ADIF
ADIF Related wiki pages : Software, QSL Bureaus, Logging
Amateur Data Interchange Format
The notion of a standardised way of exchanging data between amateurs was first proposed in 1996 by Jim KK7A. To this end an internet discussion forum was set up. Ray WF1B and Dennis WN4AZY used the suggestions from the discussion forum to create a proposed format. By 1997, the format had been accepted and is now in almost universal use.
One of the advantages of ADIF is that it is in a sense a "kernel" to which new specifications can be added without damaging the standard. It can handle binary data and text with equal ease, is useable in any language and can be transferred digitally without encoding and decoding.
ADIF consists of four components: 1) How fields and records are stored - this is known as the Specifications 2) How the data is stored, eg the date format. These are known as the Field Type Specifications 3) The list of data elements - which values will be accepted. These are known as the Field Definitions 4) Descriptions of each data category, eg, the definition of log data. These are known as File Definitions
Coders who wish to add additional fields that are not defined in ADIF are free to do so, but they will likely not be imported into ADIF compatible programs with all fields intact.
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