Cabrillo Standard Should be Followed
The rules for a particular QSO Party reference a document describing the Cabrillo tags they use to describe the CATEGORY of the submitted log thus…
- Operator-category (SINGLEOP / MULTISINGLE / MULTIMULTI / SWL)
- Power-category (HIGH / LOW / QRP)
- Location-category (FIXED / MOBILE / EXPEDITION)
However, the Cabrillo Version 2 specification defines the values for these tags at this web site…
The allowed format for the CATEGORY line is…
CATEGORY: operator-category band-category power-category [mode-category]
While there is no “Location” Category element there is probably no harm adding new words to the category as any well written Cabrillo Parser can ignore unknown values.
The problem is when existing defined value are re-defined. Such is the case above with the OPERATOR-CATEGORY. The valid choices from the Cabrillo v.2 spec are:
- SINGLE-OP not SINGLEOP
- MULTI-MULTI not MULTIMULTI
- MULTI-SINGLE not MULTISINGLE (does not actually exist in Cab v2)
The whole goal of the Cabrillo “standard” is to provide log parsers with a consistent set of parameters everyone can agree to. If you are going to say you use “Cabrillo” you are obligated to adhere to its dictates.
There are some well meaning folks out there who think they have a better approach to standards. It is true that standards by definition are limiting. That’s the whole point. It is a line drawn in the sand so that many folks can speak the same language. Anyone who attempts to add their own twist to Cabrillo can no longer say they use Cabrillo. It is as simple as that.
The same holds true for the even more important QSO: lines defined differently for various contests. One example is for the ARRL VHF contests…
--------info sent------- -------info rcvd--------
QSO: freq mo date time call grid call grid
QSO: ***** ** yyyy-mm-dd nnnn ************* ****** ************* ******
QSO: 50 PH 1997-09-13 1804 NJ2L FN12fr KB2DMK FN12
You can see the actual column position of each data element is defined. However, various logging programs differ in the positioning of each value. That’s actually not a big deal because the Cabrillo specification has ensured at least one whitespace character is between each element. Any good program can easily bust up the QSO: line elements with this simple regular expression written in PHP…
// Bust the QSO line up by whitespace
// and forget about exact positioning.
$qso_array = split(" +",$oneline);
…where $oneline is the whole QSO: line one line at a time.
Anyway…
If you want Logging programs to support your QSO Party you are well advised to never invent your own Cabrillo values.
Cabrillo is an evolving standard. The latest version appears to be 3.0. More headers are defined and they break up the former single CATEGORY line with multiple parameters into, instead, multiple headers with a single parameter. This is a logical progression and I applaud the Cabrillo standard makers for this kind of thinking.
Standards can be limiting, but Cabrillo limitations have revolutionized ham radio logging and post-processing. Don’t mess with a good thing with your own “innovations.”
