Since mid-June 2011 the amount of free callsign lookups on QRZ.com via the website and the XML interface has been limited if you’re not paying for it. As if the annoying blinking advertisements aren’t enough to re-finance the basic service, you have to pay $39.95 for an ad-free website and unlimited XML lookups.

Luckily Petr OK2CQR has started HamQTH.com, a new Ham Radio Callbook service which is free of charge. I’ve written a short blog entry about it in July 2011. HamQTH has a lot of nice features and I like it better than QRZ.com. Because I didn’t feel like taking care of two profiles on two different callsign lookup services, I blanked my QRZ.com biography and added just a link to my HamQTH profile. That was back in January 2012 or so. Then the problems began …

Every 4 to 8 weeks my biography changed as if by magic. Sometimes the link to my HamQTH profile disappeared. Sometimes the link had a typo. Sometimes the link was empty. I’m definitely confused from time to time, but I always double-checked that the link was okay and working. I noticed that the change date at the bottom of the biography always showed a date, which did not match with the date when I made the last change. Additionally I noticed in the biography editor that “someone” has added empty lines and a white colored “x” at the bottom. This is not visible if you look at the biography with a web browser. It seems to be some kind of poor and ridiculous “flag” or tracking information for Helmut DK8NC and other “DX Helpers” of QRZ.com. So if you have comments about QRZ.com on your website or links to callbook services other than QRZ.com in your biography, QRZ.com and their DX Helpers will delete, change, manipulate your biography. And they will check it on a regular basis.

So I asked the QRZ.com support team to delete my account and the listing for DK5TX. And they did. I really appreciate this. Better no QRZ.com listing, than a manipulated one.

Followup:
Please read also the article “Callbook Wars” on AmateurRadio.com, written by Anthony K3NG:
http://www.amateurradio.com/callbook-wars/