I’ve had a request to document my practices in using Logbook of the World after a contest activation. I’ll admit to having struggled with this over the years. At first I felt that just using my K5ND LoTW certificate would work just fine. However, no one really changes their log to take this into account after a contest.

So I finally elected to request a certificate for K5ND/R. Once that was in place, I uploaded all my previous logs and in the process made a few people happy with new grids showing up. The big question is how to make that happen for your rover operations.

Request a Callsign Certificate

The details are in the LoTW help section at Add Certificate Request. I suggest that you read that section and follow the instructions closely.

For the most part it involves opening up TQSL. In the top level menu select “Callsign Certificate” with the selection from the pull down menu of “Request New Call Sign Certificate.” At that point you’ll see the nearby window. Select the option shown “My former personal callsign or a portable modifier for my current or former callsign.” The portable modifier is /R.

Click on any of these images for a full size version.

The next window that opens up allows you to enter the call sign, the DXCC entity, and the dates. Run through the rest of the screens and submit the request.

When the certificate arrives via email, you just load it into TQSL. The first window below is LoTW that shows my certificates: K5ND and K5ND/R. The second window show the certificate properties for K5ND/R in TQSL.

Set Up Station Location

The next trick is to set up station locations in TQSL. In the past, I’ve set up locations for every grid that I activated. That included the grid, the county, state, etc. You can see my full window of station locations from TQSL nearby.

That approach requires that you separate your logbook by grid and then upload each file by that particular station location. It’s quite a tedious process. Yet, I’d been doing it for a few years, starting with my early satellite grid activations.

There’s a Better Way

If you’ll look closely at the last entry on the station location list (click on the image for the full size version), you’ll see that I’ve labeled it “K5ND/R without state or grid.” Due to some relatively recent changes to TQSL and LoTW, you can actually upload your log and let them take care of the QTH for every QSO.

Set up the station location by leaving the grid and zone information blank. Then selecting state as “none.” See the first window below as an example.

Then under the main TQSL menu select “preferences” and in that window, select “Override Station Locations with QTH details from your log.” See the second window below.

[Note: This preferences setting applies to all logs you upload, including your home grid, grid lines activations, etc. — LoTW will pull the grid from your ADIF file. So make sure it’s correct, don’t ask me how I know this…]

Quick Work After the Contest

With this setup in place all you need to do after the contest is upload your ADIF log to Logbook of the World using your /R callsign certificate and the station location that allows your logbook to provide QTH information. BTW – I’ve tried using a Cabrillo file, which will upload, but it doesn’t catch the grid you were operating in. That seems to require the ADIF file format. FYI.

Of course, some of you may not upload logs at all after a contest. My suggestion is to consider those who provided QSOs and reward them with a new grid confirmation or two via LoTW to support their VUCC chase.

Hope that works for you and your roving. Good luck and have fun in the contest.