Hunting

Hunting, the first entry in the sidebar's Parks on the Air group, is your discovery hub for live POTA activations happening on the air right now. It's where you go to find stations to work. (Not chasing parks today? Two sibling rows sit right below the group: DX Chasing for countries, and Repeaters for the repeaters within reach of where you are.)

[SCREENSHOT: Parks on the Air tab showing the spot list panel beside the map with POTA activation markers]

Activating vs. Hunting

If you're new to POTA, here's the key distinction:

• Activator -- You travel to a qualifying park and operate your radio from there. You need at least 10 QSOs within a single UTC day to count as a valid activation.
• Hunter -- You contact activators from home (or anywhere). Every confirmed contact with an activator earns you hunter credit.

Both sides contribute to the program, and Hamtrax supports both workflows. This page covers hunting; see Activating for running your own activation.

Repeat contacts can count on the same UTC day

You can work the same activator again that day on another band or mode. A different park reference or park state/province also distinguishes the contact. After 0000Z, the new UTC day counts separately even when those details stay the same. See the POTA Hunter Guide.

Hamtrax's Hunt duplicate checks preserve these recorded differences. Hunting folders use the UTC month so their dates follow the same clock.

Layout

Parks on the Air is a single unified view with the spot list on one side and the map on the other:

• Spot list -- A scrollable, single-column list of every active spot, one flat row each, ordered by frequency. It shows 20 spots per page; when the feed runs longer than that, previous and next controls sit below the last row.
• Map -- A live map showing the same spots as pins. Pan, zoom, and tap any pin to select the corresponding park: on touch the map pins its tooltip, fades the other pins out until you dismiss it, and settles in one smooth move with the card centered, while on desktop the map stays put and the pin's details open in place.

The list and map stay in sync automatically -- hovering over an activator in either view highlights it in the other. On smaller screens the list becomes a collapsible panel over the map.

The hunt configuration at the top of the panel also shows your radio and antenna. These are not Hunt-only defaults: they are your current equipment across Hamtrax. Pick either one here and the same selection appears in Activate and every new-contact form; pick it in Activate and Hunt updates too. New contacts snapshot the equipment selected when they are saved, so changing it later never rewrites your history.

Browsing Parks on the Map

1. Open Hunting under the Parks on the Air group in the sidebar.
2. Live spots appear as highlighted pins on the map; surrounding park locations from the POTA catalog show as smaller pins so you can scout the area.
3. Zoom into a region to see individual parks.
4. On a mouse, click a catalog park pin to open Park Detail directly. On touch, tapping selects the park and pins the shared straight dark card; tap anywhere on the card — including its photo stack — or its corner icon to continue.

Parks that share a coordinate — and plenty do — stay on that coordinate as one pin carrying a small count, and its popup opens as a layered carousel with one front card and the others underneath; bring another park's card forward to read it. Each card continues to that park's details exactly the way a single card does. See When Pins Land on the Same Spot.

The Park Detail modal keeps the park name in its header while you scroll through:

• One line with the park reference (e.g., K-0001) and park type, and the Popular Park badge when it applies (see below). A quieter line beneath names the park's state or region and country, then its coordinates; when Hamtrax knows your location, the next line gives the park's distance and bearing from you (e.g., 1,234 km away · 245.3° WSW), followed by its current weather. A park spanning several regions, like a long trail, shows the first with an ellipsis; tap it for the rest
• Two stacked count cards styled like the hunt panel's live count — to the right of the location and weather when there is room, otherwise below them. Activations is how many of the park's activation attempts succeeded, captioned with the attempts and, if you've activated it, how many activations of it your Logbook holds (e.g., 6 Activations with of 7 attempts · 2 of yours beneath); tap its number to open Recent activations below. QSOs is the park's total, shown once there are any
• For parks no one has attempted yet, 0 Activations with Be the first on the air from here beneath it
• Location images (when available) — alongside the details on wider screens, below them on a phone; when there is more than one, page through them with the arrows or dots (or swipe), each crediting its photographer with a link back to Flickr or Wikimedia Commons
• Full-width See geography and Recent activations rows below the details when available — open the latter for each recent activation's date, operator, and QSOs by mode
• Images at the bottom left, a Google Images search for photos of the park
• Activate Here at the bottom right to start an activation at that park — greyed out, with You're already activating beneath it, while an activation is already open

Popular Park and geography

Two separate things can appear in a park's detail view, and a park may carry either, both, or neither.

