%. I know that one of my electronic logging programs had an issue advancing the date for several months before I noticed it, so that might account for about 10% fewer confirmations.

LotW needs some TLC from the ARRL. For example, the only way I could determine how many actual confirmations that I had was to manually advance each page and multiply the number of advances by 25 (or look at the counter on top after I advanced all of the available pages). On the statistics page it says, "Sorry, we can't supply a QSL/QSO match count at present. Come on, guys - this is simple programming in any language. If someone in my IT group came up with a line like that and it stayed up for more than a couple of days, he would be looking for work in the fast food industry.

LotW isn't free. So far, I have paid for 3 DXCC awards and a WAS. So, you aren't paying as you use the log but you are paying when you claim your award - which is as it should be in order to get maximum participation. However, the program isn't free.

I would like to see better promotion of the program, particularly to DX. Integrating an electronic QSL program like eQSL might help accomplish that. It serves the ARRL well to have participation because that's how they sell awards.

eQSL, while it was innovative in its day, is seriously dated. The web page looks 1990s. It's a cash cow for someone but there isn't anything being put back into the business in terms of development. Also, as Kurt mentioned, anything other than a double blind, public key encryption system leaves the whole program vulnerable to abuse and fraud. One of the reasons that the DXCC is such a coveted award is that when you see one hanging on someone's wall, it's a pretty good bet that they earned it legitimately.

I have written several messages to ARRL section and headquarters asking them to pay a little more attention to this valuable resource for ham radio. I also published an article asking the same thing. I hope they listen. Contesting, DXing, and the subsequent awards is what will continue to advance ham radio. Using the mail to confirm QSOs, although I have over 2,500 paper cards for that same period, at an average cost of three dollars each, is becoming obsolete.

[KF7ORO]

At the rate I'm going, it's going to take me about 20 years to get 11000 QSOs. Nice work.

I don't have a problem with LOTW using the double blind system. It makes perfect sense. I really don't have a problem with the digital signatures either but I think that may be a bit of overkill for an Amateur Radio award. I like that they've at least made it possible to use with any OS. However, I think lots of people think they can't figure out how to use it and it limits participation.

If people cheating to get an Amateur Radio award is a problem, I'll take your word for it. It's hard for me to wrap my head around that though. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a small number of people would do it. I just think the double blind system would probably be sufficient to stop that and be much easier to use as well.

I'm on eqsl too. I agree it looks pretty dated and I can see how it would be easy to cheat on their system. However, I've only had 2 people I didn't have a QSO with send me confirmation requests. They may have simply miscopied a callsign so I'm not sure there's any attempt to cheat there. I rejected them of course.

[KF7ORO]

Got Rhode Island this morning so that's 49!

Here's something I've learned and maybe it'll help someone looking for WAS. I used PSKreporter and had it show all bands and all modes, paying special attention to SD & RI. Saw there was a Rhode Island station on 12 meters using JT65 so I fired up JT65-HF and there he was calling CQ. Just checked LOTW and the confirmation came in already. JT65 may not be an exciting mode but the people who use it sure do QSL. I need to get real numbers but I think I'm around 80% of my QSOs confirmed on that mode.

[KF7ORO]

Woo-hoo! I think I might be done. Of course LOTW's down so I'll have to wait for a confirmation but I got home a little early from work today and got on 40m. I haven't had much time to get on the air the past few weeks. I couldn't believe it when I saw a SD station on JT65.

Here's another little JT65 operating trick I've figured out. A standard exchange (that includes an RRR) will end up with the station that called CQ also sending the last 73. At that point there's probably going to be a dead minute before they call CQ again, so you can call them after they've sent their 73 and maybe sneak in there.