LotW Station Locations and Confirmations
A Station Location specifies
- the LotW certificate associated with your callsign
- your DXCC entity
- your Grid Square
- your ITU zone
- your IOTA tag
- your State (if your DXCC entity is the USA, Alaska, or Hawaii)
- your County (if your DXCC entity is the USA, Alaska, or Hawaii)
A batch of QSOs uploaded to LotW must be associated with a Station Location; the Callsign Certificate specified in the Station Location is used to digitally sign the uploaded information, thereby authenticating it. When you upload a QSO, LotW creates an entry containing the QSO data (your QSO partner's station callsign, the band, the mode, the time) and the information from the Station Location with which the QSO was uploaded. When your QSO partner uploads a QSO that matches your uploaded QSO, LotW creates a confirmation in your account, and a confirmation in your QSO partner's account. The confirmation in your account includes your QSO partner's station callsign, the band, the mode, the time, and the information from your QSO partner's Station Location. Similarly, the confirmation in your QSO partner's account includes your station callsign, the band, the mode, the time, and the information from your Station Location.
For a QSO confirmed via LotW to be accepted
* for VUCC credit, the LotW confirmation in your account must include a Grid Square from your QSO Partner's Station Location; this is indicated by the presence of the letters G, 1, 2, or 3 in the QSO's LoTW Cfm item
* for WAS credit, the LotW confirmation in your account must include a State from your QSO Partner's Station Location; this is indicated by the presence of the letter S in the QSO's LoTW Cfm item
* for WAZ credit, the LotW confirmation in your account must include a CQ Zone from your QSO Partner's Station Location; this is indicated by the presence of the letter Z in the QSO's LoTW Cfm item
On the LotW tab of DXKeeper's QSL Configuration window, the TQSL panel's Station Location selector lets you choose from among the Station Locations you've defined in TQSL. Whichever Station Location you choose in this selector is what accompanies QSOs uploaded to LotW when you click the Upload to LotW button on the Main window's QSL tab. For convenience, the currently-selected Station Location appears immediately beneath the Upload to LotW button.
Most ops have only on Station Location, so defining it in TQSL is a one-time affair, as is selecting it in the TQSL panel on the LotW tab of DXKeeper's QSL Configuration window. Ops with more than one callsign or who operate from more than one location must define multiple '''Station Locations'''. Such ops must be careful when uploading QSOs to LotW to ensure that the correct Station Location has been selected before uploading the QSOs in the QSL Queue. To help prevent mistakes when populating the QSL Queue before uploading to LotW, DXKeeper provides a Limit Add and Sync operations to this station callsign option.
LotW users should review each of their Station Locations to ensure that a grid square is specified; Station Locations whose DXCC entity is the US, Alaska, or Hawaii should also specify a US State. This enabled your QSO partners pursuing VUCC and WAS to be granted credit for their confirmed QSOs with you.
If you have a Station Location that is missing this information, update this Station Location, and then use it to re-upload any QSOs previously uploaded to LotW with this Station Location. This will update those QSOs to include the missing information, giving your QSO partners credit for your grid square (on VUCC bands) and state (for QSO made from the US, Alaska, or Hawaii). Re-uploading with a more comprehensively populated Station Location will not create Zombie QSOs - QSOs containing incorrect information that cannot be removed from LotW. If you have more than one Station Location,
before populating the QSL Queue with Add Requested or Add All functions, be sure to filter the Log Page Display to contain only QSOs made from the location in the Station Location using the callsign on the LotW certificate in the Station Location
select the correct Station Location before clicking the Upload to LotW button.
Uploading QSOs with the wrong Station Location will create Zombie QSOs, and they will live forever.