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Nexus manual · DX & awards

Logbook & QSL

The logbook is Nexus’s system of record: a persistent ADIF 3.1.4 store with full round-trip fidelity. It holds callsign, grid, entity, state, band, frequency, mode, the string RSTs each mode actually uses (FT8’s “−12” and CW’s “599” are both first-class), name/QTH, notes, POTA/SOTA references, and a per-QSO upload state for every online service — so “what has actually been uploaded where” survives restarts.

The tour

Each row is one QSO. The columns you’ll use most:

  • Call, band, mode, date/time, RST — the contact itself.

  • Entity / DXCC — resolved from cty.dat, first-class in the table.

  • QSL — which source confirmed the contact:

    • L — LoTW,
    • C — a paper card,
    • E — eQSL.

    Hover for the eligibility tooltip. eQSL is clearly labelled non-award: an E confirmation counts as a confirmation but not toward DXCC/WAS (ARRL doesn’t accept eQSL). This matters — see Awards & Journey.

Search matches callsigns and grids. The “needs confirmation” chip beside the search box filters to contacts without an award-eligible (LoTW/paper) confirmation — a QSL you’ve requested but not received still counts as unconfirmed and stays in that list.

Core workflows

Add or edit a QSO by hand

Press Log QSO for the manual entry form. It seeds the draft from what you were actually running: log a contact from the Phone cockpit and the draft says SSB, from CW it says CW — no more accidental “FT8” voice contacts. Edit any field inline; the store round-trips to ADIF, so an export re-imports without loss.

When the open form stands taller than the pane holding it — 1024×768 at a large UI zoom is where you meet this — the pane scrolls and the Log button that commits the contact is one drag away. It is a scrollbar rather than more room: nothing moves at any window size where the form already fits.

Upload to LoTW

  1. Set your LoTW Station Location (and optionally the TQSL path) in Settings ▸ Logging & Connectors. Nexus signs through your installed TQSL against that named Station Location — no certificate or password is stored by Nexus.

  2. Click Upload to LoTW in the logbook. The button shows the count of un-uploaded QSOs; it signs and uploads the unsent batch.

  3. Pull confirmations back with Sync LoTW now (Settings ▸ Logging & Connectors). The first sync pulls your whole history; later syncs are incremental. Syncing also marks which of your uploads LoTW holds on file, so a pending contact reads “waiting on the other op,” not “never uploaded.”

    Purging the logbook resets that incremental position, so the next sync after a purge pulls your whole history again rather than only what LoTW has matched since you last synced.

    You can also feed Nexus a report you downloaded from the LoTW website by hand — either Sync confirmations (which only ever updates contacts you already have) or Import ADIF works. Import adds any contacts the file has that you lack and applies the confirmations and award credits to the ones you already hold; its toast reports the two separately, so “0 imported, 24,163 existing QSOs updated” is the normal and correct result for a confirmation download.

Push a single QSO to QRZ / ClubLog / HRDLog

Auto-upload (configured per service in Settings ▸ Logging & Connectors) pushes each QSO as you log it. When one fails — a service was down, a key was wrong — the logbook gives you a per-row re-push for QRZ, ClubLog, and HRDLog.net so you can retry that one contact after fixing the cause. A “duplicate” result is the benign “already there” answer, not an error.

Mark a QSL sent

When you send a card or request, record it on the contact with Mark QSL sent, choosing the method — bureau, direct, or electronic. The row then shows a quiet “QSL sent … via …” note. Marking a request sent does not confirm the contact — it stays in the “needs confirmation” list until the reply comes back.

Understand why a contact isn’t confirmed

A per-QSO diagnostics view explains why award credit hasn’t landed yet — no upload sent, waiting on the partner, a date mismatch — with one-click fixes where they exist. Reconciliation tolerates ±1 day of midnight skew and matches by mode-class, so an FT4-vs-FT8 labelling difference doesn’t orphan a confirmation.

How uploads flow

Uploads happen in the backend log funnel: when a QSO is logged, the configured connectors push it. You don’t push from the logbook UI for the auto-upload path — the per-row buttons are for recovery when an automatic push failed. Credentials live only in the OS keychain; the Connections panel reads back presence (“credential stored”), never the secret itself.

Honest limits

  • eQSL never counts toward LoTW-grade awards — it’s a separate confirmation tier, enforced everywhere credit is computed.
  • HRDLog.net is a logging/awards site, not an ARRL confirmation source — an upload there never earns DXCC/WAS credit.
  • Nexus doesn’t store your TQSL certificate or LoTW signing password — LoTW signing is delegated to your installed TQSL.

This page is synced from docs/guide/logbook-qsl.md in the Nexus repo. Corrections belong there.