so ive been using N1MM pretty much exclusively for a few years now and it works great for contests obviously, but i keep running into this issue where i want to use it for regular QSOs and casual operating and it just feels like overkill or maybe the wrong tool, like the interface is clearly built around running stations and S&P and all that contest workflow, not just sitting down on a Tuesday evening and working some DX on 17m and having it log nicely with notes and QSL tracking and all that

a buddy of mine at the club has been using Log4OM v2 for a while and keeps saying it does both worlds pretty well, handles day to day logging with all the awards tracking and DXCC and everything but also has decent contest support, i havent actually sat down with it myself yet just seen it over his shoulder a couple times

my other thing is WSJT-X obviously auto logs to whatever you point it at and i have it pointing at N1MM right now during contests which works fine, but when im just doing FT8 casually i kinda dont want to fire up N1MM just for that, so ive been running WSJT-X standalone and then importing the ADIF later which is always kind of a mess honestly

anyone else juggle multiple logging programs or did you find one that handles all of this without being annoying? not looking to run two logbooks long term if i can avoid it

yeah i went through basically this same thing a couple years ago. ended up settling on Log4OM as my main shack log and it handles the WSJT-X integration pretty cleanly actually, you just point WSJT-X at Log4OM via the UDP port and it picks up the QSOs in real time, no importing needed. the DXCC tracking and LoTW sync is way nicer than anything ive tried to hack together in N1MM for day to day use.

that said i still keep N1MM installed and fire it up for any serious contesting because honestly nothing touches it for that, the bandmap and the rate display and all the keyboard shortcuts are just muscle memory at this point and i dont think Log4OM is really trying to compete with it in that space. after the contest i just import the N1MM ADIF into Log4OM to keep everything in one place. little annoying but its like a 2 minute job so whatever

im sort of in the opposite situation where i started with Log4OM and then had to learn N1MM when i started doing more contests and honestly N1MM still kind of confuses me outside of contest mode lol. like i fired it up once just to log a casual CW contact and couldnt even figure out where to put notes or check my DXCC status without digging through menus for 10 minutes

the WSJT-X thing is a real pain if you dont get the UDP setup right though, i had it double logging for a while before i figured out what was going on, Log4OM has a setting somewhere in the preferences for the WSJT-X listener port and if you also have JTAlert running it can get weird with all three talking to each other at once. took me an afternoon to sort out but once its right it just works