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Using o3-mini to Set up a Log Book Transfer for use with QRZ.com

 New ham cleans up log book on QRZ with the help of o3-mini.

A few days back, after the completion of SKCC month, a ham sent out a message asking others to please post their QSOs ot LoTW and/or QRZ.com for award verification. For me, a light bulb burst on. It does matter that I log my QSOs publicly. It had frankly, never occurred to me before, but it made sense. o3-mini and I got to work.

I already have a log book built on Datasette for my QSOs. I just needed to get the QSOs from there and ship them off to QRZ.com. I needed it to be automatic though, since there were more than 1,000 QSOs to transfer.

I asked o3-mini to write a Python script to do this for me. I gave it the database schema for my QSO database. I also fed it the logging API instructions for QRZ.com. 

I had something that worked well enough after about 40 minutes. After three hours, that included a 40 minute coffe break, I had a script that automatically calculated my tx grid square, (it changes a lot becuase I mostly operate POTA/SOTA), and also logged my station location in the adif format that uses degress and minutes.

Existing Assets

Would this have been as easy if I'd never worked with the QRZ API? Nope. I used some of fmy domain experience there to inform what I asked o3-mini to do. I also had some material that I handed to o3-mini to work with.
  • My qso log book, created and maintained using Datasette, already has a plugin, authored and maintained by me, that creates a POTA adif formatted file based on a SQL query. I handed o3-mini one of the query links to work with to create its code. It didn't call it, it just used it for formatting.
What follows are my rough timeline notes aobut developing code with o3-mini. Pleesae holler at me if I an clarify anything.

Working with o3-mini

7:03 hit enter on the o3-mini code prompt.

7:06 code looks good, trying it out

7:07 realized I forgot to specify dB > 100 in the query which would have led to RBN spots being logged.

7:08 trying it out again (for the first time)

7:09 no adif to be reviewed was output. Query was sent and worked though:


7:20 the query to my local database is returning no data. It's not returning data when I enter it into a browser either. I copied the query link from  a query that I've verified is returning an adif file locally, and asked o3-mini to write the code again using that local link.

7:24 still nothing

7:27 tested that the 'where' block was misofrmed. Removed it and recieved 45,000 rows, so that's the issue.

7:29 o3-mini omitted the T between the date and time. This was the root cause of the isue.

7:31 got a good looking adif out of the script, submitting now

7:33 the error catching code that o3-mini wrote worked!

setting the env variable and trying again

7:37 bad api key. Looking into it



7:44 I asked o3-mini to rewrite the script accessing my logbook key from an environment variable and maintining the 'T' in the timestamp. The ADIF looked good, and QRZ accepted the post according to the script


7:47 only one of the QSOs, (the last one), was transmitted. Debugging.

The insert command only accepts one record at a time

7:52 It worked!


Special Application:

I want to confirm a number of QSOs from KJ7DT from a few years ago. I'm going to enter the date range and see how it goes.

Started this at about 8:00

The dates include over 100 records, so I'm narrowing it down to ojust KJ7DT.



8:02 returned 14 rows. I'll modify the script and give it a try.


8:05 didn't get the query string correct. I told o3-mini query


8:11 Added 11 of the 14 records to my logbook. Three of the records already existed!


Here are the records I needed to confirm before the upload:



Note that there were 13 QSOs to KJ7DT. (I'm guessing I dropped the log on two of those.)

There are now 5 QSOs from KJ7DT that aren't confirmed from that date range. That's because of my logging back then I'm guessing. 

8:23 I made 109 logged QSOs betwen New Years Day and February 9th. I'm submitting those now.

8:29 All the records were submitted!!!

8:34 decided to see if it was quick to add the grid square I was working from

8:36 got the script back

8:42 the script works

9:00 went for coffee, thought about why the maidenhead version of the log updates wasn't working and updated the code waiting for the bus back

10:00 trying script at home

10:14 Debugging. So far, wasn't parsing html, fixed it, but wanted to use external package, wrote code without external package.

10:14 Returning same tx location for all records:




10:27 The mistake was mine. I'd left the fixed positions in the query


10:33 It was easier for me to modify the code created by o3-mini than to have it rewrite it, so I did, (after I tried to have it rewrite it unsuccessfully), and it worked!


10:56 realized I might be able to specify exact location and asked o3-mini to do that.


11:26 changed to adif standard location

11:31 And it works with o3-mini figuring out the location specification from the adif standard with minutes and directions and whatnot.







ADIF standard

QRZ Logbook API Docs




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