On 06/10/2013 06:24 PM, Jim Walls wrote:
I have not been satellite active for several years (mostly because of no birds to actually talk through for more than 3 seconds at a time).
Ditto.
LOTW was fairly new when I stopped operating satellite, but at that time the general comment from those that were using LOTW was that particularly for satellite operations, LOTW was such a pain to use, and really did not support satellite ops without putting in incorrect data (it did not understand our cross band operation or that there are actually more than one satellite in use). Maybe someone who is using it currently can advise if works better for satellite operations now.
As far as I can figure out, all LOTW does is make it easier/faster to apply for awards that I'm not even slightly interested in applying for, while guaranteeing that I'll never get a 'real' QSL card for the contact. While I'm not really a collector of cards, I QSL in reply 100% (green stamp appreciated but NOT necessary) and it IS nice to have that concrete reminder of a QSO. Whereas the only award I've ever applied for is the ZRO, and you can't even do that any more.