Things I Learned: Using Datasette to search for Ham Radio QSOs in a Date Range

I've been doing a lot of amplifier testing over the last week with the Tuna Topper as part of what has become Project TouCans. It's led to many more QSOs—meaning, more than one per week—from the house. I maybe haven't remembered to log them all, and so I wasn't too surprised when I saw that N2AKJ had logged a Parks on the Air, (POTA), contact with me last Thursday when they activated K-2114 Nissequogue River State Park. Still, since I didn't remember the QSO, I wanted to make sure I was at least on the air. And.... There's an app for that!

Using the RBN network data automatically accumulated by rm-rbn-history about QSOs and RBN spots from my callsign—KD0FNR—served through datasette, I was able to determine if I'd been on the air when the QSO was logged. Spoiler alert: I was.

Understanding the SQL formatting to get the information was a bit tricky, so I'm documenting the SQL statement here so I can go back to it later.

select rowid, id, tx_lng, tx_lat, rx_lng as longitude, rx_lat as latitude, timestamp, dB, frequency, Spotter from rm_rnb_history_pres where timestamp > :date and timestamp < :date2 order by timestamp desc

Which doesn't seem tricky at all now that I've simplified it, but... It took 10 minutes of research and experimentation to get there in the first place? Not enough coffee? Maybe. Either way, next time, it'll be easier.

The query quickly netted the following results during the time the QSO with me was logged:

And did the Rockmite and TunaTopper in their 'Tuna Soup' incarnation reach New York that day?

Yes it did! New York and lots of other places!

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