The ERMAK format is intended for sending reports on participation in all-Russian sports competitions on short waves. ERMAK is the only acceptable format for providing reports on HF competitions, for which it is possible to receive sports categories.

The main feature of ERMAK over Cabrillo is that it allows you to use Russian letters (Cyrillic) in the header fields.

To generate a report in ERMAK format, you need to export the list of QSOs from the log program to a file in CABRILO v.3 format and then correct the header in it.

1. First of all, you need to export to the CABRILO format in a program with a list of conducted QSOs (usually this menu item is called “File” - “Export”).

2. Then open the resulting file in the text editor Notepad and correct the header (name of the competition, information about the participant, etc.).
   Required fields:
   START-OF-LOG
CONTEST
CALLSIGN
CATEGORY-OPERATOR
CATEGORY-MODE
CATEGORY-POWER
LOCATION
NAME
ADDRESS
OPERATORS
   *END-OF-LOG

3. Fill in the fields CONTEST, CATEGORY-OPERATOR, CATEGORY-MODE, CATEGORY-POWER in accordance with the code name of the contest (competition, competition for establishing radio communications) and the subgroup in which you are participating, the type of radiation (PH/CW), power group (HIGH/LOW) in which you are entered.

4. Field LOCATION fill out in accordance with the Competition Rules. For example, this field may contain a large QTH Locator code.

5. In the field NAME should be your Last Name First Name Patronymic.

6. In the field ADDRESS- Your mailing address.

7. Fill in the field correctly OPERATORS: it indicates the Last Name, First Name, Patronymic, year of birth, sports category, call sign, radio station category. Separator - comma or space. For example:

   OPERATORS: Иванов Иван Иванович 1975 КМС R1BBB 1

8. Check the QSO section carefully. It should contain not only the report 59 59, but the complete radio control number, first transmitted (TX), then received (RX). Fields are separated by one or more spaces. An example of a correctly formatted QSO field:

   QSO: 14175 PH 2020-04-26 1358 R1BBB 59 SP01 UA1AAA 59 LO12 0

9. Check with a search that the report does not contain single or double quote characters.

10. Save the text file in ANSI (WIN-1251) encoding.

11. The file name must not contain spaces or Cyrillic characters. It is better to indicate your call sign as the file name.

12. Upload your report to a website that accepts reports or send it by e-mail to the address specified in the Competition Rules.

    Links to description of the ERMAK format

• Cabrillo v.3 format header specification:http://wwrof.org/cabrillo/cabrillo-specification-v3/
• Rules for generating the body of the report - a list of radio communications in Cabrillo v.3:https://wwrof.org/cabrillo/cabrillo-qso-data/
• Description of the ERMAK format from the Union of Radio Amateurs of Russia:https://web.archive.org/web/20091031135051/http://www.srr.ru/CONTEST/ermak/index.html
• Various options for creating a report header:http://r4n.su/?page_id=1062
• Comments on filling out the UA1DZ Cup report:http://ua1dz.ru/articles.php?article_id=2

Related publications

Calendar of activity days for the diploma "Master of Digital Radio Communications" (link)

Calendar of shortwave competitions in FT8 and FT4 modes

(Link to MuromDX): Russian-language HF/MW broadcasting plan - Summer 2025

User Manual of all-band Radio СS-106

WSJTX_improved 2.7.1 user manual