Please either accept or refute the evidence provided by QRZ.com that you are scraping their data

12 years ago • updated by 12 years ago • 4

QRZ in conjunction with others I trust have indicated that there is information they have intentionally seeded to their database that is found in your system that is not available in the FCC database or elsewhere; in short, they claim that this is proof that you are scraping information, which you seem to be denying.

Would you care to comment? I would love to be able to support HamQTH.com, but if you really are scraping data from qrz.com for use on your website I would have a hard time doing this. I have seen you complain about their actions, but they have been sending people information with specific records that you have that they created that are fake, according to multiple sources. I'd like to think that if you were doing such a thing you would have the professional courtesy to apologize and that if you say you are not that you are not, but I would like to hear your side.

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12 years ago

Hi Richard,

I didn't steal anything. Fred uses FUD, still blame me for something I've never done and won't do it in the future. He wrote to almost every author of logging app with HamQTH support. It seems he can't get over thing, that qrz is not the only service providing callbook data.

When HamQTH went online I got many callbook data in various formats. Text files, even one was in DOC format. I imported them. After a while, someone found his test callsigns in my database. I have no idea how these callsigns get there. Maybe one of text files included it, or they could be added by hand? I don't know. I use also callbooks available to download for free from the website of their national organizations.

I don't see any evidence that I have data from qrz. The data is available also on hamcall.net, some of them on qrz.ru, qrzcq.com and others.

73 Petr, OK2CQR

12 years ago

My suggestion, then, would be that you write up a very clear statement about that and post it on a page that is linked from the home page of HamQTH; send people who have concerns to that. Make sure it doesn't sound defensive -- Being from Czech, English is likely your second language, and if so I'd be happy to help you make sure that it is written clearly and unambiguously. Some further suggestions:

Make sure that the wording is specific, not just saying "I didn't steal anything" (because different people have a different opinion about whether or not scraping data from QRZ means) but actually stating "HamQTH does not get any data from other commercial websites, including qrz.com and others" or something similar
Add logging in your system somewhere. Make sure that whenever a record is added or information comes into the system that you have some way of identifying it's source, even if it's just an ip address or similar.
Be very publicly, politely, and non-defensively clear about how you get your information. When you sound defensive it makes people automatically think that you are guilty; rather, make yourself assume that the person you are talking to actually believes that you are in the wrong, and then see if you can find out why so that you can help resolve the concern.

My name is Richard Bateman; I am the owner of HamStudy.org, which is a fairly new ham radio study website for US amateurs that is sponsored by Icom. I am very familiar with the politics and inertia that better established websites such as QRZ and others that are just so well known that nobody can get past them. I definitely believe that it would be wrong to pull information from a commercial site that deals in information aggregation, but I also believe that there are many ham sites that need better competitors to help them progress. As long as you are not scraping data from QRZ as they seem to be claiming, I see your website as being one of them. The trick is responding in a way that conveys correctly what you are and are not doing to try to resolve the issue.

Feel free to contact me in private if I can do anything to help you protect your name; I can be reached at support@hamstudy.org.

12 years ago

Thank you Richard!

My English is not so good, I'll write something fro HamQTH website and send it to you. Could you check it, plase?

You are right about logging. I didn't added it because it's horrible work but I have to. We are working on new HamQTH design and this information will be part of it. I'll add somewhere the source of the callsign like FCC, OK callbook etc. It's good idea.

I hope, I'm polite. I hope that I use right words in English. I don't want to be defensive. Sometimes I'm very angry but i don't write emails and wait for some time. My friends could say you, I'm very polite in Czech language. Some of them say, I'm too polite.

I don't know what to do to defend myself and HamQTH againist this lies. It all makes me very sad.

I just looked at your website and it looks very well. Nice and clear design. Really good work.

73 Petr, OK2CQR

12 years ago

Having learned to speak Russian fluently I am well aware of the difficulty of speaking -- and even more of writing -- in a second language. In addition, if you are interested at all, perhaps we could even collaborate some with development and I could help you get to where you have a bit more transparency to avoid future misunderstandings of this nature. To be honest, I have considered starting a site like yours but didn't because a) I wanted to focus on hamstudy and b) the same sorts of things that you're running into. There could be a lot of ways we could help each other if you're open to collaboration. Whether or not you are, I am happy to help you with responding to such statements. Send me an email and we'll chat.

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