Worked All Europe CW Contest

[N1API]

Explain "Major Contest Programs" please.

These are programs such as N1MM, N3FJP and others that support DX and other contests and are written especially for that purpose. There are others I'm not familiar with all the names. These compared to logging programs that you could use to log the contest or some of them but may not support all the functions of the contest like QTC, sections or countries.

Usually the contest programs have things like a master callsign database that is updated through the web. Also the countries information itself changes. Not so much the actual country but for some of them who is there and operating a contest station. A couple of examples for the US may be Hawaii and Alaska. As people change QTHes and move to the lower 48 if the have been contesting from Alaska the Master Call Sign Database is changed so that if you work them you don't log them as a DX station and possible multiplier but log them for their present QTH. The same for Hawaii. This database is maintained by contesters submitting their logs from the contest to the Supercheck Partial address at: logs@supercheckpartial.com . The countries and sections database is maintained at: http://www.country-files.com/ and is updated usually just before a contest weekend.

Probably more info than you were looking for but you can see that there's quite a lot involved than just "log and go"

-73- Al