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Manual Logging

Manual logging is the fastest way to record a contact while you are on the air. Open the QSO form, type a callsign and frequency, and save -- Hamtrax fills in the rest automatically.

Prerequisites​

  • You must be signed in to your Hamtrax account.
  • Your account must have a callsign set. If it doesn't, Hamtrax shows an "Add your callsign first" prompt — and the prompt takes the callsign. Type it in, Hamtrax runs the same callbook check it runs in Settings, and Save Callsign appears once your call is confirmed. You stay on the page you were on, so nothing you had open is lost. Add it in Settings instead is still there for anyone whose callsign the callbook can't find; see Hamtrax Can't Find My Callsign.

Where manual logging opens today​

Manual logging from the Logbook starts in either of these places:

  • Add Contact beside Import Contacts -- the two entry actions share one row above the folder list. Outside Bulk Edit, the Logbook shows this general full-form action even before the first folder exists. An automatic route previews the exact destination name, folder type, and program badge; an unclaimed contact instead shows Custom folder — Choose or create a folder and the custom-only picker. The same filing policy used by Import chooses your recognized From Park activation first. Only when the contact carries no MY activity identity may an explicit worked Hunt target or foreign DX entity claim it. Unsupported or ambiguous MY identity remains intact and requires a custom folder, while a recognized installed program with an invalid reference is rejected rather than filed somewhere less protected. A missing automatic monthly or activation folder is created at Save; a custom folder is selected or created inline first. A future contact cannot create an automatic folder or QSO.
  • Add Contact on a content folder -- activation, monthly, and custom folders have an Add Contact action, sitting directly under the folder's List / Map / DX switch alongside Bulk Edit. Both appear only on the List tab, so switch back to List if you're on Map or DX. Tapping Add Contact slides in a compact quick-add card in place of those two buttons, tuned to that folder and its program: custom folders ask for just the callsign, frequency, and date/time; a POTA month also asks for a Park and mode; a DX month asks for a Country / DXCC entity and mode; activation folders seed the park and date from the activation. The activation card has no report fields, so it records a perfect 59 only while Pre-fill perfect signal reports is on — turn it off and the contact saves with no report, which you can add later via See full contact form or an edit. Custom and activation cards stay bound to that exact folder. Opening a monthly leaf binds the program instead: the contact's UTC date chooses or creates that program's month, and a back-dated compact save confirms the destination month first.

Outside the Logbook, each program's Hunt page also has a Manually add contact card. Its editable UTC date can add an old POTA hunt, DX contact, or repeater contact and automatically create that program's missing month. One exception: while an activation is live, the Repeaters page replaces that card with an explanation, because POTA doesn't count repeater contacts toward an activation. The Logbook's own quick-add card above is unaffected and stays open — a card opened on a folder is bound to that folder and never consults your activation, which is exactly why it remains the way to log one anyway.

The quick-add card covers the fields you fill in most often. For everything else, tap See full contact form at the bottom of the card — it opens the full QSO form with the same callsign, frequency, mode, and date/time. A resolved target and its location come too; unfinished target text remains unstamped and must be selected in the full form before Save becomes available. The owning program comes with you: a POTA month still shows its park control, while a DX month still shows its country/entity control and records DX rather than POTA. That park or entity is the source of truth for the contacted station's location, so these program-bound forms do not show competing generic City, State, or Grid controls (DX's entity picker replaces Country). The full form still gives you ordinary My Location, equipment, power, notes, and the locked-field explanations described below, and those values are saved with the contact. From Park remains visible but greyed out because a park-origin contact belongs in its activation/P2P log rather than a monthly Hunt folder. The form explains: “If you made this contact from a POTA park, start a new activation if this contact is recent, or save an old, closed activation if this contact is from the past.”

