Hi!

With the news last week that ARRL's Logbook of the World now supports the VUCC award, I have started the work to get my satellite QSOs uploaded to LOTW. As I previously mentioned, the ability to associate up to 4 grids with a station location will make my work so much easier. Grid-boundary QSOs won't require any extra work to upload. QSOs from other boundaries will still require a little extra work to properly represent them in LOTW, but that is a small number I can manage. I just renewed the LOTW certificates for all of my calls, and they dropped into my e-mail in-box this morning. Once I load the renewed certificates into the TQSLCert program, I will take my spreadsheet log and start making ADIF files for all of my calls and locations I have worked from.

I have received QSL cards over the years where my callsigns have /P after them, and a couple where the XE2 comes after my US call and not before it as is it listed on my Mexican ham permits for QSOs when I was in Mexico. Since I operate portable almost all the time, I do not identify on the air as "portable" or "/P". If you have logged QSOs with WD9EWK (or my other calls) with a "/P" in LOTW, you will need to correct those entries in order to have QSLs in LOTW with me.

Based on e-mail exchanges with ARRL when I set up my LOTW account in 2008, there are 5 key elements that have to match in any two LOTW QSO records to make a QSL. The call sign is one of those key elements. The others are date, time, band, and mode.

I will soon upload satellite QSOs to LOTW for these calls:

WD9EWK (two QSOs from 2000, one from 2003, and a bunch since 2005) VA7EWK (used on my July 2010 trip to Canada) CJ7EWK (used on my November 2008 trip to Vancouver - CJ was a one of the special prefixes available at that time to Canadian hams) XE2/WD9EWK (for my 3 trips to Mexico since February 2009)

I have also operated with other call signs in January 2007 (W7W) and May 2008 (K7RDG). Since I do not hold those calls, I am not able to upload anything to LOTW for those satellite QSOs.

QSOs made from other boundary lines - county, state/province, or national - will require uploading two QSO records to LOTW by *both* stations to confirm the contact from both sides of that line. Each of my QSO records for these contacts will be from a station location on each side of the boundary line. I have worked satellites from these non-grid boundary lines:

Apache/Navajo county line in Arizona (August 2009)

Indiana/Ohio state line (several times since 2006) Arizona/New Mexico state line (October 2009) Illinois/Wisconsin state line (October 2010)

Canada/USA international border (July 2010)

Since the QSO records for the county-line and state-line QSOs would have the same 5 key elements matching, I will vary the QSO time for QSOs from one side of the county or state line by one minute (i.e., QSO at 2300 UTC from Indiana and 2301 UTC from Ohio). Otherwise, the second QSO record with the same 5 key elements will overwrite the first QSO record in LOTW with those elements. The Canada/USA border QSOs won't have that problem, since the calls in the two QSO records won't match (VA7EWK for one QSO record from Canada, and WD9EWK for the other QSO record from the USA).

I still need to make my initial satellite VUCC application, but want to get my satellite activity into LOTW so others may be able to use QSOs with me toward future award applications. I've waited for VUCC to be supported in LOTW since I first set up my LOTW account almost 3 years ago, and it is great that it has finally happened.

73!

Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/