Popular Park is a plain badge on the roughly 1,650 US parks in Hamtrax's popular set, in the same bright neutral treatment as the Activated badge. It marks the park and nothing more — there is nothing to open.

See geography is a collapsed row on any park Hamtrax has written up. Tap it for one full-width illustrated Geography card describing the place. Both read the same wherever you meet the park — the Park Detail modal, the activation detail view, and the Suggested Park card in activation setup.

Two honest notes, the same ones that apply to DX country facts. Geography is written a batch at a time, so a park Hamtrax hasn't described yet simply shows no row rather than an empty card; far more parks have a write-up than carry the Popular Park badge, so seeing one is no guide to the other. And the write-ups themselves read in English in every language.

tip

Focus the main search box, choose Parks, then type at least three characters from a park reference or name (for example, K-0001 or Pottawatomie), or enter a place such as Chicago for nearby parks. Results from Hamtrax's popular set wear the same bright neutral Popular Park badge used everywhere else. Each result includes Activate Here, which opens activation setup with that park selected. With an activation already running those buttons are greyed out together, with You're already activating once above the list — Hamtrax keeps one activation at a time, so finish the open one first.

The panel starts with the shared My Station band at its top edge. When you open a hunting program while signed in, it defaults to expanded if Location, Radio, or Antenna is not set, and collapsed when all three are set. Signed out, it always starts collapsed, with a handwritten note beneath it: we'll save these details for each contact you log. Tap its header to expand or collapse it. Collapsed, it keeps your avatar, My Station, and the current location, radio, and antenna values visible.

Expanded, it is captioned Used when you log a contact when you're signed in. Location, Radio, and Antenna each show the current selection or Not set; signed in, each opens its existing picker. The selected radio's watts appear beneath its name. Below this group come the program heading and, when you're signed in, the save destination. A compact Filters button sits at the right end of the heading's row, moving to its own row just beneath the heading only when there isn't room. Next, the live activator count has Refresh right beside it and Expanded view or Collapsed view at the right end of that row; on a narrow screen that button can drop to its own line, still at the right. The spot rows below sit flat, separated by thin divider lines.

Reception Footprint

The hunting map's controls pill has a small PSK toggle that overlays your reception footprint -- the stations that reported hearing you in the last 30 minutes, from PSK Reporter. Flip it on to confirm your signal is actually getting out (and roughly where) before you keep calling. It needs a saved callsign, and it's a read-only overlay. See Reception Footprint for details.

Finding Live Activations

Live spots appear as highlighted pins on the map, and as rows in the list below the hunt configuration. Rows are flat, separated by thin divider lines, and each reads left to right:

• Frequency first, in bright segmented digits, with a band-plan warning beside it when applicable
• The station in the middle: the activator's callsign and, once Hamtrax has looked it up, the operator's name; a small country flag before the park reference; and the mode when the spot supplies one — yellow for voice, CW, and unknown modes, blue for recognized digital modes. Tap the callsign to open that operator's callsign details
• Spot age and spot count on the right. When the row is closed, your status — Contacted, Tried, or Later — sits beneath the count as a small label in the same color as its map pin
• See details at the far right (a box with an arrow leaving it) opens the activation detail modal. When you've chosen collapsed rows, the chevron below it opens that row

Rows start expanded, keeping their details and contact buttons visible without hovering. The button immediately above the spot list reads Expanded view or Collapsed view to show the current mode; tap it to switch. This choice is shared with DX Chasing and, when you're signed in, saved to your account for future visits.

