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Your logbook

Your RemoteMyShack account has a logbook for your contacts (QSOs). Open it from your Account page with Logbook. It has five tabs: Contacts, Map, DXCC & WAS, Import / export and QRZ & LoTW.

Bringing in your existing log

In your logging program (or LoTW or QRZ), export your log as an ADIF file (.adi).
In the logbook, open Import / export and click Choose an ADIF file.
When it finishes, you'll see how many contacts were added, how many were already in your log, and how many couldn't be read, with the reasons.

Importing is safe to repeat: a contact with the same callsign, date and time, band and mode as one already in your log is skipped. Files of up to 50 MB can be imported at once.

Fields your log uses that RemoteMyShack doesn't show, such as your rig or antenna, are kept and come back out when you export.

Bringing in your LoTW log and confirmations

Connect your Logbook of The World account and RemoteMyShack keeps your logbook in step with it:

In your logbook, open QRZ & LoTW.
Under Logbook of The World, enter your LoTW website username and password (the ones you use at lotw.arrl.org, not your TQSL certificate), and click Connect. RemoteMyShack checks them with LoTW.
The first sync starts straight away. It brings in every contact you've uploaded to LoTW that isn't already in your logbook, and marks every contact confirmed on LoTW as confirmed. A big log can take LoTW several minutes to send.

After that it syncs every few hours by itself, and whenever you click Sync now, fetching only what's new on LoTW since the last time. The tab shows when it last synced and how many contacts and confirmations it brought in, or what went wrong.

A LoTW contact counts as one already in your logbook when it has the same callsign and band and starts within two minutes of it. The mode doesn't have to match, because LoTW may group modes differently from your log.
A confirmation also fills in the other station's grid square, state, CQ zone and DXCC entity where your log entry doesn't have them, and the contact counts as confirmed for DXCC and WAS.
A confirmation for a contact that isn't in your logbook at all (uploaded to LoTW from another program) adds it, confirmed.
Contacts brought in from LoTW keep the details LoTW has: callsign, date and time, band, frequency and mode. LoTW doesn't have reports, names or notes.

Your LoTW password is stored encrypted and used only to download your LoTW log. Disconnect deletes it; contacts already brought in stay in your logbook.

Uploading to LoTW

LoTW only takes contacts signed with your callsign certificate, and that certificate stays in TQSL on your shack computer. RemoteMyShack sends the station's agent the contacts that aren't on LoTW yet, and the agent has TQSL sign and upload them, as a logging program would. Your certificate and its private key never leave the shack computer. Uploading doesn't need the LoTW sign-in above; confirmations for what you upload come back with the next sync if you've connected it.

To set it up:

On the shack computer, install TQSL, load your callsign certificate, and add a station location (Station Location › Add) for where the station is. The certificate can't have a password: the agent runs TQSL with no one there to type it.
In your logbook, open QRZ & LoTW. Under Upload to LoTW, choose the TQSL station location to sign with. If TQSL is installed somewhere unusual, tell it where under TQSL is installed somewhere else.
Click Upload now to send everything not on LoTW yet, or tick Upload new contacts by themselves to send each contact a minute after you log it. Contacts logged while the station is offline go within a few hours of it coming back.

Notes:

Contacts that came from LoTW or are confirmed on it aren't sent again. Nor are contacts imported with LOTW_QSL_SENT set to Y, as most logging programs export them once uploaded. If you uploaded your log from another program before and it doesn't say so, click These are on LoTW already so they aren't sent again. LoTW ignores ones it already has anyway.
Contacts are signed with the station location's callsign. A contact whose STATION_CALLSIGN is a different callsign (say, from an older callsign) isn't sent; upload those with TQSL yourself.
TQSL is sent only what LoTW matches on (callsign, date and time, band, frequency and mode). The station location says where you were. USB and LSB go as SSB.
The station must be online, since TQSL runs there. The panel shows how many contacts aren't on LoTW yet, and when the last upload ran and how it went.
Editing a contact after it's uploaded doesn't upload it again.

You can still Download ADIF from Import / export and sign it with TQSL yourself.

Logging from the console

The console always has the Log contact form open. Until you start a contact, its frequency, mode and time follow the radio (the time shows (now)). When you type the other station's callsign, or start recording, they hold: the contact starts then. Add the reports and a note if you like, and tap Log. USB and LSB are logged as SSB. Clear empties the form without logging.

Who you're working: QRZ lookups and earlier contacts

When you type a callsign in the console's Log contact form, or in Log a contact in your logbook, RemoteMyShack shows:

