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Logging a QSO

Open the QSO menu and choose General Logging.

You need an active station location and an active station logbook before this page will behave. If the dashboard is still showing those warnings, sort them first. The location supplies your callsign, locator, and power. The logbook decides which views the contact shows up in.

Picture needed: qso-logging-screen.png General Logging, QSO tab selected. A callsign typed in, band and mode filled, and the panel on the right showing previous contacts or the empty state. Wide enough that both columns are visible.

The QSO tab

This is the only tab you need for an ordinary contact.

Type the callsign. If you have set up a callbook login under your account, Cloudlog will fetch the name, locator, and the rest while you carry on. Previous contacts with that station appear on the right, up to five of them, which is handy when you are sure you have worked them and cannot remember the band.

The badge next to the heading is the same idea as Contest Logging.

  • LIVE follows the clock. Date and time are filled in and locked. This is how the QSO menu opens the page.
  • POST lets you type the date and time. Click the badge to switch. This is for a contact you are writing up afterwards. In post mode a stopwatch icon next to the time puts the clock back.

Then the usual things:

  • Band and mode. The band list is the bands you have marked Active under your callsign, Bands. USB and LSB pick up the SSB frequency you stored there. CW picks up the CW frequency. Any other mode picks up the Data frequency, when the frequency box is still empty.
  • RST sent and received. Name, QTH, locator, and a comment sit on this tab as well, when you have left those fields switched on under your account, QSO Form.
  • Their locator, if you have it. Distance and bearing are worked out from yours and theirs.

Power is in watts. The box wants a number on its own, such as 100.

Press Save QSO. The contact is stored against the station location selected on the Station tab, which starts as the active one. Reset clears the form for the next one.

The panel on the right has Previous contacts, a DXCC summary, the callbook result, and a DX Cluster tab when you have switched that tab on. Previous contacts shows the last few QSOs with the callsign you are typing.

Picture needed: qso-save-buttons.png The bottom of the QSO form, showing Reset and Save QSO, so it is obvious where the contact is stored from.

The other tabs

Along the top of the form. A tab you have switched off on your account stays hidden. The contact still keeps any value that was already stored.

  • QSO. The contact itself: callsign, date, time, band, mode, reports, and the name, QTH, locator, and comment when those are switched on.
  • Station. Which station location this contact belongs to, the radio Cloudlog has heard from, transmit frequency, and, when you have switched them on, receive frequency, receive band, power, and the operator callsign. The operator is who is at the microphone when that is someone else.
  • General. The country, the continent, the CQ zone, and the propagation mode. Under those, the award boxes you have switched on: IOTA, SOTA, WWFF, POTA, SIG and SIG Info, DOK, and the US state and county. Logging fills the country and the zone from the callsign. Change them here when the guess is wrong.
  • Sat. Satellite name and mode. The tab is there when you have switched satellite logging on.
  • Notes. A note that stays inside Cloudlog. It stays out of LoTW, eQSL, and Club Log.
  • QSL. How this card is being handled: bureau, direct, electronic, and the eQSL message if you use one.

A star at the end of the tab row is a short list of the fields you use most, so you can jump to one.

SOTA, POTA, WWFF, IOTA, and DOK on this contact are the other station's reference, or yours for this one QSO. A reference that is true for the whole activation belongs on the station location, so you are not typing it for every QSO.

Picture needed: qso-tabs.png The row of tabs across the top of the logging form, QSO through QSL, so a new user can see they are all part of the same contact.

Logging a pile you already have on paper

General Logging is one contact at a time, while you are there or just after.

Simple Fast Log Entry, also under the QSO menu, is for typing a paper log in a hurry. It uses a short syntax from DF3CB's Fast Log Entry. The Syntax Help button on that page shows the pattern, and there is a sample you can load. You still pick the station location first, because those QSOs are stored against it like any other.

Contest Logging is the same idea with contest fields. The contest name has to exist under Admin, Contests, or it will not be in the list.

If the callsign box in the navbar is there

Some accounts have a small callsign box in the top bar. Type a call and press the search button to look them up, or the plus button to open General Logging with that call ready to go. Whether Enter searches or logs is a switch on your account.

If you cannot see the box, use the QSO menu. Nothing is missing. The box is a shortcut.

Picture needed: navbar-quicklog.png The top bar with the callsign box, the plus button, and the search button. Crop tight so the three controls are the subject.