Amateur Radio Logbooks

Amateur Radio Logbooks - Should you keep them on paper or on a computer?

An accurate, written record is required if you plan to compete in any Amateur Radio contests, or if you need to prove later when and what was transmitted. This is important not only for hobby radio communications, but especially so for licensed amateur volunteers helping out in an emergency situation. (That is known as Emcomms -- which is short for Emergency Communications. This is where you work under stress for days or even weeks at a time, and when it is all over, officialdom wants a record off you of all transmissions sent and messages received. You need to log everything!)

The written radio log book helps you to prove you actually did 'talk' to these people at a certain date and time, and your 'log' can be compared against the logbook reports from the other participating radio amateur operators. This information may be used by the authorities to create a picture of how an event unfolded, and is typically used by coroners' courts.

A few decades ago, licensed amateur radio operators were required by law to write down every single transmission in their log book, which could be inspected at any time by a government Radio Inspector. We even had to write down every little test transmission, even if we just pressed the push-to-talk button on the microphone or tapped on a morse key. The same applied if we dropped a carrier so we could measure the VSWR on a transmitting antenna.

These radio inspectors of 'RIs' (as we used to refer to them here in Australia) were radio technicians who were allowed to come into your home, read through all your logbooks, and then examine and test your two-way radios. And if the RIs found fault with what you had been doing, they could (and often did) fine the radio operator. They were even empowered to confiscate the offender's radio equipment as well.

Nowadays, it is completely optional to keep and maintain an Amateur Radio Operator's log book. But many licensed Hams still do. It is quite interesting and useful to be able to go back and see who you talked to overseas and when. You can see from your signal reports when the different HF bands were open to what parts of the world, and see from the signal reports what the radio propagation was like. Hams who are serious about propagation will even make a note of what sunspot cycle they were in, the measured solar flux, and so forth. These readings can be found on the internet by looking for 'ionospheric prediction' and similar phrases.

With a modern computer-based ham radio logbook, you can type in a callsign you have just heard over the radio seen come up on the screen, and your logbook database will come back in an instant and show you if you have ever worked that operator before. And with an internet connection, some of the programs will connect with a public database of amateur radio operators, look up their callsign and come back and tell you who they are.

If you have already worked that station, then the logbook will show the date and time, and the guy's name and location and everything. That is really convenient, and can make it appear that you have an amazing memory!

And if you have not communicated with that callsign before, many logbook programs can tell you right away if you need to talk to that radio station to score a new country for your collection of two-way radio contacts. These count for awards such as the DXCC (awarded for talking with 100 different overseas countries on your 2-way radio) and other certificates issued by the ARRL in the US, and other organizations in other countries..

It takes a lot of hard work to earn these awards, which is why most radio hams are proud to mount and display them on the walls of their 'shack' - or radio room.