20170312 - John Moyle Field Day - Logging with VKCL

In preparing for the upcoming John Moyle Memorial Field Day contest, have you worked out how you are going to do your logging? There are a bunch of different awards up for grabs - but if you don't submit your log, you didn't really participate.

You could always take a field book with you, or other scraps of paper, but why not use VKCL?

VK Contest Log, more frequently known as VKCL, is a logging program produced in Australia by Mike, VK3AVV, to cater specifically for Australian radio contests. However, it also provides capability for a number of the bigger international contests.

It produces a number of different log formats including Cabrillo, the bare bones logging format becoming popular with many contest managers.

VKCL is freely available on the internet at mnds.com.au. You can also Google search VKCL, or look for the links from this story on vk6.net, which include the contest rules from the WIA.

The program is quite mature, and has been used by many people in various contests with great success.

Download and installation is quite simple and the program has excellent help pages included.

It is important to be sure you have downloaded and tested the latest version of VKCL well before you start your contest, as contest rules change all the time, and new contests are always being added.

Check the VKCL website a couple of weeks out from the contest and if there is a new version download it and be sure to test it well ahead of time.

As we go to air, the current version is 3.14, released on the 16th of November 2016.

VKCL can be used with third party program called Omni-Rig to read band and frequency data from your radio. It is important to understand that VKCL does not control the radio, only reads information from it.

Of course, Interfacing to your radio is optional, as many people just run the software on their PC and enter the log themselves.

By the way, VKCL isn't only for contesting, you can also easily use it as your own simple station log.

Links:

Software Download: http://www.mnds.com.au/vkcl/

JMFD Logging: http://www.mnds.com.au/vkcl/jmfd.htm

JMFD Contest Rules (WIA): http://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/johnmoyle/