ClubLog.org

What use is an F-call? Over the past two years I've talked about amateur radio resources on the Internet, sometimes referring to one or other web-site in passing, encouraging you to find information that is pertinent to your situation. Last week I talked about logging and discussed some of the issues you'll come across. One of the things you'll likely want to do, is to actually put your logs online to make it possible for others to do the same and in doing so, matching up your contact with theirs and thus validating the contact. When you start investigating this, you'll find that there are many different sites that offer this service, from Logbook Of the World, or LoTW which is maintained by the ARRL, through QRZ.com, eqsl.cc and many others. Before I start talking about one specific site today, I thought I'd point out that you'll quickly find out that your chosen online log isn't going to be the same as the station you just contacted 15,000 km away, so in this case, at least at the moment, the more you register with, the higher your chances of having your contacts confirmed. One such service is Club Log, located at clublog.org. It has a very clean interface, offers log matching, a DX cluster that indicates stations in countries that you don't yet have, league tables and other amazing tools. One such tool deals with Propagation. It uses actual contacts from all the logs submitted to determine the best time to be on air to get contacts between two stations, what band, what directions, etc. All built-in with the aim to help you make the next contact. It's the best tool I've found so far that helps you get actual results, rather than propagation forecasts, it was the tool I used to let you know recently that the best chance of making a contact is on the weekend, Saturday, Sunday, then Friday, in order of decreasing amounts of traffic. Of course, that's not to say you won't get amazing contacts on other days, I spoke with Marion Island on a Monday afternoon one day, so you really can't beat being on-air. The service is free, though donations are encouraged and every time you upload a log file, the upload is brought to you by another donating amateur, so good will all round. I know that there are other aspects to Club Log that I've not discussed, or am even aware of, but if you're going to start somewhere, you won't do worse than starting there. clublog.org, check it out. I'm Onno VK6FLAB