so ive been running WSJT-X for FT8 for about a year now and i finally got around to doing a few contests last fall, nothing serious just ARRL Sweepstakes and one of the state QSO parties. i was using Log4OM to pull in the WSJT-X contacts via UDP which worked fine for everyday logging but during the contest i kept feeling like i was fighting the software instead of just operating.

a buddy at the club keeps telling me to just switch to N1MM for any contest stuff and use Log4OM for the day to day, which honestly makes sense on paper but then i have two logs to manage and i've already messed up merging ADIF files once before and lost about 40 contacts so that whole process makes me nervous. does anyone actually run this split setup reliably or is there a cleaner way to handle it. the WSJT-X integration with N1MM is something i havent really dug into yet and i dont know if that complicates things further or actually solves the problem

yeah the split setup is pretty much what everyone does once they get serious about contesting. N1MM is just in a different league for that stuff, the bandmap alone makes it worth the switch during a contest weekend. the WSJT-X integration actually works pretty well with N1MM, you run them both and N1MM picks up the logged contacts automatically over UDP same way Log4OM does. you do have to make sure they're not both listening on the same port at the same time though or things get weird fast.

for merging after the fact i just export the N1MM log as ADIF after the contest and import into Log4OM, takes maybe five minutes and ive never had a duplicate issue if you let Log4OM handle the dupe checking on import. the key is dont try to run both logging programs simultaneously during normal operating, pick one and stick with it for whatever session youre in.

honestly i just use N1MM for everything contest related and dont bother syncing it back to Log4OM most of the time. probably bad practice but i've been doing it for three years and havent died yet. the LOTW upload from N1MM is fine so confirmations still happen, i just have a slightly fragmented overall log which bugs me sometimes when i go looking for a specific contact.