The general Logbook form supplies both routes in that guidance. A From Park contact reuses an exact matching live or finished activation. When none exists, Save creates a one-contact finished activation whose start and end equal the contact's UTC instant, so an old single contact no longer needs a folder in advance. For a contact dated today, Start Activation can open activation setup with the selected park prefilled and spotting off when no activation folder remains open; the contact draft remains available when you return. A dormant open activation is not treated as live, but it must still be finished before a new live session can start. If exactly one dormant folder matches the contact, Save finishes it through the normal lifecycle and reuses it; a currently mounted match or multiple matching folders stops the save and leaves the draft open for review. The destination is checked again against current Logbook state immediately before the save.

The compact duplicate warning follows the same award rule as the write door. POTA blocks the same station and park again on the same UTC day regardless of band or mode. DX blocks only the same station and entity on the same UTC day, band, and mode, so working that DX slot on another band or mode remains valid.

On phones and tablets, Hamtrax also removes the most annoying parts of typing callsigns on glass. Callsign characters are evenly spaced and fixed-width, giving you clearer places to tap when you need to position the cursor and finish a call you heard in fragments — and once you place the cursor it stays there, because uppercasing what you type no longer knocks it to the end of the field. Autocorrect, spell-check, and saved-value autofill are switched off on the form's Callsign and Grid fields, so your phone never "corrects" a call into a word or drops a suggestion box over what you're typing. The live activation logger goes one step further: its Add Contact callsign field adds touch chevrons for moving the cursor and, when enabled under Settings → Preferences → Contact Entry, a 0–9 row above the keyboard. Other callsign fields use the normal on-screen keyboard without that extra row.

Logging a contact step by step​

  1. Open the QSO form. Tap the persistent Add Contact below Import Contacts for the general full form, or, on a folder's List tab, tap Add Contact under the List / Map / DX switch for that folder's quick-add card and use See full contact form when you need every field. The form opens with today's date, the current UTC time, and the default mode (SSB) pre-filled — except on an activation folder, where the date comes from the activation itself and is locked. See Locked fields in auto-folders.

  2. Enter the callsign. Type the other station's callsign into the Callsign field. Callsigns must be 3–15 characters and can include letters, digits, and slashes (for portable prefixes like JA1/W5ABC). The fixed-width spacing makes cursor placement between characters easier, and the cursor holds its spot while the field uppercases what you type. In a general or custom-folder form, the lookup can fill the operator's name and available location details. In a POTA or DX monthly form it supplies only the operator's name; the selected park or entity owns the worked-station location.

  3. Enter the frequency. Type the frequency in MHz into the Frequency field. If you type it the way the dial reads instead -- 14250 rather than 14.250 -- Hamtrax converts it to MHz as the contact is saved, so the stored frequency and every export stay in MHz. Genuine microwave frequencies are left exactly as typed: 1296 is 23cm, not 1.296 MHz. Hamtrax automatically derives the band from the frequency and can auto-fill the mode based on your band plan settings.

  4. Confirm the destination. A custom or activation quick-add card owns its exact folder. A monthly card owns the program while the entered UTC date chooses that program's month, so there is no folder picker there. In the general form, the filing preview shows the exact destination name, folder type, and badge before you save. It leads the form and stays pinned to the top as you scroll, so the destination stays in view while you fill in the very fields that decide it. My Location → From Park resolves to your activation, Their Park resolves to the contact's POTA Hunt month, a foreign country/entity resolves to the matching DX month, and an unclaimed contact asks you to choose or create a custom folder.

