logging ⁽²⁾

I have just installed Wavelog (https://www.wavelog.org/) which is a self-hosted QSO logging application, all web-based PHP with a MySQL backend plus a lot more. It's that last bit - the 'lot more' which has somewhat turned me off from installing any kind of decent logging package as when I checked, admittedly a long time ago there was simply too much noise. Packages were simply filled with too many options for my poor old brain and after looking a while I just settled on using qrz.com for all my QSO logging. But, of course, things change with time. Plus that is not intended as a criticism of any other package... it's just me. I wrote simple PHP scripts to send the latest QSO from each rig PC to qrz.com plus more to query eQSL. Another script pulls from qrz.com and populates wsjt-x's logging. I made my own logging program and database which did just what I needed, and then added more complexity to record QSL cards etc. and for WAB awards. I ended up with a suite of scripts with qrz.com being the master database. Logging to LoTW was via qrz.com not direct. You can see it ended up a bit of a muddle, but it did just what I needed just how I wanted. But I was drawn to Wavelog. And so, seeing it was raining plus I had to remain at home due to building work I installed it. There is a Docker version and a normal LAMP one, the latter being ideal for me. Installation was very quick with excellent instructions assuming you know sufficient Linux stuff and have the required access etc. Priming it with all my QSOs from qrz.com was simply a matter of exporting to ADIF and importing that - you do need to relevant subscription to qrz.com for this but I am a life member so no issue. It integrates to LoTW as well and has an option to quickly send new QSOs to qrz.com and to LoTW - and eQSL, HRD, Clublog and others. There is still a lot for me to learn but it is pretty intuitive. For example, it has a series of awards and includes WAB - for that to populate it is necessary to edit the SIG field (Wavelog tells you this) and then Wavelog has a useful map of WAB squares logged. I added all those at the database level (carefully and with a good backup!) which worked fine. As I tend to concentrate on FT4 and 8 using wsjt-x once I got my head around the documentation both rigs are logging into Wavelog. The tx power field caught me out as I specified 25W on one rig and just 25 on the other, the latter working fine. Early days - but Wavelog feels ideally suited to me, or I to it, plus it offers a whole lot more without ramming it in your face.

For logging purposes I just use QRZ.com as it does most of the things I need. I have nothing against the various logging packages, it's just that they are all way over the top for my meagure needs. I don't do high pressure stuff or contesting (yet!) so my needs are simple. However, I do maintain a local database primed from the data in QRZ. It is there that I store eQSL information and WAB square information. QRZ does have fields for eQSL but I decided to store it locally. Having all this data to hand made me think of ways to use it. Having reapplied my programming hat I now have a few useful modules. My next aim is to make them into a dashboard sort of display rather than console output as now. One module displays data from pskreporter via the extremely useful pskreporter MQTT feed (see mqtt.pskreporter.info) and stores this in a database along with distance (direction is planned). A web page displays it so I can see where I am being heard (provided that data gets into pskreporter of course). Another module takes UDP data from wsjt-x and tells me which of the stations calling CQ have been logged before and have confirmed via QRZ or LoTW. I wrote this for the 2024 '12 days of QRZ' event to save me chasing stations that never acknowledge via QRZ. And I finally updated the code that copies data from QRZ to the local database so it updates any changed fields. That is particularly important as otherwise confirmation information will be missing from the local database. I already had code in place to transfer data from wsjt-x to QRZ on either PC and to transfer the data between wsjt-x on the Linux and Windows PCs so each knows what the other had seen. Of course, much if not all of this could be achieved by using any of the many quite excellent logging packages out there. But I like putting code together and keeping my hand in.