Ham Radio Deluxe Customer Support

The Awards Tracking module in Ham Radio Deluxe Logbook provides the most complete award tracking features of any software available on the market. It tracks over 200 awards and endorsements in sixteen awards programs. Additionally, users have the ability to create and track additional awards of the operators choosing.

Introduction

To open the Awards Tracking tab, click on the Awards Tracking icon in Logbook.

The Awards Tracking tab will be displayed. On the left of your screen you will see a list of sixteen Award Programs that are currently supported by Ham Radio Deluxe.

To the right of the list of awards programs, you will see the awards totals for the selected awards program (DXCC, in this example). When the award name is followed by “(Ham Radio Deluxe)”, this signifies that the award is hard-coded into the program and cannot be modified. It is possible to copy these hard-coded awards and customize them to suit the user’s liking (this will be covered later). The awards totals panel consists of “rows, columns, and cells” – similar to a spreadsheet. Understanding the meaning of the rows, columns, and cells is an easy but important step in using the awards feature. All awards programs conform to this format.

The rows represent awards or endorsements within the selected awards program.

Endorsements are listed beginning with an asterisk below the related award.

The columns represent QSO, QSL, and Award credits within the selected awards program.

Column descriptions are as follows:

• Worked - This is the total number of entities within the awards program that have been worked, regardless of QSL or award credits. This is a QSO status column.
• Confirmed - This is the total number of entities within the awards program that have qualifying QSL confirmations. Each awards program accepts different QSLs (for example, QSL cards, eQSL, and LOTW confirmations may not be accepted for all awards). The award is created to only include the QSL types relevant for that award. This is a QSL status column.
• Need QSL - This is the number of entities within the awards program that have been worked but not confirmed. The information directs the operator to the QSOs that can be pursued for confirmation. This is a QSL status column.
• Entities Needed - This is the number of entities within the awards program that have not been worked. This is a QSO status column.
• Not Submitted - This is the number of entities within the awards program that have been confirmed, but not yet included in an awards application. This information will be used by the operator to make an awards application. QSOs are not included in this total once they have been included in an application and appear in the Submitted column. This is an awards status column.
• Submitted - This is the number of entities within the awards program that are part of a current application and awaiting approval. QSOs are not included in this total once they have been granted award credit within the program and appear in the Granted column. LOTW download provides this data for confirmations obtained through LOTW. This is an awards status column.
• Granted - This is the number of entities within the awards program that have been included and approved for award credit. LOTW download provides this data for confirmations obtained through LOTW. (Cards included in applications prior to LOTW are not included in the LOTW download information and must be added manually.) This is an awards status column.

Note: The “Not Submitted”, “Submitted”, and “Granted” awards status columns are “transitional” columns. That is – a given QSO can be in only one of these columns.

Award Reports

The awards feature in Logbook acts like a calculator that counts things. It would count things in Logbook where the entity selected match to the awards and QSO and QSL statuses indicated in the report.

The data that rolls-up to the totals in these columns come from information contained within the QSO records in the logbook as follows:

The Worked, Confirmed, Need QSL, and Entities Needed data comes from the QSL, eQSL, and LOTW tabs in the ALE. The Not Submitted, Submitted, and Granted data comes from the Award tab in the ALE. When the Award tab is not populated automatically from the online system (like LOTW), the information should be populated manually when applications are made. (Again, a given QSO cannot have both Submitted and Granted values. Selecting one de-selects the other.)

The cells provide the totals for the column within the selected award. When you double-click on a cell, it will produce a list of the entities that represent that total. For example, the following image indicates that there are ten entities worked for the DXCC Digital award where QSLs are needed:

Double-clicking on the “10” provides a list of those entities:

There are three choices for displaying the QSOs represented by this list. These three choices are available in the Filter icon in the icon bar above the list. Clicking this button “toggles” the filter between the three values.

The Filter [Off] condition assumes that the operator wants to see all the QSOs among the list of entities shown. This is most helpful for chasing QSL cards (Need QSL column), where the operator wants to see all the QSOs with the displayed list of entities.

The Filter [Oldest] assumes the operator wants to see only one QSO among the list of entities shown. This is most helpful for making award submissions (Not Submitted column) where only one qualifying QSO is needed.

The Filter [Newest] assumes the operator wants to see only one QSO among the list of entities shown. This is most helpful for making award submissions (Not Submitted column) where only one qualifying QSO is needed.

Once the desired filter is selected, the operator can display the results by clicking the View All button.

Example 1

What QSOs do I need to obtain cards from to increase my DXCC Digital Awards confirmation?

Going back to the ten entities in the Need QSL column, the operator would want to select Filter [Off] and View All. This would render a complete list of QSOs with those ten entities where a QSL could be obtained.

Notice that, for the 10 entities where a QSL is needed, there are fourteen QSOs. This gives the operator the ability to decide which QSOs to pursue. The operator can select QSOs in this view and print QSL cards or labels from this list.

Hint: Select Ctrl + A will select all the QSO. Press the Ctrl button, while clicking individual QSOs, will select a number of individual QSOs as desired.

Example 2

What QSLs do I need to submit to include in my next awards application for the DXCC Phone Award?

The awards totals indicate that five QSLs are ready for to be submitted in an award application:

Double-clicking on the “5” generates a list of the entities that will be submitted:

Because there may be more than one QSL for some of these entities in this list, I will select Filter [Oldest] and View All. This provides the list needed for submission:

The operator can print this list by clicking File/Print in the Ham Radio Deluxe Logbook menu. Additionally, the operator can save this list as an Excel or delimited text file so that the information can be combined into a single award application.

Clicking on the Matrix button generates a matrix report for the selected awards program. This is very similar to the style of report that is provided by the ARRL for DXCC awards. But this report shows Granted (G), Confirmed (C), and Worked (W) countries by award.

Creating Custom Awards

Operators can create (define) their own awards by selecting the Definitions button in the Awards Tracking tab.

The operator can create a new award based on one of the hard-coded (Locked) awards by selecting one and clicking Copy, or build a new award from scratch by selecting Add.

Because the awards definition builder is very flexible, it would be hard to describe a specific example. It is recommended that the operator tinker with this by creating a copy of a hard-coded (Locked) award and learning it through trial-and-error.

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