With collapsed rows chosen, on a phone or tablet tap anywhere else on a row, or its chevron, to open a tray beneath it; tap again to close it. With a mouse or trackpad, rest the pointer on the row for a moment instead — the tray opens, and closes when you move away; tabbing into a row with the keyboard opens it too. The tray names the park and its region — the park name opens the same detail modal — and shows the park's photo where Hamtrax has freely licensed photography. Tap the photo thumbnail to open the full-screen photo viewer and browse the park's available photos. Tune, the small computer-icon button, stays in its supporting row when your connected radio can tune the spot. The footer below it holds a standalone Spot button on the left and a thin outlined group containing No Luck, Later, and Contact. Contact has a green icon matching its map pin; the other button icons stay neutral. Each button keeps its full text label. As space tightens, the Spot icon disappears first, then the three status icons. If even the text-only row doesn't fit, Spot on POTA.app takes its own line above the three buttons; signed out, Spot is hidden instead, since it would only open the account prompt. Hover tips and screen-reader labels explain the action. After a successful QSO, Spot leaves the tray. A small divider above the footer shows Contacted in green. Once the status buttons finish collapsing, Remove contact, Share Contact, and Edit Contact sit together in the footer row. All three buttons share the same height, with Remove, Share, or Edit above a smaller contact caption; Remove has a red X icon. As room tightens, the Share/Edit icons disappear first, then their contact captions; the row wraps only if the remaining controls still cannot fit. While the tray is open, the status label under the spot count steps aside, because the tray already shows the status.

The map popup can show up to four different tiny photos of the place as a stack at the card's right edge, beside the callsign and location. A pinned popup loads them itself; a hover preview shows them only once they've already loaded — after you've opened that spot's row, for example. A shared-park popup carousel shows the place photos beside the identity on whichever operator card is at the front.

Tap anywhere on a live POTA popup card — including that photo stack — or the small details icon in its top-right corner to open the same activation detail modal. Spot, the status and contact buttons, radio tuning, and the band-plan help keep their own actions.

On a hover device, clicking a marker with one activator opens that activator's detail modal directly. When one park marker represents two or more activators, hovering previews — and clicking pins — a layered carousel of regular spot popups, one per operator, with one card in front and the others tucked underneath. On touch devices, tapping pins the same popup or carousel. See When Pins Land on the Same Spot for scrolling, swiping, and moving between cards. Every operator gets one straight-sided card: the callsign with the operator's first name, then their location when known, and below a divider a segmented frequency readout with plain mode text to its right — yellow by default and blue for digital modes. The card ends with the same buttons as a list row's tray: Tune on its own row when your connected radio can tune the spot, then Spot beside the outlined No Luck, Later, and Contact group; on a very narrow screen, Spot on POTA.app takes its own line above the group, or is hidden while you're signed out. The card stays the same width after you choose a status, while the unselected status buttons still collapse away, and the popup stays open. After a saved contact, Spot leaves and a green Contacted divider sits above Remove contact, Share Contact, and Edit Contact. A band-plan warning appears beside the frequency when applicable. Like every map tooltip, it has no corner X: a hover preview disappears when you leave the marker/card, while a pinned popup begins closing the moment you press empty map space — even if that press becomes a drag. Choosing another pin or pressing Escape closes it too; the 2D map guide owns the complete interaction contract. Pinning one also clears the map around it: every other activator pin fades out while the card is open and fades back when you dismiss it, so a busy weekend map never competes with the operator you're reading. The activation detail modal shows:

