On 03/12/2020 14:25, Dave Slotter, W3DJS wrote:
Bill and Joe:
If I were to develop an integration with QRZ to automatically look up
the full names of people associated with a callsign that's getting
logged and populate the name field in the log window, would you be
receptive to receiving and incorporating said patch?
Please advise, and thank you.
--
Dave Slotter, W3DJS <https://www.qrz.com/db/W3DJS>
Hi Dave,
thanks for offering to develop such a facility, but personally I feel
this is out of scope for WSJT-X. In general WSJT-X is a *source* of
information gathered on the air, up to and including logging QSOs. There
are data feeds consumed by WSJT-X, but not many and none with any
real-time demand. We optionally take a list of known users of the ARRL
LoTW service so that decodes of CQ calls from users can be highlighted.
This is considered by many to to be valuable information when selecting
who to work because it may reflect the likelihood of getting a QSO
confirmed for award purposes. We also allow users to substitute an
augmented ADIF log file, perhaps from a main station logging
application, that also allows WSJT-X to highlight potentially more
valuable QSO partners with respect to the user's DXing goals. Adding
further data feeds, particularly when the information acquired is
available from many sources and hence subject to ambiguity, is not a
high priority. Furthermore once these sort of more arbitrary information
inputs are considered as worth implementing, then there are many more
that might have perceived equal or greater merit to some user subsets.
That could lead to WSJT-X mission creep into the domain of main station
logging applications, which to a greater or lesser extent already do
these functions well as part of their core capabilities.
I note also that the QRZ.COM XML data feed is not a free service and
therefore may not be required by many users who do not think this sort
of information is worth the price. There will surely be others that
request the same information from free to use sources like the Hamcall
service, or perhaps from one of the variety of paid call-book services
that they may already be subscribing to. The scope of such a facility
will quickly grow far beyond what you propose, with an associated
ongoing maintenance and support burden that may detract from the core
purpose of a weak signal communications tool.
73
Bill
G4WJS.
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