A native GTK4/libadwaita ham radio logbook for Linux. The third app in the
family around sdr-for-linux (SDR
transceiver) and
skimmer-for-linux (CW/RTTY/PSK
skimmer), sharing their technology and architecture: a headless, GLib-only
engine under a GTK4/libadwaita front-end, plain C11, meson, SQLite. Successor
of the retired Rust prototype (BRlog).
Status: 0.4.0 — a usable daily logbook. Everything below is implemented, covered by offline test gates, and was run in anger through full EUHF Challenge 2026, WAE DX Contest CW 2026, SARTG WW RTTY 2026, YO DX HF 2026, SAC CW 2026 and CQ WW RTTY 2026 deployments and the first day of CQ WW SSB 2026 — live entry, macros, serials, dup checking, per-contest QSO validity and the Cabrillo submissions all came from this app, and from SAC on the live score too — there the sponsor's robot matched the claimed score exactly. One path new in 0.4.0 has not met a real QSO yet: the CQ zone taken from a W/VE state that came without it (CQ WW RTTY).
The Linux logbook landscape is either aging (CQRLOG — Lazarus/Pascal on a
MySQL/MariaDB daemon), non-native to this desktop (KLog — Qt), specialised
(TLF — ncurses contest logger) or web-based (Wavelog/Cloudlog). There is no
modern native GTK4/libadwaita logbook. And none of them can talk to the rest of
this family: sdr-for-linux exposes a proven TCI server (frequency/mode
state, spot rendering, click-to-tune), which makes radio-aware logging — the
entry row always pre-filled with the live VFO — nearly free.
Logging
- Fast entry row with UTC clock: callsign, RST (per-mode defaults — 59 phone, 599 CW, blank FT8/FT4), frequency ↔ band auto-sync, name, comment; Enter anywhere logs
- Live worked-before verdict while you type — green New call, or B4 counts per band / band+mode with the last-worked date; a same call+band+mode duplicate within 5 minutes asks before logging
- QSO table in the main window (virtualized
GtkColumnView, newest first): search with debounce, single click edits any cell in place (UTC, call, band, MHz, mode/submode, RSTs, exchange, name, comment), right-click deletes with confirmation - SQLite store — one file, WAL mode, schema migrations; worked-B4, dup checks and statistics are indexed queries, not log scans
- ADIF 3.1 import/export with a lossless round-trip: fields the app does
not model are preserved verbatim and written back on export; the parser
tolerates real-world quirks (case, CRLF, missing
<EOH>, truncated records); import dedups against the log and reports counts
Contesting
- Contests as first-class log sections: create/switch/delete from the header, each contest copies its exchange template at creation. Presets for CQ WW, CQ WW RTTY, CQ WPX, IARU HF, OK/OM DX, EUHFC, WAE DX, CVA DX, SARTG WW RTTY, YO DX and SAC, plus a custom template editor (serial / number / text / auto fields mapped onto ADIF). The main-log view stays clean — contest QSOs live in their section, while worked-B4 and statistics stay global
- Per-contest sent serials, whole-contest dup rule (call+band+mode), received-exchange fields in the entry row — the CQ/ITU zone prefilled from the call where cty.dat is certain — exchange column in the table; ADIF CONTEST_ID and Cabrillo CONTEST follow the QSO's mode (CQ-WW-SSB, SAC-SSB)
- Cabrillo v3 export of the active contest: category dialog with dropdowns (persisted) that offer what the contest's own rules allow — a preset carries its sponsor's category values, SAC's even by seat (inside or outside Scandinavia) — exact-QRG kHz, correct mode letters, chronological order — ready for robot submission
- Live claimed-score estimate: points × multipliers in the contest subtitle, Pts/Mult columns showing what each QSO brought, CLAIMED-SCORE prefilled in the Cabrillo dialog — an estimate from your own seat; the sponsor's rescoring is the authority
- CW and RTTY contest messaging via the radio's keyer (TCI): F1–F8 macro
strip with separate Run and S&P banks, right-click or Preferences
editing, tokens
{MYCALL}{CALL}{RST}{NR}{EXCH}; optional ESM (Enter Sends Message), opt-in cut numbers (0T 1A 9N …, CW only — RTTY sends real digits, and the log always keeps them), Ctrl+K free-text keying window, Esc stops the keyer in either mode, Page Up/Down nudges CW keyer WPM from anywhere; the macro keys CW or RTTY by the log-mode dropdown
Integration
- TCI client to
sdr-for-linux— over its Unix socket ($XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/sdr-for-linux/tci.sock) when the radio runs on this machine, over TCP (ws://127.0.0.1:40001, or anyws://host:port) otherwise: the entry row pre-fills frequency, band and mode from the live VFO; clicking a skimmer spot on the panadapter drops the callsign into the Call entry with the worked-B4/dup verdict run as if typed; CW/RTTY macros key the radio; automatic reconnect - WSJT-X / JTDX auto-logging (UDP
