I keep running into a situation which seems like a QRZ.COM error to me. Can someone help me understand if that's the case please? I wrote some software to send the callsign of a station to QRZ.COM programatically and receive an XML file back with all the important details about that callsign (Location, Grid, State, County, etc.). I recently worked NG2O and will use his QRZ.COM data as my example. His "FCC Address" is in Florida but he spends most of his operating time at a 2nd home in Avalon (Cape May County), New Jersey where he was located when I worked him. If I manually go to QRZ.COM and enter NG2O, then look at the "Detail" section of his record, it corrrectly shows his FCC address in Florida, his state as New Jersey, and his County as Cape May. But if I programatically send "NG2O" to QRZ.COM the XML file which I receive back (incorrectly) shows his State as Florida and (correctly) shows his County as Cape May. My program realizes that there is no "Cape May" county in Florida and so surfaces an error. Why would the County be shown correctly when I manually inquire about the callsign and yet be incorrect when I send the request via my computer? I'm a County Hunter so receiving the correct county is important to me. Thanks for any help. Tom - K0TW
Hi Tom, The issue here is one of what data is user set and what data is FCC set. In the case of NG2O, you are running afoul of that distinction. An XML query ALWAYS returns the detail address for the US licensee which is synchronized with the FCC. Unfortunately, the FCC address does not include the county information, nor does it include lat/lon, grid or any other location information. The FCC ONLY provides us with the street address (to include the state), which, as you've verified is correct both by looking manually and by querying via XML. Where it gets ugly is with the rest of the location information. Other than the street address, all other location information settings are at the mercy of the user. NG2O of course has his grid and county set to locations in New Jersey and those show up when you review his profile and look at the detail tab. Further, the county and grid information he has set are what's returned to you in the XML query. Nothing user set overrides the FCC data however, so no matter what location the user has manually set with grid and county, that isn't going to override the FCC specified state. This is why you're getting the FL from his FCC address and the NJ county and grid from his manually set location. While that may seem like a "QRZ error" the bigger issue is that there isn't a good way in contradictions like this for the platform to determine what data is "correct". In this case, should we assume the FCC data is correct (or desired) and omit the NJ location information, or the reverse? I assure you we have just as many if not more cases where someone moved, updated their FCC address and then did not change their grid or county. Thus, QRZ takes the position that we cannot protect the user from himself. If incorrect or contradictory data is provided, then that's what's returned. Essentially: garbage in, garbage out. Side note: the geocoded address reference in the detail tab actually suggests that the "moved, changed FCC address, and didn't change location" applies to NG2O as well, but that's a different story. Frankly, the nuances of portable operation and returning a valid location are a nightmare for QRZ in terms of how to handle such things, and it's getting worse with the increase in popularity of operations like POTA. We're looking at options to try to deal with the portable operating location challenge, but we haven't yet settled on an approach that covers all the variations. Hope that helps understand the results you're seeing. 73, Steve KF8KI
Thanks for the excellent explanation, Steve. One last suggestion though: Could QRZ perform a quick State and County comparison and if (as in my NG2O example) it sees a County (from user set data) which does not exist in that State (from FCC address data). Then, rather than put obviously incorrect data into the returned XML file, somehow indicate in the XML file that there's an obvious County/State conflict error in that data? As the old saying goes, no data is better than incorrect data. But 2nd best is an indication that the data is incorrect. Tom - K0TW
