HRD (Ham Radio Deluxe) is the everyday ham radio logging program I use. I use N1MM for contesting and export the ADIF after a contest and import that ADIF into HRD and maintain all contacts there. HRD has recently been upgraded to support ham radio award tracking for awards such as DXCC, WAC (Worked All Continents) and WAS (Worked All States) and I wanted to start taking advantage of the new feature. Because automation is only available for a portion of the process, it takes time and effort even with all these tools, to get things tagged properly.

HRD now supports uploading/downloading of LoTW QSOs & QSLs within the program. Previously it was manual or you could, like I did, you use a terrific program from Stephen WD5EAE called Ham Radio Deluxe Utlities (HRDU). HRDU still has many valuable feature/uses but it looks like the upload/download to LoTW can be handled within HRD natively now. HRD will set any download QSLs to the Verified status which means they are acceptable to submit as an award contact if needed. For paper QSL cards, you need to do that manually when the cards come in. Here are some links to info on HRD & LoTW:

HRD LoTW Upload function
HRD LoTW Download function

If you used HRD Utilities to download from LoTW, all the LoTW QSL Received statuses will be set to Yes and those all need to be Bulk Edited to Verified in a one-time update.  To update all the LoTW records marked as Yes from HRDU, specify a filter of LOTW Received Contains Y and that will show you all records that are matched QSLs in LoTW. Highlight all records, right click and select Bulk Editor / Any Fields / Fields tab / Add Field. Select LOTW Received in the Field drop-down and select Verified in the List drop-down. Click the Ok button to update them all.

The newer award feature within HRD will show which various supported awards (DXCC, WAS, WAC, etc) have Verified contacts (paper or LoTW) that could be applied. Here are some links to help explain the new HRD QSO status workflow and awards functionality:

HRD QSO tracking & Awards
HRD QSO Status (PDF)
HRD Award Status

Make sure you also upgrade your tQSL program. Many folks are still using v1.11 and v1.13 is required. You can find the link to v1.13 of tQSL at https://p1k.arrl.org/lotwuser/default with the link being on the right side. Download the zip file and run the enclosed exe file to upgrade.

But for those of us already with awards, there’s no easy way to tell HRD which contacts have been submitted and granted approval for an award. Add on top of that the awards can be a combination of LoTW submitted QSLs as well as paper QSLs.  I had noted my most recent paper QSL submission but I didn’t have or couldn’t find my original DXCC submission which contains the list of 19 QSL cards applied to my DXCC awards. I put out a request on a couple of forums/mailing lists and was lucky to get a great reply from AA6YQ who happens to be the developer of the DXLab suite of programs. He indicated a way in LoTW to get a listing of the calls for each application which you can further drill down to in order to find the exact QSO that it references.  So off I went following the below steps that each provided me the contact in my log to go into and specify it was used as the appropriate award. I marked each as DXCC, Challenge, DXCC Mixed and either DXCC CW, DXCC SSB or DXCC RTTY depending on the mode of the contact.

The steps provided by AA6YQ:

Information about each QSO for which DXCC Credit was granted after the
DXCC Desk computerized its recordkeeping can be downloaded via the Awards
tab of the Lotw “Logbook Users’ Home Page.

1. Under the “Your LotW ARRL DXCC (DX Century Club) Accounts(s)” heading,
set the selector to your callsign, and then click the “Select DXCC Award
Account” button;  this will produce a table displaying your Account Status.

2. In the “Award Account Menu” on the left, click the “Account Credits”
link; this will produce a display containing an “Account Credits” panel.

3. In the  “Account Credits” panel, change the View selection to “All
credits”, set the Award selector to “Mixed”, and click the “Select DXCC
Award to View” button; this will produce a table with one row for each DXCC
entity displaying a hyperlinked callsign for the QSO for which DXCC credit
for that entity was granted.

4. Click any hyperlinked callsign to see the QSO’s date, mode, and band.

If you are pursuing band-specific, mode-specific, or DXCC Challenge
awards, then in step 3 set the Award selector to the appropriates Award name
and click the “Select DXCC Award to View” button; you’ll be shown a table
with hyperlinked callsigns for all award credits.

Note that this “works” for DXCC credits granted in response to the
submission of a QSL card, as well as DXCC credits granted in response to
submission of an LotW confirmation. The only limitation I’m aware of is that
QSOs granted credit before the DXCC desk computerized will not be retrieved.

Thanks again to Dave AA6YQ for those steps!!

My submission for WAC I had previously noted in another post on my site at WAC Award Arrives so I was able to get those calls and set the WAC award check boxes for them. I’ll go through the WAS & Triple Play awards and do the same for those, all of which in my case were submitted via LoTW and none via QSL cards.

Doing the above highlights some countries which I need to follow-up to get QSLs for any band./mode as well as some awards which I can submit additional contacts for that previously I might have overlooked.  It took a couple of nights to get things all squared away and I have under 200 confirmed so if you’re up there or not quick on the keyboard/mouse, it could take longer. But I think it is worth it in the end both.

73,
K2DSL