June VHF Contest with SOTA and POTA

Ragchew
1

Today I activated a SOTA and POTA while doing the VHF Contest. A problem occurred while logging grids. For the SOTA Challenge, you must enter the 6-digit grid. I did each time. When I checked my log later, only the 4-digit grid was logged.

Kent

N6WT

2

Hi Kent,

Thanks for flagging this. I looked through the PoLo source to try to understand what might be happening.

One thing I noticed: the grid entry field is currently only shown when the band is 2m or 70cm and the mode is CW, SSB, or USB. If any of your VHF contest QSOs were on 6m, the grid field wouldn’t have appeared at all for
those contacts, so no grid would be stored — rather than a 4-digit one being stored.

A couple of questions that would help narrow it down:

  1. What band(s) were you operating on when you noticed the truncated grids?
  2. How are you checking your log — the in-app QSO list, an exported ADIF, or the SOTA database after upload?

The second question matters because the display path and the stored/exported path are separate, and it would help confirm whether the grid is being lost on entry or at export/upload time.

73, Chris (2E0FRU)

3

Chris

I was only on 2 meters CW and SSB.

I looked at it through the app and then the exported ADIF. Both only had the 4 digit grids. If I tried to edit a qso through the app with the correct 6 digit grid, when I would hit save, the 6 digit grid was not saved.

In order to upload the log to the SOTA Database and get credit, I had to edit the ADIF and enter the correct grid.

Also, when I tried to upload the log file to the contest site, I encountered errors.

  • It did not like that it had the signal report (59 or 599) with the 4 digit grid. I deleted the signal reports.
  • It did not like the frequency, like 144200. It wanted just 144.
  • I had chosen the ARRL VHF June (Beta) contest in the app. I noticed that the contest shown in the log file was the CQ WPX contest. I had to fix that.

Hope that helps.

Kent N6WT

4

Hi Kent, Sebastian,

I’ve been digging into the updated code (post-June release) and I think I’ve found the root causes.

Grid showing as 4-digit (and edit not sticking to 6-digit):

In ARRLVHFContestsExtension.js, processQSOBeforeSaveWithDispatch runs before every QSO is saved:

qso.their.grid = _trimmedGrid({ grid: qso.their?.grid ?? qso.their?.guess?.grid, test })

where _trimmedGrid returns grid.substring(0, test.exchange[0] === ‘grid6’ ? 6 : 4).

ARRL VHF June is configured with exchange: [‘grid4’] in all-events.js, so any grid — however many characters Kent typed — gets truncated to 4 before saving. This is technically correct for the contest rules (ARRL VHF June
exchanges are 4-char grid squares, e.g. FN20), but it means 6-char grids can’t be stored for personal records. Kent, is your expectation that 6-char grids should be captured alongside the 4-char contest exchange?

Cabrillo CONTEST header:

cabrilloHeaders in ARRLVHFContestsExtension.js writes:
headers.push([‘CONTEST’, CQ-WPX-${ref.mode}])

That looks like a copy-paste from CQWPXExtension.js — it should be an ARRL VHF identifier, not CQ-WPX. The ADIF CONTEST_ID field (which uses test.cabrilloName ?? test.key = ‘ARRL-VHF-JUN’) looks correct, so this only
affects Cabrillo exports.

6m and the grid field:

The ARRL VHF contest extension has standardExchangeFields: { grid: true } unconditionally, so 6m contacts show the grid field correctly. The SOTA extension only enables grid for 2m/70cm (vfo.band === ‘2m’ || ‘70cm’), so a
pure SOTA activation on 6m wouldn’t show the grid field — but that’s a separate concern.

Frequency:

Internally frequencies are stored in kHz; ADIF export divides by 1000 to get MHz. If 144.200 MHz is stored as 144200 kHz, the export gives 144.200000 which is correct. Kent, are you seeing 144200 in the ADIF FREQ field,
or in the Cabrillo frequency column? Cabrillo uses kHz, so 144200 there would be correct.

73 de Chris 2E0FRU

5

Yes, the SOTA 2m/70cm Challenge requires a 6-char grid to be entered for credit. You say “alongside”? Not sure about that? There would be a separate field for the 6-char grid?

In the ADIF for SOTA and POTA it is 144.200. In the Cabrillo it is 144200, however when I uploaded it to the contest site it did not like that format. It said “That Frequency is not used in this contest” (or something like that). When I edited the Cabrillo to 144, it liked that and was able to upload it.

6

I hadn’t thought about the interaction between VHF Contest and SOTA, each needing grid in different formats.

I’ll have to figure out how to properly handle this.

7

Thanks Sebastian!