Your earlier contacts with that station: how many times you've worked them, and the latest few with date, band, mode, reports and a ✓ if confirmed. Portable calls count as the same station, so W1AW/P finds your contacts with W1AW. If you've never worked them, it says it's your first contact.
Their QRZ.com record, once you've connected your QRZ account: name, city, state and country, grid, CQ zone, license class, photo, whether they use LoTW, eQSL or paper QSLs, and how far away they are and in which direction (the beam heading) from your station. The callsign links to their QRZ page.
Whether they use LoTW: when they last uploaded to LoTW, from ARRL's list of LoTW users, or that they never have. Someone who uploaded recently is likely to confirm your contact on LoTW.
A map, under the form in the console's Log tab, always showing: the world, centered on your station's longitude. Layers, each turned off and on under the map (each device remembers your choice):
- Weather: rain worldwide, a satellite estimate from NASA that is a few hours old, and US radar from the National Weather Service, a few minutes old. Under the map it says what time each is for.
- Day/night: the night side is shaded; the edge of the shading is the grayline.
- DX spots: DX cluster spots from the last 30 minutes, as dots at each station's country center. Point at a spot to see who it is; click it to tune.
- RBN: the Reverse Beacon Network skimmers that heard you in the last 15 minutes, or, once you type a callsign, that heard them. Each skimmer is a diamond with a line to the station it heard, green for a strong signal (20 dB or more), amber for a fair one (10 to 19 dB) and blue for a weak one. Point at a skimmer for its signal report, frequency, mode, speed and when it heard them.
Type a callsign and their station appears with the great-circle path from yours, labeled with the distance (km and miles) and the beam heading. Point at their dot (or tab to it) to see their QRZ photo, name and location. Under the map it says where their position comes from, most exact first: QRZ's location, their QRZ grid, the grid of your latest contact with them, or, failing those, the center of their country. Your own position (the ring) comes from the grid on your public page, or your QRZ record; without either, the map is centered on Greenwich and shows no paths.
Callsigns in capitals: the callsign box turns what you type into capitals as you type, in the console and in the logbook's form.

When you log the contact, their name, city, state (in the United States) and grid go into the log entry. In the logbook's form they only fill fields that are empty, so they never replace what you typed.

Connecting QRZ

In your logbook, open the QRZ & LoTW tab.
Enter your QRZ.com username and password, and click Connect. RemoteMyShack checks them by signing in to QRZ.
It says whether your QRZ account has an XML subscription. Full records need one; without it, QRZ sends only a few details, such as the name and country.

Your QRZ password is stored encrypted and used only for your lookups. It's never shown again; Disconnect deletes it. Each lookup counts toward your QRZ account's daily lookups, so RemoteMyShack keeps a looked-up record for an hour rather than asking QRZ again. If you change your QRZ password, enter the new one on the QRZ & LoTW tab.

Distances and directions are from your station's grid square on your public page settings, or from your own QRZ record if you haven't set one.

The Reverse Beacon Network

The Reverse Beacon Network is hundreds of receivers ("skimmers") around the world that decode CW, RTTY, FT8 and FT4 and report every station they hear calling CQ, with its signal strength. Call CQ and within a minute or two the map in the console's Log tab shows which skimmers heard you and how strongly: a quick check of where your signal is going. Type a callsign to see who hears that station instead, which shows whether a path to them is open.

Skimmers only report CQs (and beacons) in those modes, so a phone contact or a station answering a call won't show. Skimmers are placed at their grid square from RBN's list; one that isn't on the list is placed at its country's center. RemoteMyShack reads RBN's feeds for everyone while a console is asking; it never posts anything to them.

The map

The Map tab shows your contacts on a world map, one dot per grid square:

Orange dots are places you've worked, green ones places with a confirmed contact; bigger dots mean more contacts. Contacts without a grid are shown as a ring at their country's center. Point at a dot to see the grid, how many contacts and which bands, the latest calls, and the distance and direction from your station.
World shows the whole world; From my station centers the map on you, so a straight line from the middle is the beam heading to that place and the distance from the middle is the true distance.
Turn layers on and off: Contacts, Paths from home (the great-circle path to each place), Day and night (the grayline, with twilight shaded, updated every minute) and Grid squares (Maidenhead fields, labeled as you zoom in, and squares when you zoom in further).
Show one band or mode, or Confirmed only. Scroll or pinch to zoom, and drag to move.

Recording a contact

Recording contacts is part of the Super Station plan (and of the free trial). On other plans the button reads Record · Super Station plan; recordings you made before changing plans stay in your logbook and still play.

Tap Record in the Log contact form to record the contact. The recording has what you hear from the radio, and your microphone while you transmit from this console. The volume slider doesn't change it. While it runs, the button shows Stop and how long it's been going.

Tap Log and the recording stops and is attached to the contact. You can also tap Stop first; the recording waits, and is attached when you log the contact.
Discard throws a recording away without logging anything. Recording again before you log replaces it.

In your logbook (Logbook on your Account page), a contact with a recording shows ▶ and its length. Tap it to play the recording; Delete recording removes it and keeps the contact. Deleting a contact deletes its recording too. ADIF exports don't include recordings.

Recordings are compressed (about 14 MB an hour). Your account can keep 500 MB of them, about 35 hours, and one recording can be up to about two hours. When you run out of room, the console says so; delete old recordings in your logbook to make space.

FT8 contacts

With auto-sequencing on in the FT8 panel, each FT8 contact is logged by itself when it's made: their call and grid, the time, the frequency, both reports, and your grid (as MY_GRIDSQUARE in ADIF exports). If you're not online at the time, the station sends them when it reconnects.

Adding and editing contacts

On the Contacts tab, Log a contact opens a form for a contact you made somewhere else. Each contact has Edit and Delete. Filter the list by callsign (or its beginning), band and mode.

For each contact, RemoteMyShack works out the DXCC entity (country), CQ zone and continent from the callsign, using the same country file most logging programs use. Portable calls work as you'd expect: KH6/W1AW counts for Hawaii, W1AW/7 for the United States.

Exporting

Download ADIF on the Import / export tab saves your whole logbook as an ADIF file, oldest contact first. Upload it to LoTW through TQSL, to QRZ, or into any logging program.

Starting over

Delete all contacts on the Import / export tab empties your logbook. It asks you to click again to confirm. Export a copy first if you might want the contacts back.