All, Below is an analysis of LotW's recent statistics compiled by K0RC in Dakota Division. Bob is a thoughtful person who is well versed in computer matters, so his views are worth listening to. I have already responded to the CC list in his message, but I thought the Board might be interested in his analysis of the data. His message was accompanied by the long thread that preceded it, and I have trimmed that, feeling that ODV probably didn't need to plow through all of this. I might mention that Bob is the only I've seen to send messages simultaneously to 3 generations of Dakota Directors. One important reply to Bob's original note came back from Dave, AA6YQ that he felt that this was too early a time to establish any sort of steering committee. I have sufficient respect for Dave's technical judgment to say that we should accept that advice for now. We have important things to discuss about LotW in New Orleans. I'm looking forward to those discussions. 73, Greg ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Robert Chudek - K0RC <robert.chudek@gmail.com> Date: Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 5:47 PM Subject: Re: [MWA] LOTW To: G Widin <gpwidin@comcast.net> Cc: tod@k0to.us, k0qb@arrl.net, "aa6yq@ambersoft.com" <aa6yq@ambersoft.com>, Rick Murphy/K1MU <k1mu-lotw@rickmurphy.net> Hello *Greg*, Tod, and Jay... This is a follow-up message to recap the LoTW situation since my last message 6 weeks ago. You probably know a new ARRL webpage was added about 3 weeks ago. It displays the current status of the input queue to the LoTW system. It also shows the previous 11-hours of information. Here's the link to that resource: http://www.arrl.org/logbook-queue-status I have been gathering those reports into Excel and have generated a variety of graphs which show the trends. I attached a copy of this 3-page PDF as a reference. In general, the graphs visually show the 'non-progress' LoTW is making with the backlog of user logs. The two most revealing charts are those on the top of page 2 and page 3. The first one shows the number of logs *waiting to be processed*. You will see the system makes temporary gains in working down the 31,000+ log backlog but the overall trend continues to climb. The second graph shows *how far behind LoTW has fallen in processing logs*. Earlier today it achieved a new milestone of 12 days, compared to 7 days almost three weeks ago. That means logs submitted 12 days ago are now just being processed. When you couple that with the increased number of logs received during the past 12 days, the delay will continue to get worse. One aspect of this growing delay is that when users don't see results of their uploads in a timely manner (subjective, but a day or two?) they think their log was "lost". They subsequently reload their log a second, or third, or more times. This is only one aspect of other issues created by the user community, albeit unintentionally. There is great LoTW community anticipation that the new SSD subsystem will quickly eliminate this processing backlog. We also know that the ARRL has engaged Dave Bernstein AA6YQ and Rick Murphy K1MU to revisit the tQSL and tCERT 'front end' that feeds the LoTW system. This is great news, and I can't think of anyone more qualified to review and update this part of the system. There is 'hear say' that the ARRL has no plan to review the entire LoTW architecture at this time. To me this represents a false sense of security in that the new SSD storage subsystem is a long-term fix. Hopefully this rumor is false. *I want to propose the ARRL create a task-force* to leverage their past 10-years of LoTW experience, review current IT technologies and architectures, and begin the process of designing a modern "*LoTW-2*" for the future. Just like the original design team, a review and update to the system could take a year or more. We also know, the IT industry and technology have made tremendous strides during the last decade. Many of these improvements might well be applied to LoTW and reduce the total cost of ownership. I want to encourage the ARRL to make a statement regarding their decisions regarding the LoTW system. I would expect to see this sometime after the first Board of Directors meeting in 2013. In my view, LoTW creates an image similar to the ARRL website and it should be elevated to a higher level of management and development. Thank you for your time and support! Please feel free to forward my messages to anyone you feel should see them. Respectfully submitted, Bob Chudek - KØRC