  5. Fill in optional fields. The form includes additional fields you can fill in as needed:

    • Mode -- defaults to SSB, or auto-filled from band plan when a frequency is entered. The picker offers SSB, CW, FM, FT8, FT4, PSK31, RTTY, AM, and the three digital-voice modes DMR, D-STAR, and C4FM — pick the one you actually worked and Hamtrax stores it the way ADIF asks for it (see what gets exported).
    • Signal Report -- RST Sent and RST Received. In the full QSO form the default follows the mode: 59 for phone and digital-voice modes (SSB/FM/AM, DMR/D-STAR/C4FM), 599 for CW and other RST modes (RTTY, PSK). Every digit is adjustable in the picker with up/down steppers -- readability (1–5), strength (1–9), and tone (1–9) in RST modes. Changing the mode reshapes the report automatically. Editing a contact that has no stored report shows the picker unset (dim dashes) until you tap a report in -- activation logging can leave reports unset via Pre-fill perfect signal reports.
    • City, State/Province, Country, Grid -- location details for the other station in general and custom-folder forms (auto-populated by callsign lookup). Program-bound POTA/DX monthly forms use their required target instead of these generic fields.
    • Power (W) -- your transmit power in watts.
    • Their Park -- if the other station is at a POTA park, search by name or reference and select it here; the search reads the POTA park catalog. Hamtrax auto-detects the program from the reference format, so a reference belonging to another program — a repeater written the way Hamtrax stores it, the repeater's callsign plus its output frequency in MHz (W0ERH 442.100) — is tagged as that program's contact rather than as a park. Because monthly folders are program-scoped, a contact tagged that way needs a folder that accepts it — pick one in Log in (a custom folder always does), or log it from its own program tab, like Repeaters, where the destination is handled for you. In a POTA monthly folder you must select a real resolved park; typing park-shaped text alone does not stamp POTA or enable Save.
    • Radio and Antenna -- select from your saved equipment profiles (configured in Rig Manager). This is your app-wide current equipment, so the same choices appear in Hunt and Activate.
    • Date & Time -- pre-filled with the current UTC date and time. A program-bound monthly form can be back-dated but cannot create a future contact.
    • Notes -- free-text notes about the contact.

  6. Set your location (optional). The My Location section lets you choose how your operating location is recorded:

    • From Park -- use the location of a registered POTA park you are activating. In a monthly Hunt form this option remains visible but greyed out, with guidance to use a recent or historical activation instead.
    • From callsign -- use your registered address from QRZ/HamQTH.
    • Device location -- use your current device GPS position.
    • Manual entry -- use the same manual location picker to enter a grid square or coordinates, or search for a place (cities, parks, and landmarks).

  7. Save the contact. Tap Save. The general form re-runs the filing decision against the latest folders and contacts, creates the reviewed destination if it is missing, and then writes the QSO with that explicit folder identity. A compact or full form closes and clears only after the QSO is written to your local database; if folder creation or the write fails, the draft stays open so you can retry without retyping it. The command is sent to the cloud when connected and joins the synced log after the cloud accepts it. If it is permanently rejected after an offline save, Hamtrax shows a warning notification and the Logbook keeps the original under Needs Filing with a plain outcome, reason, and next step rather than an internal id or raw server message. Only a new contact rejected for folder hygiene offers Choose folder and asks you to pick a destination -- impossible folders are greyed out, and Save confirms the filing or explains the refusal; a contact-limit rejection offers View plans, while other permanent create errors stay review-only.

[SCREENSHOT: QSO form with callsign and frequency entered and auto-populated fields highlighted]

Auto-populated fields​

When you open the QSO form, several fields are filled in for you:

  • Date and time -- set to the current UTC date and time.
  • Mode -- defaults to SSB; automatically changes based on frequency and your band plan settings. Digital voice is stored the ADIF way — mode DIGITALVOICE with DMR, D-STAR, or C4FM as the submode — but you never have to type that: the picker speaks submode names, and editing a contact stored that way shows its submode name back to you. Switch such a contact to a non-digital-voice mode and the stale submode is cleared with it.
  • RST defaults -- in the full QSO form, RST Sent and Received default to the mode's format: 59 for phone and digital-voice modes (SSB/FM/AM, DMR/D-STAR/C4FM), 599 for CW and other RST modes (RTTY, PSK). Switching mode reshapes the value automatically. (Activation logging has its own switch — Pre-fill perfect signal reports.)
  • Your location -- determined by your chosen location mode (callsign address, device GPS, POTA park, or manual entry).
  • Equipment -- your app-wide current radio and antenna are shown. A change here appears immediately in Hunt and Activate and applies to future contacts; if you have never chosen equipment, the fields stay unselected.

