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cqrlog

Full-featured station log with a database behind it and rig control in front

What it does

Keeps the station log in a MariaDB database rather than a file, which is what lets it answer questions a flat log cannot: worked-before checks across every band and mode at once, DXCC and IOTA award tracking, grey-line and beam-heading display for the callsign currently in the entry field. It drives the rig through hamlib, uploads to LoTW, eQSL and ClubLog, and imports and exports ADIF.

Why you would want it

It is the heaviest of the general-purpose Linux logs and the one to choose when the log is the centre of the station rather than a record kept after the fact. If what you want is a log that opens instantly and stays out of the way, xlog or KLog will suit you better; if you want award tracking that is actually correct, this is the one that does it.

Before it will work

A MariaDB server. The package depends on the client and server core libraries and recommends the server itself, which our apt backend installs because it does not suppress Recommends. A callsign certificate is needed before LoTW upload will work, which comes from TQSL rather than from here.

How it installs

  • apt: cqrlog
  • Present on every target except Kali, measured across all six on 2026-08-28. The block is left unconditional rather than excluding Kali by selector: apt answers the question correctly and currently at plan time, where a selector would encode one evening's measurement and go stale the day Kali picks the package up.

Known problems

Installed with Recommends suppressed it will start and then fail to connect to a database that is not running -- an error that reads as a configuration problem rather than a missing package. It is a Free Pascal application built with Lazarus and uses GTK 2, which is unmaintained upstream; it works, and it will not gain a modern theme or fractional scaling. On a HiDPI display expect small text that no setting inside the program fixes.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

Petr Hlozek, OK2CQR. Issues on GitHub at https://github.com/ok2cqr/cqrlog and a users group linked from the site.

Source: catalog/packages/cqrlog.yaml