• Park header at the top: park name, an Images link (Google Images), and the park reference followed by its region and country spelled out — DO-0061, Independencia, Dominican Republic. Region names come from POTA's own catalog, so parks outside the US read correctly instead of borrowing a same-spelled US state code. When a park spans multiple regions, only the first is shown with a trailing … — tap to expand the full set
• Park image preview floating over the bottom-right corner of the spotter map
• Station card for that activator: frequency · mode on the first row, callsign + operator name (looked up when the modal opens) on the next
• Contact buttons laid out like a list row's tray: Tune on top when your connected radio can tune the spot, then Spot beside the outlined No Luck, Later, and Contact group. Saving with Contact keeps the details open; once you've worked the station, a green Contacted divider sits above Remove contact, Share Contact, and Edit Contact
• Spotter map showing where stations that spotted this activator are located. The map progressively draws arcs from the selected park out to every locatable spotter, while the count above the map shows how many of the reporting spotters are on the map so far (e.g. Showing 21 of 22 spotters). Any locations already found stay visible if mapping pauses, and provider limits resume automatically. If some spotters can't be located at all, the map simply shows the ones it found — reopening the activation tries again. A spotter whose callbook record carries no real position is left off both the map and the list rather than drawn at a placeholder spot, so every distance you read is a distance to a real place. Toggle between list and map view using the List / Map buttons; the list runs nearest first and shows each located spotter's country flag before their state and country, their spot comments, and how far they are from the park. On the map, hover over any spotter marker for their callsign and first name, with their country flag beside their city or grid square, and click the marker to pin its popup; it uses the shared map dismissal behavior. While a spotter popup stays open, every other spotter and arc fades away; the selected spotter, the activator's gray park pin, and their connecting arc remain. Hamtrax then uses the tightest frame that keeps both glyphs and the full popup inside the map, without progressive spotter mapping reframing it until the popup closes. Closing it restores the original activator-plus-all-spotters overview. The activator's own gray pin at the park reads the same way once their callsign lookup lands, so the station you're chasing is more than a callsign on the map. Country comes from the callbook when it knows the operator and from the callsign's prefix when it doesn't — Hamtrax carries the complete ITU call-sign series, so a spotter from anywhere on the air shows the right country and flag. Spot history is scoped to the selected program, park, and activator, so one operator appearing at two parks never mixes the two listener groups On desktop, hover previews without hiding markers or reframing; a click pins the popup. On touch, the first tap pins the same popup and starts the focused frame.

Because a list row's tray carries the same buttons, you can spot, mark status, or log without opening the detail modal. Share Contact opens that QSO's shareable contact card. Edit Contact opens the contact in the Logbook's own Edit Contact form: change any field and tap Update Contact, or Delete the contact. Share and Edit act on the same contact — your newest saved one with that activator at that park. Whether a hunter spot is also posted to POTA.app when you save a hunting contact is governed by Respot activators on contact in Settings → Preferences → Hunting, on by default.

After recording an attempt or setting a later reminder, the other two status buttons drop away immediately and the one you chose stays behind in its status color as the badge for the current state. Its label becomes Tried or stays Later. Saving a hunting contact briefly shows Adding… — on the list row, in the detail modal, and on the map popup alike — and ignores extra taps until the local QSO write lands, then displays Contacted. A failed write leaves the action available to retry; once the QSO is durable, a nonessential celebration, notification, review prompt, or optional spot failure cannot turn it back into a failed action and invite a duplicate save. Saving a contact also removes Spot, while attempted and later marks keep it beside their badge. Tap an active attempt or later reminder again to undo that mark. To undo a logged contact, tap Remove contact in the list, activation details, or map popup. You must confirm deleting the saved contact (activation details stay open behind the confirmation); once confirmed, the spotting button returns.

Contacted comes from a recent saved POTA QSO for that activator and normalized park reference, including park-to-park contacts. A contact recorded for another activity program never paints a POTA spot, even when its callsign and reference text match. The badge stays live for 10 hours, and editing the backing contact — from the card's Edit Contact or from the Logbook — moves the status immediately. Deleting a contact — individually or with its folder — clears the badge once no matching recent POTA QSO remains while QRZ sync leaves the QRZ record intact and remembers known deleted counterparts as excluded.

Spotting an activator

Tap Spot in a live POTA row's tray, its activation detail modal, or its map popup to tell POTA.app you can hear that station. Hamtrax sends the activator's published frequency and mode for the selected park. Sending a spot leaves your logbook and the station's hunt status unchanged. It works independently of Respot activators on contact, which controls automatic spotting after you save a hunting contact.

The spotting button is offered on any station you haven't worked yet, beside the attempt and later-reminder controls. Once you save a contact it steps off the row entirely — in the list, on the map popup, and in activation details alike — because saving already sends a spot when that switch is on. Tap Remove contact and confirm deleting the saved contact to bring the spotting button back.

Both on-demand and automatic hunter spots use your Hunt spot comment from Settings → Integrations → POTA. A hamtrax.com link leads the comment by default; the editor also lets you choose My showcase. The complete comment fits within Hamtrax's 60-character limit. Selectable Radio and Antenna pills in that editor add your current equipment ahead of your own text as Radio: … and Antenna: …. Empty values add no label. A hunt spot sends the radio and antenna without the watts, which only an activation spot adds.

