so ive been using Log4OM for a while now and honestly pretty happy with it for day to day stuff, QSL tracking, LoTW sync, all that. but every time contest season rolls around i feel like i should just be in N1MM because everyone else seems to be and the rate logging is just so much faster when things get busy. the problem is i really dont want to maintain two separate logs and then try to merge them after the fact because last time i did that with ADIF imports i ended up with a bunch of dupes in my main log that took forever to sort out.

also throwing WSJT-X into the mix because i do a fair amount of FT8 and that has its own logging thing going on. right now WSJT-X is set to UDP to Log4OM and it mostly works but occasionally it just stops sending spots and i have to restart something, never sure which end is the problem.

anyone running a similar setup or have a cleaner way to handle this? feels like im overcomplicating it but i also dont want to lose any QSOs between the cracks during a contest weekend

yeah the two-log problem is real and honestly i just gave up trying to keep them in sync. what i do now is N1MM is the contest log, full stop. after the contest i export the ADIF and import it into Log4OM and just let it handle dupes on import — there's a setting somewhere in the import dialog to skip exact dupes by callsign+band+mode+date, and that catches most of the mess. its not perfect but its maybe a 5 minute cleanup instead of an hour.

for WSJT-X the UDP dropout thing has been a known annoyance for years. i think sometimes it's a windows firewall thing silently blocking the packet after a while, or the port just goes weird. i added a firewall rule explicitly for WSJT-X UDP and it got a lot more stable. also make sure youre on a recent version of WSJT-X because there were some fixes in the 2.6.x builds related to logging.

I run N1MM exclusively during contests and dont even open Log4OM that weekend, then do the ADIF merge Monday morning. honestly after the first couple times you do it its not a big deal. the duplicate check in Log4OM on import is good enough for me.

the WSJT-X UDP thing though, i had that exact same problem and it turned out to be Log4OM going into some kind of idle state and not listening anymore. there might be a keepalive setting or something, i honestly just restart Log4OM if it goes quiet for more than like 20 minutes during an FT8 session. not elegant but it works