• ARRL’s Logbook of The World Tops 1 Billion QSO Records

    From ARRL de WD1CKS@VERT/WLARB to QST on Thu Dec 20 06:30:54 2018
    12/19/2018

    As of December 19, more than 1 billion contact records have been entered into ARRL's Logbook of The World[1] (LoTW) system. And, while 1 billion QSO records represents a significant milestone, a more important statistic may be the nearly 1.8 million contacts confirmed via LoTW over its 15-year history.

    According to former ARRL Membership Services Department Manager Wayne Mills, N7NG, it was Lew Jenkins, N6VV, who planted the seed that became LoTW in an informal gathering during the 1997 International DX Convention in Visalia, California, that included members of the ARRL Board of Directors.

    "What Jenkins proposed was an electronic QSLing system utilizing Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that could replace mailed paper cards with rapid electronic transmission and exceptional security," Mills recounted. At its July 1998 meeting, the ARRL Board called on the Headquarters staff to study the development and implementation of electronic QSL submissions for ARRL awards. Former IT Manager and webmaster Jon Bloom, KE3Z, was recruited to develop the initial LoTW software. After it debuted in September 2003, LoTW got off to a slow start. While user number gradually grew to about 5,000, a lot of hams didn't fully understand what LoTW was or how it worked, and opening an account could be cumbersome.

    Customer support was not part of the original plan, and a lot of that fell to Kathy Allison, KA1RWY, in the DXCC Branch, said current Field Services and Radiosport Department Manager Norm Fusaro, W3IZ.

    "All of this was before I arrived at HQ and the DXCC Branch," Fusaro said. "When I got involved, poor Kathy was overwhelmed, almost to the breaking point, with calls from members wanting to have their hands held through each step of the process of opening an account."

     

    The Crash of 2011

    LoTW also had no business plan or budget either, Fusaro recalled. "It was an orphan program managed by babysitters, with DXCC watching the user side, and the IT department watching the technical side," he described. LoTW continued with few changes until October 2011, when a perfect storm struck - a large ingestion of logs after the CQ World Wide DX Contest and a freak snowstorm that knocked out power for more than a week in most places.

    Fusaro said uninterruptible power source (UPS) back-up power quickly depleted in the days-long power outage. "When the system came back online, it was overwhelmed with the amount of data coming in and could not keep up," Fusaro said. "The water was coming in faster than the pumps could pump it out. Crash!"

    The disaster was a blessing in disguise, though, because it revealed weaknesses in the LoTW software and hardware.

    The League spent tens of thousands of dollars for new hardware that was express-shipped and installed at HQ. IT Manager Mike Keane, K1MK, started implementing some code changes to expedite log processing by giving priority to small- to medium-sized logs and inserting mega-files as openings occurred. Fusaro said a lot of the large files contained duplicate data, bogging down the process so much that users were resending logs already in the queue. Through all of this not one QSO record was lost because LoTW uses a redundant backup process.

    An LoTW committee was formed by then ARRL Dakota Division Director and now Vice President Greg Widin, K0GW, giving the orphan program some foster parents. The committee included HQ staff from IT and DXCC and outside consultants Dave Bernstein, AA6YQ, and Rick Murphy, K1MU.

    "Murphy single-handedly attacked the issues with the TQSL software and continues to be the main author of all the code in that application," Fusaro, adding that the committee's first goal was to eliminate LoTW's technical debt.

    "A big problem was communicating to the public what was happening," Fusaro said. An LoTW users' group reflector and a queue-processing status page were set up. With better communication, Fusaro said, the system attracted additional numbers. Today, LoTW boasts some 112,000 users in all 340 DXCC entities, and 75% of all DXCC applications are filed via LoTW, which accounts for 86% of confirmations applied.

    Now, ARRL is looking at the development of LoTW 2.0, Fusaro said. "Over the years we have added more awards that can be applied using LoTW QSL credits; VUCC, Triple Play, and two CQ awards - WPX and WAZ."

    "The service still has room for a lot of improvement, but it continues to grow and is the preferred method of confirming QSOs because it strives to protect the integrity of DXCC and all awards," Fusaro said.

     


    [1] http://www.arrl.org/logbook-of-the-world

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