Spotting needs an account and a valid saved callsign, and each is asked for in its own place. Signed out, Spot opens Hamtrax's account prompt, headed Sign in to spot an activator — choose Create Free Account or sign in, then tap the spotting button again. Signed in with a missing or invalid callsign, the spotting button opens a prompt explaining the requirement and lets you enter and save it right there with the same callbook check used in Settings, or take Add it in Settings instead.

The spotting button is disabled while a spot is sending and for five minutes after POTA accepts a spot that Hamtrax sent for that activator at that park in this browser. The list, map popup, and detail modal share that wait. A successful automatic spot after saving a hunting contact starts that wait too, quietly: the spotting button is already gone from a contacted station, so you never see it disabled there — but undo the saved contact while the wait is still running and the spotting button comes back disabled for whatever is left of it. A failed spot does not start the five-minute wait, and another operator's spots in the POTA feed do not start it either. The same activator at a different park has a separate wait.

Band-plan warnings

When an activator is spotted on a frequency outside your band plan — outside every segment your license class may transmit in — Hamtrax marks the spot with an orange warning triangle. It shows everywhere the spot appears: on the spot row in the list, on the per-activator station card in the activation detail modal, and in that operator's map popup, including shared-park carousels. Hover over it (or tap on a touch device) for the reminder that this activator's frequency is outside your band plan, so you may not be permitted to transmit there.

It's a heads-up, not a block — you can still log the contact. Warnings appear only once you have a band plan on file (set automatically from your callsign, or chosen manually), so to make them match your privileges set your agency and license class under Settings → Preferences → Station → Band Plan. To hide the triangles on every spot, turn off Warn when outside in that same subsection, directly beneath the band plan summary row.

Tuning your radio to a station

With a radio connected under Settings → Remote Control in the iOS or Android app, a tune button — a small computer icon — joins the status buttons in each live spot's row tray, activation detail modal, and map popup, and sits beside Log Contact on a spotted operator's callsign dossier. Tap it and Hamtrax sets the radio to that spot's frequency and mode. The button flashes green once the radio confirms the change, or shakes red if the radio doesn't get there. SSB picks the band's usual sideband, and digital modes such as FT8, FT4, JS8, Q65, PSK, and Olivia select USB data mode, or plain USB on a radio without a separate data mode. A spot with no mode, or a mode Hamtrax doesn't recognize, such as SSTV, changes only the frequency and leaves the radio's mode alone.

The button appears only when your connected radio can tune the spot: the frequency has to be one the radio can receive, and a mode Hamtrax recognizes has to be one the radio can set. Supported radios lists each radio's frequencies and modes. DX Chasing spots carry the same button, and Repeaters uses it to put you on a repeater's output frequency.

Setting Where You're Hunting From

The Parks on the Air, DX Chasing, and Repeaters panels share the My Station group above their program headings. When signed in, tap Location, Radio, or Antenna to open its picker and change it; signed out, Location is read-only while Radio and Antenna open disposable demo editors. Every field can be changed, but closing discards the draft and leaves the mock gear unchanged. Automatic POTA respotting is controlled under Settings → Preferences → Hunting. In POTA's My Location picker, Hunting from a park? sits at the bottom, visually separate beneath the three location choices — it is an activation shortcut, not a fourth location mode.

Radio also sets the contact's power. A contact logged from the hunt panel records the watts saved on your current radio, exactly as one typed into the full contact form does, so the power travels with the QSO into your exports and onto its QSL card. Change those watts on the radio's card inside the picker, or in Rig Manager.

Distance and nearby-park suggestions are measured from your location. Tap Location under My Station to set it: pull it from your callsign, use device GPS, or enter it manually — search for a place (a city, park, or landmark), drop in a grid square, or type coordinates. With device GPS active, the picker shows the coordinates immediately, then replaces them with a nearby place name when that lookup succeeds; coordinates remain when it cannot resolve a name. It's the same My Location picker opened by tapping the Location row in Settings → Preferences → Station, including manual grid suggestions, so a location set in one place is the location everywhere. Changes save automatically, and Done or dismissal closes the picker without undoing them.

