Logging spreadsheets

[w9wi]

Howzabout everyone who uses a spreadsheet or other standard office application for logging to upload a copy of their log, or at least a representative sample? It'd be interesting to see how everyone does it...

[KW4RZ]

I use Microsoft Excel and put together a spreadsheet with data configured so that it can be sorted in a multitude of methods later on.

On the bottom tab Sheet 1 is my everyday working log with everything that I've heard, including relogs of Es, Ms and significant tropo. I started listing new stations in bold as of July 1, 2006. Color coding = ionizing red for Es, earth green for tropo and sky blue for meteor scatter. I'm not sure if Crayola uses these colors in their standard box but they seemed appropriate for DX. I don't separate ground wave from tropo enhanced signals.

Sheet 2 is the total station log with enties the first time I hear a new station. Callsigns/slogans/formats are changed with notes added when I hear them again after the change.

Sheet 3 contains the total list of all US FM's (mostly deleted in this example to save space). Extracted from Girard's spreadsheet and formatted so to simply copy and paste over to the working log and add in the date/time/mode/etc. data in the required cells. Foreign stations are hand typed in.

I started electronically logging everything in spring of 2005 and the stations that can be heard anytime are logged 2/1/05.

http://members.aol.com/randyinfla/KW4RZ_FM_log.xls


__________________
Randy KW4RZ Fort Walton Beach, FL EM60qk
___________________________________
FM DXing: Denon TU1500RD with 110kHz filters
Onkyo T-450RDS with 150kHz filters
8 element log periodic antenna 15 ft.
Total Recorder & Wavepad

[Mike-CT]

OK, you'd think somebody like me who has lived and DXed in the same place for over 30 years would have some kind of killer log. Not so. My log is the KISS LOG (yeah...keep it simple stupid log).

It's just the basics. It looked the same way when it was typed (before computers). Well, messier.

"Year" is the year I first heard the station. Since 2000 I've been adding the month and day. I keep track of call changes and sometimes I have 3 or 4 sets of calls listed under Orig Calls.

You can go crazy with this, but what I have is all I really care about. Heck, I've never even had time to do mileages, and probably never will, at the rate I'm going.

This excel log is a cut-and-paste from my database log which is an .edb file. It's the same database I use for WTFDA membership.

[Mountaintop NJ]

I'd put my file up, but it is about a meg and a half. I just have date, prop mode, mileage and azimuth in addition to call, city and state.

[Michael-NJ]

Sorry about the size limits, looks like they were only set at 200K. I've bumped up the upload max, it should be fine now.

lets see some logs

[Russ-PA]

Mine is in an Lotus spreadsheet with multiple sheets -
first one is the running log of what's heard, 2nd is
new logs & call changes, with the latter separately
marked so I can sort them out as needed. 3rd is a
by-frequency sort; 4th is by state. Finally I then
keep totals by both frequency and state. I track only
date, time, freq., calls, city, state and brief
program notes such as you see in VUD ( since that's
where I copy them from to send in.)

The thing is too big to upload even with the expanded limits
and would be a pain to try to re-create a sample of. I've
threatened to convert it to Excel several times before
but since Excel more than doubles the size, I didn't do so
as long as the Lotus spreadsheet wouls still fit on a floppy
disk. With floppies becoming obsolete and my file size getting
larger I no longer have that excuse, and since Excel offer me
ability to selectively sort on more fields than Lotus does, I
could likely eliminate the by-state and by-frequency panels,
although that would also force me to change how I calculate
my totals...

[Russ-PA]

I'm attaching some screen-shot samples of the log. I'll skip the panels which sort by Frequency and by state as they're both obvious and only bare-bones data.

[Guy in WNY]

I just use the WTFDA TV Station Guide. I pencil in the date next to the station. Not very fussy about such stuff - I mean it's a hobby and you put in however much time and effort you want to have fun. If it becomes work, well, that's another story.
So for my log, imagine a date penciled in next to the station in your TV Station Guide. As for propagation it does not matter much to me either. If I saw it and got a good ID then I mark down the date if it's new. I don't for relogs, for the most part.
See, I get the most enjoyment out of putting up antennas, hooking up wires, seeing if it will withstand the winter, stuff like that. How will a new amp improve my reception? Should I stack a pair of VHF low band antennas? Or high banders? Does the screen on the dish really help? How are other people doing these kinds of things? Do they need help or have questions? What can I do to help with your installation or station setup?
Guy in Lockport, NY

[John Wilke K9RZZ]

Here's my FM log. I use Star Office 5.2 (Sun Microsystems and free in it's day) and saved it as .xls. Hopefully it will be viewable.

John K9RZZ
Milwaukee

[John Wilke K9RZZ]

Here's my FM log. I use Star Office 5.2 (Sun Microsystems and free in it's day) and saved it as .xls. Hopefully it will be viewable.

John K9RZZ
Milwaukee

:duh:

FYI: the Y/N column is for "Recorded?"

John K9RZZ

[Jeff-MA]

Here's my log, in excel format. The 98.5/102.5/103.3 outage put me over 1200 stations logged :)

[w9wi]

Here's my FM log. I use Star Office 5.2 (Sun Microsystems and free in it's day) and saved it as .xls. Hopefully it will be viewable.

StarOffice is now OpenOffice.Org and still available free. It's been upgraded quite a bit since 5.2. As you might imagine, the download URL is http://www.openoffice.org . (and there are versions for Linux and Mac as well as the Windows version John is using. TV News is composed on OOO 2.0 on Linux.)

[Guy in WNY]

Some of you would be well advised to switch to Access for your database. It's very popular, you can convert Excel files right into it, you can export files as Word or Excel. Say you want to send a form letter out to every station on your log and you have all of the addresses in your database. You just make up the form letter, use Mail Merge to set up the blank spots to be filled in from the selected fields in your database, and send it to the printer. Out they come, with the blanks all filled in just right. The whole idea of a database is to only put in the data once and then "parse" the data for your output. I've used it to mass mail form letters and to do tank reports for where I work.
But I don't really keep a "real" log so what the heck do I know about it?
Guy in Lockport, NY

[dlp85x]

Here's my DX log. I have it sorted out by frequency, date, state, distance and calls. I also have my TV log and a stats page included. The black stations are groundwave, blue is Tr, red is Es, and green is Ms.

Edit: I forgot to mention that all of the RDS information in my DX log was received after 8/06 when I got my Denon tuner. This explains why, in some instances, the RDS readout listed shows a different station name versus what is listed in the original logging.