I recently decided to update my old, neglected Phone DXCC award. It has probably been 40 years since any endorsements have been applied for. My primary concern over the years has been to keep my Mixed DXCC award up to date. Upon doing more research, I discovered that over the years I indeed had most of the outstanding entities confirmed either with an actual QSL card or by LoTW. After going through thousands of accumulated cards and LoTW confirmations, I realized that only two entities were needed to achieve first place on the DXCC Honor Roll Phone.
The two entities needed were Minami Torishima (also known as Marcus Island) and the South Shetland Islands. By doing online research of past operations, I quickly discovered that I had indeed worked KA1S on Minami Torishma in 1977. That left only the South Shetland Islands; I discovered that a number of stations had been worked but, unfortunately, all on CW or Digital.
The challenge became how do I get a confirmation from KA1S back in 1977? Back to the internet! My research included QRZ.com, K8CX.com, and the ARRL website. The ARRL website maintains an archive of some selected old operations. I then sent an email to the ARRL and found that the QSL gods were looking favorably on my efforts. The original logs from the KA1S operation were indeed on file and some were available on LoTW. Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain a paper QSL card, but the LoTW files were available. Within minutes the confirmation was applied to my DXCC account.
Here is a photo of an actual KA1S card from the K8CX.com website.
There are currently over 200 logs archived at ARRL made possible by an endowment from JA1BK. Many of the logs are already available on LoTW while many of the logs are in the process of being uploaded. The log archives can be located by using the search box located on the ARRL home page. The previously uploaded logs are noted on the list. Most of the logs on the list are pre-digital or pre-1990. Additional information is available including licensing documentation, landing permits, and other pertinent information from some operations.
Anyone wishing to contact the ARRL about searching available logs or to donate old logs, please email dxlogarchive@ARRL.org.