127.0.0.1:2237, schema 2/3): every QSO Logged lands in the store (dup-safe), and decode lists get worked-before Highlight Callsign replies (green = new, yellow = B4) - Duplicate lookup service for
skimmer-for-linux(UDP127.0.0.1:2238, always on):DUP? <call> <freq_hz> <mode>→NEW|B4|DUP|INV(INV = not a valid QSO in the active contest), so the skimmer colors its spots from your log; verdict-changing edits are pushed to recent peers unsolicited, so spot colors update the moment you log - Safety/etiquette by design: the logbook never transmits and never changes radio state except operator-triggered CW/RTTY macros and keyer speed; nothing leaves the machine without an explicit action
Pick whichever fits your distribution — the Releases page carries prebuilt packages for every release, and Arch has an AUR package:
- AppImage (any current distro, glibc 2.43+): download,
chmod +x Log_for_Linux-*.AppImage, run. Everything bundled, nothing to install. - Ubuntu 26.04+:
sudo apt install ./log-for-linux_*.deb - Fedora 44+:
sudo dnf install ./log-for-linux-*.rpm - Arch Linux (AUR) —
log-for-linux:paru -S log-for-linux(oryay -S log-for-linux). Builds the tagged release from source through the PKGBUILD; without a helper:git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/log-for-linux.git && cd log-for-linux && makepkg -si
Both distro packages are install-tested in clean containers before they are attached to a release.
C11 compiler, meson/ninja, and development files for GTK 4,
libadwaita, GLib/GIO, SQLite and libwebsockets.
Arch: pacman -S --needed gcc meson gtk4 libadwaita glib2 sqlite libwebsockets (equivalent -dev/-devel packages on other distributions).
meson setup builddir
meson compile -C builddir
meson test -C builddir # 10 offline gates, no hardware needed
./builddir/log-for-linux
Install into the user prefix (desktop file, icon and AppStream metainfo included — the app shows up in the app grid):
meson setup builddir --prefix=$HOME/.local
meson compile -C builddir
meson install -C builddir
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Log (SQLite, WAL) | ~/.local/share/log-for-linux/log.db |
| Preferences (TCI, station, macros, ESM, WSJT-X) | ~/.config/log-for-linux/settings.ini |
| ADIF | interchange only — import/export from the window menu |
The store file is the canonical log; back it up like one. ADIF export always
covers everything by default, so a periodic .adi export doubles as a
portable backup.
- SQLite is the store, ADIF the interchange format. A logbook is a database workload — worked-B4 lookups, dedup on import, per-band/mode statistics — and FT8-era logs run to tens of thousands of QSOs. A flat ADIF file would mean parsing the whole log at startup and rewriting it on every QSO; SQLite is one C library, one file, no daemon, and WAL mode survives crashes.
- ADIF round-trips losslessly. Fields the app does not model are kept per QSO and written back verbatim: importing someone's log and exporting it again must never silently drop data.
- A headless, GLib-only engine under the GTK front-end. Everything in
src/engine/builds and runs without GTK, so every part ships with an offline test gate; live checks only where a counterpart app or service is genuinely required. - Contests live in the one log. A contest is a section of the same database, not a file of its own — worked-B4 and statistics see every QSO, and switching contests is a filter.
- The claimed score is an estimate from your own seat — the sponsor's rescoring is the authority. Every contest preset is verified against the sponsor's official rules before it is added.
- No cluster/telnet spot window, deliberately — the skimmer already renders spots on the panadapter, and one click there pre-fills the log.
The reasons behind the smaller decisions sit in the code comments, next to what they govern.
The plan lives in GitHub Issues.
- M7 — callbook lookup (#8): QRZ.com / HamQTH auto-fill of name/QTH/grid on callsign entry, on-disk cache, credentials in the system keyring
- M8 — QSL sync
(#9): LoTW (sign + upload
via
tqsl, confirmation pull), eQSL, Club Log; per-QSO sent/confirmed state per service - Later: DXCC/awards tracking (#10)
- Parked on purpose: WAE QTC traffic (#12), FT8/FT4 contests through WSJT-X (#13)
Setup and operating questions, ideas you'd like to talk through before they become a feature request, and your station or contest results go to Discussions — Q&A, Ideas and Show and tell. Issues stay for concrete bugs and the roadmap above.
GPL-3.0-or-later. © Richard Fakenberg, OK1BR.
Richard Fakenberg — OK1BR — rifak.cz