so ive been using Log4OM for general logging for maybe two years now and honestly i like it for day to day stuff, the interface makes sense to me and the cloudlog sync works fine but every time contest season rolls around i feel like im fighting it. switched over to N1MM last cqww and the difference for actual contesting is pretty obvious, the rate meter alone is worth it and the bandmap just works the way you expect it to.

my issue is WSJT-X. i run FT8 during some of the contests that allow it and getting WSJT-X to talk to N1MM has been kind of a headache. i got it working eventually using the UDP broadcast thing but every now and then it just stops logging to N1MM mid-contest and i have to restart something, not always sure what. Log4OM handles the WSJT-X connection way more gracefully in my experience but then i lose all the contest-specific stuff.

anyone else running this kind of hybrid setup or did you just pick one and commit. feels like theres no perfect solution here and im probably missing something obvious

yeah the UDP thing with N1MM and WSJT-X is flaky sometimes, i had the same drop-out problem last year during the ARRL DX. what fixed it for me was making sure windows firewall wasnt quietly blocking the port, i had an exception set but it wasnt applying to the right network profile, public vs private thing. once i sorted that it stayed connected for the whole contest without dropping. still not as seamless as i'd like but its workable.

as for Log4OM vs N1MM for contesting honestly just use N1MM, Log4OM is great software but it wasnt really built around contest workflow the same way. N1MM has been refined by contesters for like 20 years at this point and it shows. i keep Log4OM running on the side and just import the ADIF after the contest is done so my main log stays clean.

the import after approach is what most people end up doing i think. i tried to get clever and run both simultaneously for a while and it just created duplicate entries and headaches. not worth it. N1MM for contests, Log4OM or whatever else for everything else, sync them up after with an ADIF import and call it a day. WSJT-X UDP drops are annoying but restarting WSJT-X usually fixes it faster than digging into why it dropped in the first place, at least during an actual contest when you dont have time to troubleshoot