Locked while you're activating

Start an activation and the editable Location selector gives way to the green You're activating notice inside My Station, below Radio and Antenna. It names your park once and stays visible beneath the compact equipment summary when My Station is collapsed. Every contact saved into an activation folder is recorded as operated from that park, because the folder is the source of truth for where the session happened. The same lock appears in the contact editor. Wrong park on the card? Use the park correction and the operating location follows it, on the folder and on every contact already logged. Finish the activation and the selector comes back.

A manual hunting location can be temporary: choose an auto-revert window (1, 4, 8, or 24 hours, or Never Revert) and Hamtrax counts down and switches back to your callsign's location when it expires — handy when you're hunting away from home for the day. Clear override in Manual mode removes that saved location early.

Signed out, Location shows your approximate area, estimated from your internet connection — or your country, from your browser language, when no area can be found. It's only for this visit: Hamtrax never saves it.

Filtering Spots

Use the Filters button at the right end of the program heading's row to narrow the feed. It opens controls inline beneath the heading, just above the live count, with each filter name on the left and its current value on the right; tapping a chevron row reveals its control directly underneath. Only one filter row opens at a time. Tap or click anywhere outside the Filters control and its expanded area to collapse the whole section.

• Band -- expands to the same color-grouped square checkmarks used by the equipment picker. Choose All Bands or exactly one band from 160m through 70cm.
• Mode -- expands to visible radio choices for All Modes, SSB, CW, FT8, FT4, FM, AM, RTTY, PSK, JT65, and SSTV
• Last Spotted -- keeps a compact selected duration on the right, even while expanded. Beneath Show spots from the last are five outlined buttons: 5m, 10m, 20m, 30m, and 60m. Tap a button to choose how recent a spot must be to appear; the selected preset is marked as pressed for screen readers, and the duration is announced when it changes. The default is 20 minutes. There is no clock or slider to drag.

With a filter on, the count shows just the filtered result — 86 Activators. Whatever band or mode you pick also appears beneath the program heading, above the count, each value named by its own field: Mode: SSB on its own, Band: 20m on its own, and Band: 20m · Mode: SSB when both are set. An active filter is never hidden from you. A Clear action sits beside those values so you can remove the band and mode filters without opening the disclosure. Your Last Spotted window still applies.

tip

Combine filters across dimensions for precision. For example, show only CW activations on 20m.

info

If you always hunt the same band or mode, pin them under Settings → Preferences → Map → Filters. The panel then opens already filtered to them every time. Change either under Filters here in the panel to hunt something else — that change holds while you stay on Parks on the Air, and your default returns the next time you open the tab. Clear removes the current panel's band and mode filters rather than falling back to or changing your saved default.

info

POTA spots refresh every few minutes. If an activator just posted a spot and you don't see it yet, give it a moment.

Real-Time Updates

The live feed refreshes automatically in the background. Spots and activations update without you needing to reload. Below the filters, a small text count shows Loading until results arrive, then the number of activators, including 0. The count is informational and stays visible during automatic or manual refreshes. Use the separate Refresh button beside it to request a fresh feed; while a refresh is running, the button is disabled.

Logging a Hunt Contact

Tap Contact in a spot's row tray, activation detail modal, or map popup to create a QSO record with the activator's callsign, frequency, band, mode, and park reference pre-filled -- no separate form needed. The signal report follows Pre-fill perfect signal reports: a perfect 59 / 599 while it's on, and no report at all while it's off, since a one-tap contact never asked you for one. An FT8-family spot stores no report either way -- those modes log a dB number like -15, and there is no perfect one to stand in for the number you never copied. Add it later by editing the contact if you want it on the record. Logging a hunt contact requires a callsign on your account; if yours isn't set, Hamtrax asks for it in a prompt that also saves it, so you stay on the spot you were hunting. It runs the same callbook check as Settings → Account, which remains available from the prompt as an alternative.

If the activator, park, UTC day, band, mode, and recorded park-region information match an existing hunt, another save is blocked as a duplicate. A different band or mode remains valid, and a supplied submode distinguishes modes such as FT8 and FT4. These are the same Hunt duplicate rules used by manual logging and imports. When hunting from a park, the contact belongs to your activation and uses its separate warning policy.

