Awards

OpsLog has a flexible awards engine. Award definitions and reference lists are shared globally across profiles.

Built-in awards

DXCC, WAS / WAZ / WAC, WPX, IOTA / POTA / SOTA / WWFF, DDFM (French departments), and more — tracked worked / confirmed / validated by band and mode.

How matching works

An award scans a QSO field (state, QTH, address, notes, …) for a reference, using one Match by mode:

code — the field value is the reference (e.g. state = NY).
description — the reference's name appears in the field (substring, space-sensitive — "Hongkong" won't match "Hong Kong").
pattern — the field is tested against a regex.

Plus a leading/trailing strip, a prefix prepended to found references, a dynamic mode (any value counts, like POTA), and the fallback searches described below.

The five rules to remember

Every regex is case-insensitive. Award and per-reference patterns match regardless of case (log fields are typed however the operator felt) — so \bTok[iy]o\b catches TOKYO, Tokyo and even TOKIO. Set your own flag group (e.g. (?s)) to override.
A reference's own Pattern is opt-in extra recognition. On the References tab each reference has a Pattern (regex) field. Fill it to recognise a reference by more than its name — spelling variants, or the cities/terms that imply it. Leave it empty and the reference is matched by name only. Example — Jiangsu (China) carries the cities in its own regex: \b(Jiangyin|Wuxi|Suzhou|Nanjing|Changzhou)\b.
description also runs the per-reference regexes (on the same field). A description search looks for the reference name OR fires each reference's own Pattern — so a description award over the QTH/address will auto-match your city regexes with no extra rule. (A reference with an empty Pattern stays name-only.)
OR rules are ordered fallbacks (first hit wins). The Fallback searches section adds extra searches tried in order, only while nothing has matched yet — the first that finds a reference wins and the rest are skipped (short-circuit, like a chain of else-if). So a province already resolved by name isn't also re-tagged, possibly differently, by a later city regex.
Scope is checked first — a manual reference does not bypass it. DXCC filter, valid bands / modes / emission and the valid-from/to dates gate every QSO before any reference is looked at. A 17 m QSO can't count for an award whose valid bands are 80/40/20/15/10 m, even if you assign the reference by hand. Widen the award's bands if it should count.

Tip — Hong Kong / Macau style mismatches: if the log says "Hong Kong" but the reference name is "Hongkong", either fix the name, or give that reference a Pattern like \bHong ?Kong\b. Thanks to rule 3 the pattern now works even for a description award — no separate rule needed.

Worked example — Worked All Provinces of China (WAPC)

A custom province award where the log rarely spells the province out (it names a city). The clean setup:

Primary: Search in QTH, Match by description.
Fallback search: Search in address, Match by description.
On the References tab, give each province a Pattern listing its cities.

Now a QSO is resolved by the province name if present, else by a city regex — first in the QTH, then in the address. First hit wins.

Live detection & manual refs

References are detected live as you enter a callsign.
You can manually assign a reference to a QSO (the Award Refs tab of the QSO editor). It's stored in an ADIF extra (APP_OPSLOG_AWARDREFS) so it survives export/import — see Import and Export ADIF — and is honoured everywhere (award panel, grid columns, totals). For a list-backed award the assigned reference must still be a valid, listed reference, and the QSO must be in scope (rule 5) for it to count.

Reference lists & display

Import reference lists for totals and names.
Per award, choose what the Recent-QSOs column shows: reference, name, or both. Award columns are opt-in per the Columns picker (Recent QSOs and Filters).

Rescan

Rescan re-pulls the logbook and recomputes — it picks up fresh LoTW / QRZ / eQSL confirmations (see QSL Management).

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