QSO Director at DXFest 2026: Three Stations, One Synchronised Log

QSO Director recently had the pleasure of being invited to attend DXFest 2026, the DX Commander event at Holly Farm, bringing together amateur radio operators for a day of operating, antennas, equipment, demonstrations and, above all, a shared enthusiasm for amateur radio.

Hosted by Callum M0XXT (DX Commander), DXFest gave visitors the opportunity to get hands-on with a variety of amateur radio equipment, see several stations operating live and spend time with other operators from across the amateur radio community.

For QSO Director, the event was particularly significant. All three operating stations at DXFest were running QSO Director, with the software’s live synchronisation being used to keep the stations connected throughout the event.

Just as importantly, it was a real pleasure to meet so many of the people who came along, particularly those who were already using and enjoying QSO Director. It was an absolute pleasure to talk with you all.

QSO Director Across All Three DXFest Stations

QSO Director wasn’t simply there as a software demonstration. It was part of the working station setup, providing logging across all three stations being used at DXFest.

Each operating position had its own instance of QSO Director, giving operators access to the logging and station tools they needed while contacts were being made.

This included the dedicated 700-watt 10-metre station, alongside the other stations operating during the event.

It was exactly the sort of environment QSO Director is being designed for: real radios, real operators and multiple stations operating simultaneously.

Live Synchronisation Between All Three Stations

One of the most interesting parts of the DXFest setup was something visitors might not necessarily have noticed happening behind the scenes.

The three QSO Director installations were using QSO Director’s live cloud synchronisation, allowing contacts logged at the different operating positions to be synchronised between the stations during the event.

Rather than operating three entirely independent logs that would need to be brought together afterwards, the stations could operate as part of the same connected logging environment.

As QSOs were entered at the individual stations, QSO Director handled the synchronisation between them.

This was a great real-world demonstration of a capability that becomes particularly useful whenever several operators or stations are working together. Special-event stations, operators with multiple computers, club operations, field days and other multi-station activities can all benefit from being able to maintain a common synchronised log without having to manually combine data afterwards.

It was also an important opportunity for us to exercise QSO Director’s synchronisation technology outside a development or test environment, under the conditions it was actually designed to handle.

Meeting the People Who Use QSO Director

While seeing QSO Director running across the DXFest stations was fantastic, one of the highlights of the event was simply getting to meet everyone who came along.

It was a real pleasure to spend the day talking with other radio amateurs, discussing stations, operating, software and the many different ways people enjoy the hobby.

Something that was particularly rewarding was meeting so many people who were already using QSO Director.

QSO Director is still a relatively young product and continues to develop rapidly, so meeting operators who had already discovered the software, installed it on their own stations and were enjoying using it was incredibly encouraging.

Online feedback, emails and bug reports are invaluable, but there’s something quite different about meeting users face-to-face and hearing directly about how they’re using the software on their own stations.

We heard about the features people particularly enjoy, how QSO Director fits into their operating, and plenty of ideas about where we can take the software next.

A huge thank you to everyone who came over to say hello, whether you were already a QSO Director user, had only recently discovered the software or were seeing it for the first time at DXFest. It was genuinely great to meet you.

Putting QSO Director to Work

QSO Director is intended to be much more than a traditional electronic logbook.

The goal is to create a modern amateur radio logging and operations suite capable of bringing together logging, radio control, DX information, operating tools and station management within a single application.

DXFest provided a great example of that philosophy in practice.

Rather than preparing a carefully controlled demonstration, QSO Director was installed at the operating positions and put to work for the event itself.

That distinction is important.

Real-world operating introduces situations that are difficult to reproduce during development: different radios and station configurations, multiple operators, simultaneous activity and all the practical realities that come with operating live stations.

Having QSO Director running across all three DXFest stations therefore provided valuable real-world experience as well as an opportunity for visitors to see the software in action.

From a DX Commander First Look to Running DXFest

DXFest also represented another milestone.

Earlier in the year, Callum gave his audience a detailed first look at QSO Director, exploring the software and demonstrating a number of its capabilities.

That introduced QSO Director to many operators who had never encountered the project before and generated a considerable amount of interest, feedback and new users.

It was therefore particularly satisfying to see the journey continue at DXFest, moving from demonstrating QSO Director in a video to having QSO Director actively handling logging across all three operating stations at the event.

And meeting people at DXFest who had discovered QSO Director and were now using it themselves made that progression even more rewarding.

Built for Real Amateur Radio Stations

QSO Director is being actively developed as a modern, cross-platform amateur radio logging and operations suite for Windows, Linux and macOS.

Its capabilities extend far beyond entering contacts into a logbook, bringing together features including advanced radio control, DX Cluster integration, Band Maps, spectrum and waterfall displays, online service integration, flexible station layouts and cloud synchronisation.

Development continues rapidly, with further work underway across many areas of the application.

Experiences such as DXFest are invaluable in helping ensure those capabilities work not only in theory, but in the real stations and operating environments where radio amateurs will actually use them.

And the conversations we had with existing and prospective users provide just as much valuable input into what we build next.

Thank You, DX Commander — and Everyone We Met

A huge thank you goes to Callum M0XXT and everyone involved with DX Commander and DXFest 2026 for welcoming QSO Director to the event and, most importantly, for trusting it to handle logging across all three operating stations.

We’d also like to say a particularly big thank you to everyone who took the time to come over and talk to us.

It was fantastic to put faces to some of the people already using QSO Director and especially nice to hear first-hand that people are enjoying the software. For a product that has grown from an idea into something now being used on amateur radio stations around the world, those conversations mean a great deal.

DXFest demonstrated something we’re particularly pleased to see: QSO Director moving beyond being a new piece of amateur radio software and becoming software that people are actively using and enjoying on the air.

Three stations operating simultaneously, QSO Director running at every operating position, live synchronisation keeping the logging environment connected, and the opportunity to meet so many existing and future QSO Director users made DXFest 2026 a very special event for us.

We thoroughly enjoyed being there, and we’re looking forward to meeting many more of you at amateur radio events in the future.

Join Us on the Journey

By joining QSO Director in Early Access, you’re not just buying software, you’re helping shape its future. Your feedback, ideas, and real-world use will play a vital role in what comes next.

I’m incredibly grateful for your support and excited for the journey ahead.

START YOUR FREE TRIAL TODAY

Let’s build the future of amateur radio software — together.

73 James – M0YOM