About this episode

The episode discusses the use of LoTW in amateur radio and the misconceptions surrounding its necessity.

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I witnessed a fellow amateur attempting to guilt another into using LoTW with comments about how their QSO partner would appreciate confirmation via the service, even if they didn't care for it. Before I continue, if you're unfamiliar, when two amateurs make a contact, or a QSO, with each other, then there's generally a log entry at both ends to record the event. Some amateurs, myself included, save up these contacts and count how many continents, countries, states and other entities are recorded in the log. Several amateur radio organisations allow you to claim an award for such a record. However, before they accept your word for it, they require confirmation of the contact, something that the amateur community refers to as a QSL. To recap, a QSO is the contact, a QSL is the confirmation of that contact. Traditionally this was achieved with postcards, known as QSL cards, transported across the globe through various postal services, and coordinated by so-called QSL bureaus, often run by the amateur radio peak body in each country. With the advent of the Internet, much of this process has turned electronic. LoTW is an example of an…

People in this episode

Host: Onno (VK6FLAB)

Topics covered

• amateur radio
• LoTW
• QSO
• QSL
• electronic confirmation
• awards

Keywords

• LoTW
• QSO
• QSL
• amateur radio
• confirmation
• awards
• electronic logging

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: LoTW, ARRL, American Radio Relay League

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