so ive been using Log4OM for general logging for a while now and honestly i really like it for day to day stuff, the interface is pretty clean once you get used to it and the integration with clublog and qrz works well enough. but every time contest season rolls around i feel like im fighting it. ran the state qso party last weekend and the rate meter was doing weird things, not updating right or something, and i kept losing track of multipliers because the display just isnt set up the way my brain works during a pile up i guess.

couple guys at the club keep telling me to just use N1MM for contests and go back to Log4OM for regular logging, import the adif after. which i get but feels clunky. anyone actually running that kind of split workflow and does it cause problems with dupes or anything when you merge the logs back together. also wondering how WSJT-X fits into this because i do a fair amount of FT8 on the side and right now i have it logging to Log4OM directly via udp and that works fine but im not sure how that would interact if N1MM is also open during a contest weekend. like would they fight over the port or something

yeah the split workflow is basically what most serious contesters do, dont overthink it. N1MM for the contest, export the adif when youre done, import into your main logger. ive been doing it this way for years with no real issues. the dupe checking is a non-issue because youre running them as separate logs anyway — the contest log is its own thing and your main log is the master record. just make sure you dont have overlapping qso times causing confusion if you do any casual operating between contest sessions.

the WSJT-X thing is a valid concern though. if you have N1MM open and you also want to log FT8 via WSJT-X you'll need to think about the UDP ports. N1MM can actually receive UDP broadcasts from WSJT-X i believe, theres a setting in WSJT-X under reporting to enable that. so you can run FT8 and have it log directly into your N1MM contest log which is actually pretty slick for contests that allow digital modes. but if youre doing FT8 outside of the contest just close N1MM and let it go back to Log4OM, its not that complicated once you set it up once.

Log4OM for contests is rough, i tried it for a while. the rate display stuff never felt right to me either and honestly for anything fast paced id just default to N1MM. its ugly as sin but it works and the support from the N1MM users group is really good if you run into trouble with a specific contest's exchange or something.

one thing to watch — when you import the adif back into Log4OM after the contest check for any weird character stuff in the comment fields, ive had it mangle some exchange data before. nothing that affected the actual log just looked messy. probably a Log4OM version thing more than an N1MM thing but worth knowing