If Respot activators on contact is on (default), Hamtrax saves the QSO on this device first and then attempts a hunter spot on POTA.app confirming you worked the activator. You can continue logging while that optional spot finishes. If POTA.app rejects it, your contact stays saved on this device, the action still reports success, and Hamtrax does not claim it was spotted. Logging works offline; spotting needs internet.

The save itself is local-first: Adding… remains until the contact is stored on your device and visible in the Logbook. A local import batch or an incoming synchronization update may briefly delay that local work. Cloud uploads and optional spotting continue in the background. If the cloud guard permanently rejects the queued save, Hamtrax shows a warning notification ("Contact needs filing") and keeps the contact under Logbook → Needs Filing with a plain outcome, reason, and next step — never an internal id or raw server message — so a hunt that looked logged never disappears in silence. Because the Contacted badge is drawn from the saved QSO, a rejection also un-paints that badge; the notification is what explains why.

If you attempted a contact but couldn't complete it, tap No Luck in the list, activation details, or map popup to record the attempt, or tap Later to flag the activator to come back to later. The chosen button stays as a status badge, reading Tried for an attempt or Later for a reminder — tap that active button again to clear the mark. A Tried mark belongs to that activator, activity program, and normalized reference: marking it, undoing it, or later logging the contact changes only the matching program's status, never a same-looking activity in another program. The later reminder uses the same program-qualified identity for marking and undoing, but remains a separate reminder stored only in this browser for its ten-hour window. Logging a QSO does not clear it. Both marks stay in the browser you made them in — they never travel to your other devices — and both belong to the account you were signed in as, so another operator signing in on the same browser never sees yours. Marks you make while signed out belong to that signed-out visit and do not follow you into an account when you sign in.

Worked an activator before you opened Hamtrax? Search their callsign in the main search, select it under Callsigns, and tap Log Contact. The full Add Contact form opens with their callsign filled in — plus the frequency, mode, and park while they're still spotted. With a park in Their Park, Auto-organize files the contact into that UTC month's Hunting folder, creating it if needed. See Manual Logging.

Hunting From a Park (Park-to-Park)

Some operators run the activation playbook in reverse: set up at a park, and instead of calling CQ and waiting for hunters, hunt other activators from the picnic table. Every one of those contacts is a park-to-park QSO — and every one of them counts toward activating your own park, because POTA scores what the log shows, not how you operated:

What POTA says

"A successful activation requires a minimum of 10 QSOs from a park in the designated list within a single UTC day (Zulu day)."

"If a hunter is also at a designated Parks on the Air park, this QSO becomes a 'Park to Park' (P2P)." — and for it to count: "All other activator rules have to be followed for it to be a valid park to park QSO."

— POTA Rules

Ten P2P hunts from your park in one UTC day is an activation. Even under ten, POTA's guidance is to submit anyway: "Courteous activators will still submit logs for unsuccessful activations to ensure their hunters get credit for the QSOs."

Hamtrax makes this automatic. While exactly one matching POTA activation is in progress, every POTA contact you hunt files into that activation's folder as a park-to-park QSO — stamped with your park — instead of the monthly Hunting folder. When you later export that folder, the P2P contacts are right there in the log you submit to POTA; nothing needs to be moved by hand.

What about DX and repeaters?

An activation isn't only a POTA affair. You are at the park for the whole session, so every contact you make there belongs in the log you submit — whatever tab you made it from.

• DX Chasing follows you into the activation. Work an entity off the cluster while activating and it files into the activation's folder, not your DX month, and the DX tab shows the same green You're activating card saying so. It is not stamped park-to-park — that claim needs the other station to be at a park too — so it files as an ordinary activation QSO. Your DX credit is untouched: it comes from the contact's DXCC entity, never from the folder.
• Repeaters stay out. POTA doesn't count a contact made through a repeater toward an activation, and the Repeaters tab's green card says so while you're activating. You can still add the contact deliberately from its own month folder in the Logbook.

Each program decides this for itself, once, and every surface reads that one answer — the panel card you see, the folder the save picks, and the guard at the write door cannot disagree about it.

