so ive been running Log4OM for a while now mostly because it looks nice and handles my everyday qso logging pretty well, links up with QRZ no problem and the awards tracking is decent. but every time a contest comes around i feel like im fighting it a little. its not really built for that fast paced stuff where youre running a pileup and just need to slam calls in quick without thinking about it.

started messing with N1MM last contest season and yeah okay i get why contesters swear by it. the macro system is nuts once you figure it out and the bandmap integration is way better than i expected. but man the interface looks like it hasnt been touched since like 2003 and half the settings are buried in menus that dont make any sense until someone explains them to you.

my current situation is i run WSJT-X for FT8 and that logs to ADIF fine, i just import into Log4OM after a session. works okay. but when i do a contest with N1MM i end up with a seperate log i have to merge later and its kind of a mess. anyone found a good workflow for keeping everything in one place without losing your mind? or do most of you just accept that contest logs live in N1MM and everyday stuff lives somewhere else

yeah pretty much exactly what you said — i gave up trying to merge everything into one master log a while back. N1MM for contests, period. Log4OM or even just plain WSJT-X logging for the digital stuff day to day. the ADIF import into Log4OM is good enough that i just do a batch import every week or so and call it done. trying to keep one live log for everything sounds nice in theory but in practice something always breaks or duplicates or the timestamps get weird.

the N1MM interface thing is real but honestly after a few weekends with it you stop noticing. its ugly but its fast and thats kind of the whole point. i tried using Log4OM in a contest once and by the second hour i was losing my mind waiting for it to do things N1MM does instantly. different tools for different jobs i guess

dont sleep on just letting WSJT-X log directly to its own ADIF and then importing periodically, thats what i do and it works fine. the only time it gets annoying is when you forget to import before a contest and then you might work dupes but honestly for FT8 that barely matters.

one thing i'll throw out there — if you havent looked at the N1MM and WSJT-X integration thats actually built in now, might be worth a look. you can have them talk to each other over UDP and N1MM will log the FT8 qsos directly during a contest. i set it up for field day this year and it mostly worked, had one weird issue where it was doubling some contacts but i think that was my own fault with the port settings. point being you dont necessarily have to live with two completely seperate workflows if youre doing a contest that includes digital modes