Finding And Exporting QSOs

Overview

A logbook grows quickly, and most of what you do with an old contact starts with finding it. There are three tools, and they work together rather than replacing each other: a search box for words, a filter panel for fields, and sortable columns.

Whatever you have narrowed the screen down to is also what an export writes to file, which is what makes an export of a single band or a single year straightforward.

How To Search Your Log

Type into the search box above the log and press the magnifying glass. It searches the callsign, the operator's name, their QTH, the country and your own private notes.

Searching keeps any filters you have already set rather than clearing them.

How To Filter Your Log

1. Press Filters at the top right.
2. Set any of the fields. Band, mode and status; a date range; country, name, QTH, state or grid square; contest or satellite; and the POTA, SOTA, WWFF and IOTA program references.
3. Press Apply Filters.

The Filters button turns amber and shows a count while filters are on, so the screen never quietly hides contacts from you. Press Clear all inside the panel to take them all off at once.

The logbook selector is not a filter and is not counted. It names which book you are looking at.

Mode is grouped, so choosing a mode family selects every mode in it and choosing one underneath selects only that one.

How To Sort Your Log

Press any underlined column heading: Date and Time, Callsign, Country, Band, Mode, Distance or Status. Press it again to reverse the order. The arrow shows which column is sorting and which way.

Sorting keeps your search and your filters, and takes you back to the first page.

How To Include Hidden Contacts

Hidden contacts stay out of your logbook and out of your totals. To see them, open Filters, switch on Include hidden contacts and apply. They are then on the screen and in any export you take.

How To Export Your Logbook

1. Narrow the screen to what you want, if you want a part of it.
2. Press Export ADIF.

The file carries whatever is on screen: your search, your filters and your logbook selection. It is the whole result rather than the page you are looking at, so a filtered export of two thousand contacts is two thousand records and not the twenty-five in front of you.

To export everything, clear your filters first.

ADIF is the format every logging program reads, so this is how you move your log into other software or keep a copy of your own.

What To Watch For

An export is a copy. It does not change your logbook and it does not remove anything.

Exporting is not the way to send contacts to QRZ or Logbook of the World. Both services have their own connection that sends contacts directly, and anything that cannot go is listed with its reason on your Exception Reports. See QRZ Logbook Sync and Logbook of the World.