When typing KXXXX into the park field automatically update it to K-XXXX.
That may be hard to do. If it was just the ‘K’, it would be one thing, but since POTA is international with dozens of country codes of one or two characters (JA-, G-, VE-, PY-, etc) it may be difficult to code that just to accommodate user laziness.
How does POTA handle it if the Hyhen is missing? The OCD in me always adds it in, but it is an extra step that causes me to miss some of the letters of the next person in line trying to work me. As much as I like to multiplex, my primary focus has to be on my CW or I look like a LID asking for so many call repeats. Maybe this is not an issue when I get back to my former 25 wpm, but the arthritic hands I have struggles with 14-15 wpm until I can grow some new body parts, LOL.
I actually put in a support request with the POTA folks and they told me they don’t even use that information to calculate park to park contacts. They only look that 2 activators have each other in their logs. So I guess hyphen or no hyphen really doesn’t matter.
VE3AVP
Jul 24, 2023, 16:03 EDT
When uploading my log with a park to park contact if I put KXXXX instead of K-XXXX for the other park is that still accepted? If I have uploaded logs without the hyphen and it’s not accepted is there a way for me to fix it ?
Thanks!
Hi there.
No worrires on the park to park hypenation. The system doesn’t actually verify park to park contacts with what you type in that field, it’s more or less there for your information only. The POTA uploader will automatically pick out park to parks as long as the qso from your log and the qso from your P2P contact is within 15 minutes of one another. So, you could theoretically type whatever you want as the other person’s park number and it will still give you a park to park from your activation to theirs. But, if your park to park contact is as a 2-fer, 3-fer, 4-fer, etc. you will still want to type something in that field that differentiates each park contact so that the system doesn’t see multiple contacts to the same operator within seconds of each other and flag them as duplicates. So, that being the park number or even “park 1, park 2, park 3” to differentiate the qsos.
So, hypen or no hypen, you’re good!
Hope that helps,
Kody Beer K3KLB
POTA Help
When logs are processed by the POTA parser, if an entry is a park number, it will first look for a valid “program” or country identifier (typically DXCC abbreviation) like ‘K’, ‘VE’ ‘JA’, ‘VY2’, etc. then a dash for a delimiter, then a four digit number. Because the program identifier may be one, two, or three characters, a proper delimiter is necessary for the software to properly process the data. If any of these conditions are not met, the value is rejected and not processed. In some cases, like a P2P match, other routines may or may not make the match. In other cases, the contact record may be rejected as a duplicate or otherwise invalid QSO.
In any case, accuracy is important and the protocol should be followed.
Remember, computers are basically stupid. They do not interpret your meaning or intent. They only go by exactly what is input. So do it right and all will be good.
Michael WA7SKG
This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.