CQWW E-Mail Log Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ)

Question:  Where should I send my log?

SSB logs go to mailto:ssb@cqww.com.
CW logs go to mailto:cw@cqww.com.
Questions go to mailto:questions@cqww.com.

Question:  What formats are acceptable?

Acceptable log formats include any fixed-column ASCII log, plus two binary formats.  Examples of ASCII formats include CT's MYCALL.ALL and TR-Log's MYCALL.DAT; most other logging programs also provide a way to generate plain-text ASCII log files.  If you use a word processor -- for example, Microsoft's Word for Windows -- DO NOT send its binary file (MYCALL.DOC); instead, find out how to generate a plain-text ASCII file and send that.

The two acceptable binary formats are CT's MYCALL.BIN and NA's MYCALL.QDF.

Your log MUST include an ASCII plain-text SUMMARY SHEET.  This may be sent in a separate message or included with your log.  If you wish, you may download, fill out, and return this sample summary sheet.

If you are sending entries for two or more stations, please send each entry in its own message(s).  DO NOT combine entries for different stations into one message.

Please include the mode (SSB/CW) and station callsign in the Subject: line.

Files may optionally be archived/compressed with ZIP or ARJ (IBM-PC), or with tar/compress (UNIX), or with GZIP (any).  If you send binary files or archived/compressed files, they MUST be encoded for transit.  (Your e-mail program may already do this.)  Acceptable encoding schemes are UUENCODE, Base64, and BinHex.  In addition, text files (not binary) may be encoded using Quoted-Printable.

Question:  I received a QSL message from your e-mail robot.  It said my message had a body line count of 3104.  Is this supposed to be the number of lines in my log and summary sheet?

No.  It is a count of the number of lines in your e-mail message.  It is a rough sanity check to verify that the message body has not been lost.

Entrants who submit ASCII files (such as .ALL files) can check that the line count matches their log (including blank lines).  Same for ASCII summary sheets.

Entrants who submit binary files necessarily have their files encoded for e-mail transmission.  Often their mailer software will do this automatically without them being aware.  This is the case with .BIN files.  A .BIN file has no "lines", so a line count is only roughly proportional to the size of the log.

Sometimes entrants will submit what they think are ASCII files but which get encoded by their mailer.  In this case, too, the line count will will only be proportional.

Question:  How can I be sure the log you got was exactly what I sent?

Eventually, you will be able check your log on the World-Wide Web with the access code we will send you.  The URL is http://cqww.com/cqww/logs/

Question:  Last year (1997), web access to e-mail logs was provided within a few days of submission.  This year (1998), web access is greatly delayed.  Why?

Last year, many entrants sent zipped and/or encoded logs.  Some of these entrants had trouble determining whether or not their submission was OK.  This year, web access will be provided only after we have extracted both the log and the summary sheet.  This will allow easy inspection of the plain-text version of the decoded/extracted log for accuracy.

Currently, a small handful of SSB logs have been experimentally decoded and extracted by hand. Software is currently under development to automate this process. This development may take several months. When done, the remaining logs will be made available via the web.

Question:  I sent a .BIN file.  It was encoded, so I have no way to see if you got the complete log or not.

This is little different from the case where you snail-mailed your log on a disk which had bad sectors.  You would hear from us when we processed your log.

Question:  I received an access code to let me browse my e-mail log on the World-Wide Web.  I'm sure I typed in the code exactly as shown (including hyphens), but I'm still having trouble.

The access mechanism depends on your browser being able to handle HTTP cookies.  If they are turned off, then turn them on.

Further, the access mechanism depends on your browser being able to handle automatic redirection.  Almost all browsers do this OK.  When your access code has been accepted, the server sends your browser a redirection message telling it to retry the page you originally requested, this time with the required cookie.

If you are accessing the Web from behind a firewall, your proxy server might service the retry request from its own cache, instead of passing on the request to cqww.com.  If this happens, what you will see after entering your code is a blank copy of the same code-entry page.  (Note:  This is different from the code-retry page which is served in response to an erroneous code.)  In this case, ask your system administrator how to bypass your proxy's cache.

If these tips do not help, try accessing your logs from a friend's browser, especially if it's one of the standard ones like Netscape or Microsoft.

Question:  I sent a BIG message.  When I browse the file, data is missing from the end.

Web file transfers are limited to 20 minutes.  This means you can transfer about 3.6 MBytes over a 28,800-b/s line, but only 1.2 MB over a 9600-b/s line.  If you have a REALLY BIG file and a REALLY SLOW modem, you should consider getting or borrowing a faster connection.

Question:  How do I interpret my UBN (Unique/Bad/NotInLog) Report?

Your UBN report is available in your Web directory and is named either cw.ubn or ssb.ubnClick here for a guide to its interpretation.

Also available is a Not-In-Log report named either cw.nil or ssb.nil.  This report shows other stations who claim to have worked you, but who are not in your log.  Shown are other stations who ARE in your log with callsigns similar to the missing call.

Question:  Does CQ World-Wide get any revenue from licensing its name to the World-Wide Web?

No.  The agreement provides only that CQWW gets free access to the Internet for its WWW server.  No royalties are involved.