When I am entering a contact, I need to be able to null-out, zero, blank, and/or delete any and all information about the other party’s location.
WRL makes a lot of, often inaccurate, assumptions about the location of the other party. I assume it gets these assumptions from databases such as QRL, or their WRL profile, or their FCC mailing address.
The huge popularity of portable operation, such as POTA, SOTA, IOTA, WWFF, Walmart parking lots, etc. needs to be accounted for in all aspects of WRL.
I know they are in a park far from their QTH as listed in QRL or WRL. They told me what park they are in and clearly they are not at home. I need to be able to edit and/or delete their “home” QTH information.
I want to click on the “Their Location” button before I enter the contact and edit (including making blank) any fields that WRL might put into the log entry, including:
Their Country
Their State
Their City
Their Grid
I need to be able to make them blank or null because I might not know that field. EG. if they are in a park I might not know their city or grid, or even state, as parks can be geographically large.
Having to going back into all my contacts afterwards via “Edit QSO” is a waste of time for everyone.
We do a callsign lookup via our internal databases and/or QRZ (if you have QRZ callsign lookup enabled in your account), that pulls the QTH information of the callsign. However if the person is at a park and a park (or sota references, wwff reference etc) reference is added then the location is pulled from the park reference when the contact is logged.
Hi Brad, thanks for the quick reply! The video was very helpful.
When entering the contact, I didn’t get the “Their Park” button. So WRL apparently assumes their home QTH. I need to add their park later via the QSO manager “Park to Park” button.
I activated a SOTA summit, so I used the “SOTA Activator Template”. Seemed like the logical choice for me. Apparently when I’m activating a SOTA summit I don’t get the “Their Park” button.
The info the other party tells me about their location can be very varied. They might be in a park, on a summit, on an island, in a WWFF, etc. I want to be able to enter whatever they happen to give me (park, summit, wwff, island, state) and only have accurate information get entered into the log.
@KA3ZPH Then you’ll just need to use a different logbook template (as mentioned in one of your tickets you submitted earlier) that has the fields you want access to, or create your own logbook template via World Radio League
Perhaps the issue is if “Their Park” spans multiple states, WRL doesn’t know which state to pick, and simply assumes their home state instead of the state blank.
Here’s a test case I worked up to replicate:
Enter a contact for W1AW with them being in park US-3378.
Enter a contact for W1AW with them being in park US-2001.
If I enter their park as US-3378 (Blue Ridge Parkway, spans NC and VA), WRL incorrectly puts their location as being in CT. WRL should leave the state blank.
If I enter W1AW’s park as US-2001 (totally in NY), WRL correctly overrides their home CT with NY.
@KA3ZPH Its mapping it correctly. See video below.
If the park reference from pota has multiple sates listed (like in your example) we can’t accurately gather the state data from the park reference which is why the state stays as their QTH, even though the actual qso data and qso is mapping correctly based off the gridsquare provided by the pota data.
In those cases you’ll either just need to leave it the way it is (because its mapping correctly) or during the QSO ask the person what state they are in. We only have so much data/information that is provided by the OTA sites that we can use during logging.
This is a small use case where the park is a trail park and has multiple states listed in the pota data but only 1 girdsquare. When the pota data for the park reference only has 1 state listed we can accurately use that state
Hi Brad, thanks for the reply. I appreciate your time working with me on this.
Back to the reason I started this thread: If I know the other op isn’t in their home state, but I don’t know what state they are in, I want to blank out their state (and city and grid).
I trust you understand completely that I don’t want inaccurate information in my logs.
I’ve narrowed down the problem some more. W1AW isn’t a member of WRL, so it wasn’t a good example, my mistake. You and James are members of WRL so let’s use y’all.
QSO 1 with W1AW:
I enter W1AW (non-WRL member) into Their Callsign. They tell me they are at park US-3378. I enter US-3378 as Their Park. I change Their State to “Select Region” I delete Their Grid and Their City. I hit “Log Contact”.
→ WRL respects my decision to delete the “Their State” field - it’s empty. Map plots to the POTA location for the park. I’m happy.
QSO 2 with K4AZE
I enter K4AZE (WRL member) into Their Callsign. They tell me they are at park US-3378. I enter US-3378 as Their Park. I change Their State to “Select Region” I delete Their Grid and Their City. I hit “Log Contact”.
→ It looks for a second like WRL respected my deletion. But wait for it, a couple seconds later, in the “Log” pane to the right, TN shows up. After a pause, WRL overrode my decision to delete the “Their State” field. Incorrect information is in the log. Not happy.
It plots to the center of the park, so that’s good.
QSO 3 with N0WRL:
I enter N0WRL into Their Callsign. They tell me they are mobile driving on an interstate somewhere in Ohio. I delete their default city and grid because I know they are wrong. I change the state to Ohio. I hit “Log Contact”.
→ WRL respected the state change to Ohio. But Their Grid got changed back to the grid for Atlanta (default QTH) and the map plots to Atlanta. Why doesn’t it plot to the center of Ohio? Not happy.
@KA3ZPH Ok I see now. Now we’re on the same page. I’ll add this as a feature request but the the trick is going to be setting a gridsquare somehow (for map plotting) that will map to the state if a user manually updates the state drop down. It still will never be 100% accurate i dont think because there is no way to know the exact grid within the state. We’ll have a brainstorming session on the best way to handle this.
