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How one click can change the day
30 January 2022 | by 
We all have read about backing up your PC in the event your beloved hard drive will just stop spinning out the information you have become accustomed to. I am sure most of us have added a few gray hairs when all our info vanished with the greetings of the blue screen of death (in the case of Windows) At that point in time the little voice in our subconscious whispers "just resort to the backup.....oh that's right there is NONE!!
Well, I am here to say that I did not have a hard drive failure and if I did I have a dedicated drive with clone backups of my main hard drive and another separate drive with image backups. These backups are done on a regular basis and in fact, I have had to go down the restore road twice now and it has worked amazingly.
My click of the mouse was during my just being bored and "clicking" around my logging program N3FJP logger. I still am not sure what I did but somehow I deleted my whole log...yup 16,000 contacts GONE! Well, not a big deal I thought as I also upload my contacts to LOTW, Club log, QRZ.COM and Eqsl. Soooo Eqsl I just could not figure out how you can even export contacts so that option was out. QRZ.COM you can export your log but first, you have to be a paid member and I am not. The free version only allows you to upload and I have no issue with that at all. I was then off to club log and for the life of me I searched everywhere and I could not find any link to download the complete log............having said that I know there is going to be a comment posted that explains it and I missed it. Well next is LOTW and again I could not find anything there.
Now I did post a question on N3JFP's contest logger IO groups site and Scott (The developer of the software) got back to me right away. Before I go on yes Scott is the developer but not just him it's his wife Kimberly and his son Chris who work as a team it just happened to be Scott that got back to me. He gave me a suggestion that also got me to think. Long story short I did find out that within the N3FJP logger program you can request LOTW to download a complete copy into N3FJP. Excellent my issue has been resolved.........not so fast!
It did download a complete copy of the log BUT the number in which the contacts were entered was reversed......so my first contact was numbered 16001 and my most recent was 1 ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!.
It was time for tea and some relaxation as really in the big picture it's a hobby and not the code for a missile launch. The next day I was reading the email again that Scott had sent me and at the bottom of the email there was a link. It was a bot in which you entered your question and the bot did the search. Low and behold the bot gave me info on how N3FJP automatically stored a backup of the log. I found the backup and was thrilled. So I deleted the complete log again (on purpose this time) and restored my log using this back up and I was back in biz!!
The lesson of the day is yes you may have a backup for your PC and I do BUT being a ham a log backup is also very important just in case like me you end up clicking your mouse one too many times and well.....you read the possible results.
6 Responses to “How one click can change the day”
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- Matt W1MST, Managing Editor
A valuable lesson learned, back up your logs! I used DXLabs Suite and the creator stresses always back up your logs, and keep a copy external to your PC. In fact there’s an option to backup a copy every time you exit the program. So glad you were able to recover your log. Maybe the creator of N3FJP can put an auto backup option so that it will backup the log once in a while.
73
Ron N8WCR
The same event happed to my logging software using the N3FJB. I lost all my logging information. I have no clue as to what I did to deserve that. A real bummer to start all over again. I thought I was the only one that happened to.
73 and stay healthy
de K3MG
Yes, this happens to us all. i misplaced my paper logbook a while ago and was lost(!!) until I found it behind the radio desk. I’m considering the use of carbon paper in the log to make a tear-out copy to keep elsewhere….maybe in a mayonnaise jar on the porch of Funk & Wagnalls (any Johnny Carson fans out there?) :-}
Good morning Ron, well N3FJP’s logging program as I have learned does set up an automatic backup of the log. I believe it is set up to run every 7 days but you do have the option to change it to update sooner or later. I did end up finding the backed-up log and using it to restore things. The final entry was about a week old but I did have the most recent contacts on N1MM contest logger and just uploaded them.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Good morning Mike, well there is good news if you still have the same copy of N3FJP’s logging software. He has the program set up to automatically backup the log every 7 days. You have the option to change that to more or less but it is automatically set up for I believe a 7-day cycle. Now if you still have N3FJP’s logger on your pc shoot me an email at ve9kk at hotmail dot com. We can walk through the process step by step.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Ahhhh yes, Bob, Carnac the magnificent and where he stored his heroically sealed envelopes. If it worked for Johnny for sure it will work wonders for our logs!
A very nice memory thanks Bob.
73,
Mike
VE9KK