Bernie - W3UR, Thanks for your comments and also the challenge you threw out the the group.
What if the ARRL were to "Meet You Half-Way"? If the first 25 QSO's confirmed in LOTW for the basic WAS award were gratis for "X" amount of time, perhaps that would be a good incentive to get the DX logs rolling in. Or some variation of that? As to your comments about contesters - I suppose I'm guilty as charged because I figured it's a quick way to get some of the more readily available DX entities out of the way while working on DXCC awards. Doing it that way actually worked as an incentive for me. I can be found tuning around and checking spots during some very late and/or early morning hours on a lot of non-contest days too. For peanut whistle stations like mine, it's often the only way to have a good chance of snagging some of the rarer ones. Although it's only anecdotal, in reference to your thoughts about methods to log contacts; I use a software logging program and am nearly 58 years old. I find it very easy to work with, uploading to LOTW is a snap, and you can see what your progress is just by logging into LOTW occasionally and view how many more confirmations have occurred since the last time you checked. I can't wait until propagation improves with the next sunspot cycle because even with low profile wire antennas in these conditions, I'm still working DX. That's exciting in and of itself. As to bureau returns, my experience is mixed. I've sent out lots of cards, some going back many years, and have a return rate of maybe 60 percent or a bit more. My personal experience is that contest stations are near the low end of my return percentage when it comes to getting a card back. Thus, LOTW seems to help greatly in that regard. I'm all for any incentives that will encourage more DX stations to send in their logs and help us DX neophytes boost their counts. We all win in the end. WB8RFB __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, dx-chat@njdxa.org This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org
