By Dave Patton, NN1N

Congratulations to Victor Morozov, RD3PQ, for submitting QSO #300,000,000 to the ARRL Logbook of The World! His QSO with SV2/OM3CGN did the trick on October 5, 2010. Victor has submitted nearly 6300 contacts to LoTW and will receive free DXCC and WAS awards for his well-placed log.

We’re very pleased with the high level of use and acceptance of LoTW from operators around the world. January 2011 marks the 10 year anniversary of the ARRL’s announcement of the LoTW system. While it has taken longer than anyone expected to return to building-out the system, progress is being made. ARRL’s programmers are working hard to improve usability and to add support for the VUCC award. We have received valuable assistance from volunteers in the development of the system and software. Behind the scenes helping in any way they can, are Norm, W3IZ, Kathy, KA1RWY, and Dave, NN1N, who all work very hard to help users get through the sign-up process and place logs into the system. When the time comes to use the matched QSOs for award credit, Sharon Taratula and Bill Moore, NC1L, make the awards applications processing work smoothly.

Thanks to many volunteers, we have translations to other languages, which helps drive activity. Other volunteers work with people who aren’t yet using the system in order put more logs from more places into LoTW. The level of acceptance has not slowed down — in fact, it may be increasing. At this time, over 3600 applicants have requested a digital certificate and not yet finished the process, to go along with the 36,000 individual users already signed up!

We continue to hear from users who have happily folded the use of LoTW into their operating and awards-chasing worlds. They have found the best ways to use the system and continue to collect the QSL cards many of us enjoy so much. The use of the worldwide QSL Bureau system is still quite valuable for obtaining traditional QSL cards at the lowest possible cost. LoTW and the QSL Bureaus combine to make a strong combination of cost savings and lessened risk from sending cards to HQ for processing.

The use of direct QSLing is also still important in order to help support DXpeditions and to obtain quick confirmations from stations that are not yet using LoTW or the Bureau. The beauty of using LoTW comes through again as a supplement to awards and QSL chasing in that we still want a nice QSL for our collection, but now we don’t need to obtain 10 or 12 cards.

For further information about Logbook of The World and to get started, see the LoTW Web site.