Although many countries throughout the world had dispensed with the need to keep ham radio logs, within the United KIngdom operators of amateur radio stations were required by law to keep a record of all contacts made with other amateur stations. Regulations specified exactly what type of records had to be kept, and the format in which they were to be recorded. The requirement to keep such a log was amended in 2006 and compulsory log keeping is now no longer necesssary although Ofcom may, if it feels it desirable, require individual operators to continue maintaining a log of their ham radio operations.
Many hams do however continue to keep a record of their activity. A well maintained log is essential if QSL exchanges are to be made and the information held in a log can provide valuable insight into propagation patterns over a long period of time.
A good log will contain certain essential information such as date and time of transmission, callsign, name and QTH of station worked, power level and mode of transmission used, reports exchanged, whether QSL cards were sent/ received , the band/frequency used and such general comments as may be necessary to enable meaningful QSL exchanges.
All times are recorded in UTC irrespective of the time zone in which operators live and work.
Logs may be kept manually in a book or electronically on a computer. Computerised logs offer many advantages over manual logs especially when searching records for QSL or statistical purposes. It is imperative that any electronic logging system utilises the internationally recognised ADIF format for the fields recorded since this enables records to be transferred to utilities such as LogPrint to enable computerised printing of QSL labels or cards.
Posted 12 Jan 2010 11:34:28 GMT