QRZ.com XML interface emulator

This is wrapper code to emulate the http://www.qrz.com/ XML database lookup feature using a HTML scraping interface.

About this emulator

This program uses the qrmbot qrz scraping script. The script uses your login credentials to authenticate to qrz.com and scrape HTML output, which requires a regular (free) account, but no XML subscription.

This emulator works by using a local http server, and intercepting calls to xmldata.qrz.com by modifying the /etc/hosts file.

Tested compatible software

• fldigi 4.1.03 (linux)

Installation and configuration

As tested on Debian.

Prerequisites

• apache2
• perl
• perl-base
• perl-modules
• libswitch-perl
• liburi-perl
• libdate-manip-perl

Checkout of git repositories

1. mkdir -p $HOME/src; cd $HOME/src
2. git clone https://github.com/molo1134/qrmbot.git
3. git clone https://github.com/cruvolo/qrzxmlemu.git

Add credentials to .qrzlogin file

4. cd qrzxmlemu
5. echo '$login_callsign="<YOURCALL>";' > .qrzlogin
6. echo '$login_password="<YOURPASS>";' >> .qrzlogin
7. chmod 600 .qrzlogin
8. chown www-data.www-data .qrzlogin

Configure apache webserver

Copy the example configuration to /etc/apache2/sites-available/, then edit it there (use an appropriate choice in naming this configuration file):

9. sudo cp apachesiteconfig.example.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/002-qrzxml.conf
10. sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/002-qrzxml.conf

On lines 12, 13 and 31 change the path for the qrzxmlemu git checkout directory to match your checkout path.

Then, enable the configuration and reload apache:

11. cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/; sudo ln -s ../sites-available/002-qrzxml.conf
12. Reload the apache configuration: sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Edit your hosts file to intercept requests to xmldata.qrz.com:

13. sudo bash -c '( echo "127.0.0.1 xmldata.qrz.com" >> /etc/hosts )'

Verify output:

$ grep xmldata /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1	xmldata.qrz.com

$ curl 'http://xmldata.qrz.com/xml/current/?s=21529326d6f39f02df51826ec8989b73;callsign=AA7BQ'
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<QRZDatabase version="1.34">
  <Callsign>
    <call>AA7BQ</call>
    <aliases>AA7BQ/QRP,AA7BQ/R,AA7BQ/M,N6UFT,AA7BQ/DL1,AA7BQ/HR6</aliases>
    <dxcc>291</dxcc>

License

All original code is 2-clause BSD licensed. See LICENSE file.

Interface specification

This was tested with the v1.34 interface.