How it works in the panel:

• Start an activation without leaving the hunt panel. Tap Location under My Station, then tap the green Hunting from a park? card beneath the three location choices. The picker closes first. If the top of the panel is off-screen, Hamtrax scrolls it into view; then the hunt configuration slides aside and the park form slides in. Name your park under Select Park and tap Start Activation. The header row it arrives with is also the way back. That's the whole trip — no setup form, no frequency required, and you stay on the hunt list. The Select Park field shimmers gold until a park is named — the same gold hint the Activate tab puts on its own park and frequency fields. Opening the park form does not request your location: search by reference or name whenever you like, or tap Find Nearest to request a fresh device fix. If the park field is blank and you're within 0.5 miles of the closest park, that tap selects it; otherwise Hamtrax opens the nearby-parks list. A lookup that stalls gives up after about twenty seconds instead of sitting on Finding…, and the button simply returns to Find Nearest so you can tap it again. Manual park search keeps working even when location access does not. Starting this way never posts a POTA spot — a reverse activator hunts; they don't usually want POTA.app sending hunters to them. (Starting from the Activate tab as usual still works.)
• Already have an activation open? The Hunting from a park? quick-start button is hidden from the My Location picker while any activation is open — or while several unfinished legacy sessions remain. If the green You're activating card appears, use Go to activation to resume it or End activation to finish it; otherwise use the In Progress list on Activate. Hamtrax keeps one activation in progress at a time, so finish the open one first. And if your account has no callsign yet, Start stays disabled until you set one in Settings.
• The green card is your confirmation. Whenever routing is active, a green You're activating card sits near the top of the panel, naming your park and the destination folder. It sits inside My Station, below Radio and Antenna, taking the place of the separate Location control and value for the duration — your location is the park. It stays visible below the compact equipment summary when My Station is collapsed. Self-spotting belongs to the Activate tab; expand My Station to change Radio or Antenna. If you don't see the green card, hunts are filing into the monthly folder as normal — and that's when Contacts will be saved to logbook shows at the top of the panel instead. A legacy multiple-activation warning may appear inside My Station; it confirms monthly filing and leaves the normal Location control available. Every destination surface reads the same rule the save does, so they can't disagree. The Hunting from a park? button disappears from My Location whenever any activation row remains open, even when a dormant or different-program activation cannot claim the selected Hunt program; finish it before starting another.
• One-tap saves log the same way. One-tap hunting contact saves and main search adds both follow the routing. The full Add Contact form — including the one a callsign's Log Contact opens — files by the contact's own details instead, so it joins the activation only when My Location or Park is set to your park.
• Need the activation's Add Contact form? Tap Go to activation on the green card. It opens the ongoing activation directly, beside the quieter End activation action.
• Done? End it from the card. Confirm, and the activation ends at once as of its last contact — even with no signal. The card goes and hunts return to monthly filing. In the rare case the cloud can't accept the close while the activation is still open there, Activation reopened brings the card back so you can end it again.

Three rules keep this honest:

1. One activation at a time. Hamtrax allows a single in-progress activation. Filing considers only genuine live sessions: one live activation can claim a hunt from any program that files into it, several live sessions are ambiguous and stay monthly, and dormant legacy rows are ignored for contact routing. Any open row still blocks starting a new activation until you finish it — which is why Activate Here is greyed out until you do — with You're already activating beneath the button in a park's detail card, and once above the results list in the main park search.
2. Same UTC day only. A hunt joins the activation only when its UTC day falls inside the session — including a session running past 0000Z. POTA scores per Zulu day, so a same-day contact made before you tapped Start still belongs.
3. Activation contacts use the activation's warning policy. P2P contacts are outside the Hunt duplicate block. Re-working an activator on another band saves a distinct contact, as it does for a plain hunt; the activation logger may still flag repeated callsigns for review.

tip

Left an activation running by accident? Hamtrax ends any in-progress activation automatically after 24 hours without a new contact being added, closing it as of its last contact. It's automatic and always on — see Idle activations close themselves.

Related Pages

• Activating -- Start, log, and finish your own POTA activation.
• DX Chasing -- The same hunt shape, keyed to countries instead of parks.
• Repeaters -- Work the repeaters near you, from a local directory rather than a live spot feed.
• Folders & Labels -- How monthly Hunting folders organize your contacts.
• 2D Map -- Map interaction, overlays, and the reception footprint.