A couple of suggestions from my early use of the RTQM: 1. When FT8 or FT4 is selected as an option (along with a band), it would be helpful for the standard frequency for that band to automatically be entered. For example, you select 20m FT8, it would populate with 14.074MHz. 2. It would be helpful for the gridsquare on your QRZ biography to automatically be imported. Most people will be operating from their home QTH, so it would be useful for this to be selected and can be deleted if a station is operating /P or /A. I am the only person on the map at the moment, but hopefully the feature will be used heavily in the future. It would be great if logging software such as HRD and Log4OM could have an integration also. This would allow for an input on the map directly from the logging software without having to open the page and also would update automatically with CAT control if this is enabled and used. Thanks to the admin team and the developers for advancing our hobby with this useful tool! 73 de Oscar M7OJA
I think there are a lot of people who work mobile, Especially POTA, SOTA and DXpedition folks. I think as long as they are editable, it is a great suggestion, but a lot of people are in a different grid square then there QTH when running POTA or events.
I agree completely. The QRZ team is doing an outstanding job developing this tool. Pre-populating the forms is *I think* on the task list for the dev team. It would certainly add functionality and polish. I would like to see more of the beta testers on the map daily as well. I'm on almost every morning doing FT8 on 10 meters.
There have already been requests for an API and the QRZ development team have indicated a willingness to consider it. I do believe that it would make a significant difference towards acceptance. It could significantly increase the load on their servers - I hope they have sufficient capacity. If they had an API, I would add functionality into my CAT program to post updates into the RTQM servers every time I sat still on a frequency for more than a couple of minutes. Martin (G8FXC)
@K3DFD appreciate the kind words. We're a small team so things take some time, but we're working on it. Pre populating the forms is definitely on the list. Please understand though that for some things, like "home grid" for example, there are some logistics challenges that we have to work out. Behind the scenes, QRZ is made up of several BIG functional blocks. The callsign database (where grid is found) is one, the logbook is another, RTQM is a third new one. There are others. The blocks are somewhat isolated from each other in order to provide some stability in the event that an issue causes a block to go down. We're working on improving that structure further and developing the communications protocol between blocks. While this is generally a controlled public beta for RTQM, it's just as much a test for the new authentication module in the back end which has separated the authentication into it's own service and provides better management across blocks and significant capability for extension. I share all of that little peek under the hood to try to better illustrate the order of magnitude of what we're working on here. This test goes beyond just RTQM. It's testing functionality that will eventually be the backbone of the entire QRZ environment. I also share that to explain that it's a bit harder to get the data to pre-populate some things like "home grid" than it may seem at the surface. It's coming though! Also, on a semi related note: @G8FXC I don't know if you saw the details on the most recent update, but the managed callsign management issue should be resolved in the current version on the server. I don't know if you're still /MM this week, but if you are, please be sure to check that out. Lastly, while I can't make promises yet, I can assure you that there are already involved conversations in progress on extending RTQM, including with external interfacing. The beta test has already been very enlightening, even with the relatively limited use so far. 73, Steve KF8KI
Not quite there yet... I'm now offered the link to cancel an operating session for G8FXC/MM, but when I select it, I'm presented with : I am allowed to QSY it... Martin (G8FXC)