In general and custom-folder forms, entering a callsign lets Hamtrax look it up and auto-fill:

  • Name -- the operator's name from callsign databases.
  • Grid square -- their Maidenhead grid locator.
  • QTH -- their city with state/province when available, or city and country for foreign records that do not provide a state/province.
  • State, Country, Continent -- location details from the callsign record. When the record itself carries no country, Hamtrax derives one from the callsign's prefix using the complete ITU call-sign series, so a DX call still fills in its country.
  • Coordinates -- latitude and longitude for map visualization, when the record carries a real position. A registration a callbook can't place on a map — a PO box or a military APO/FPO address, say — fills the other fields and leaves coordinates empty rather than guessing.

When you enter a park reference in Their Park, Hamtrax can auto-fill:

  • Grid square, QTH, state, country, coordinates -- from the park database.

In a POTA monthly form, those park-derived values replace the callbook's worked-station location and require a real resolved selection. In a DX monthly form, the selected entity similarly supplies the country, DXCC number, and centroid; callsign lookup may add the operator's name but cannot replace that target.

info

Callsign lookup requires an internet connection. If you are offline, the contact is flagged for deferred lookup and the callsign data will be populated automatically when connectivity returns.

Editing and deleting contacts​

You can edit or delete any contact directly from the contact list on the Logbook page. Each contact row includes Share Contact, edit, and delete actions (Share Contact is covered below). Tap edit to reopen the QSO form with that contact's data pre-filled, make your changes, and tap Update Contact. To remove a contact, tap delete and confirm. The changes sync to the cloud automatically. If a contact was pushed to your QRZ logbook, auto-push keeps QRZ in step: edits update the QRZ copy and deletes remove it (a record QRZ has already confirmed is left untouched to protect the confirmation).

If an offline edit or delete is later rejected permanently by the cloud, Hamtrax shows the same warning notification as a rejected new contact, and Needs Filing keeps that command for review only. It never turns the failed update or delete into a new contact, so recovery cannot duplicate the existing QSO. A rejected update may leave the last valid cloud version visible in the Logbook. A delete for a contact already absent is treated as complete and creates no review item; another failed delete says Contact not deleted and asks you to reload before trying again.

Contacts with a safely recognized activity reference display the activity location's name and region directly on the row when catalog data is available. POTA contacts keep their familiar park state and name; unknown, contradictory, or catalog-missing activity data stays visible and neutral instead of being guessed as POTA.

Locked fields in auto-folders​

Most fields are freely editable, but a few are tied to how Hamtrax auto-organizes your folders, so the edit form keeps them fixed to protect the folder they belong to:

  • In an activation folder, the park, date, and your operating location are locked. Every contact in an activation folder belongs to the same park and the same activation session, and your station location stays tied to the activated park. The form shows those fields as read-only with an explanation — for example, "Park is locked to US-2325 for this activation." and "Date is set by the activation (2025-05-23)." (the locked date shown is the UTC day — the same day the folder is named by). The same locks apply when you add a brand-new contact to an activation: the folder, date, park, and operating location are seeded from the activation and can't be changed. The park lock is per contact and stays that way; the park moves for the whole activation at once, from Wrong park?.
  • In a monthly hunting folder, the date is locked. A monthly folder only holds contacts from its own month, so the date field is read-only with a banner such as "Date is locked to 2025-05 for this monthly folder."

Every other field stays editable as normal. If a contact belongs in a different activation or a different month, log it through the correct folder flow. If the whole activation is at the wrong park — a mistyped reference, or the wrong park picked at the start — you no longer have to delete it and re-log: see Wrong park? below. Custom folders do not add these folder-derived locks.

note

If a save is ever rejected for breaking folder organization, Hamtrax shows an error message explaining the reason instead of saving the change. This keeps a contact from quietly landing in a folder it doesn't belong in. The full rule set lives in Logbook Hygiene Rules.

note

Contacts are logged and displayed in UTC — the ham radio standard, and what ADIF requires — on a 24-hour clock with a z suffix (e.g. 02:22z, ham shorthand for Zulu/UTC), so every row shows the same UTC day its folder is keyed by. Hover over a row's time to see it in your local timezone (e.g. 9:22 pm CDT). Prefer reading local time? Turn on Settings → Preferences → Logbook → Show my local time and rows switch to your local timezone on a 12-hour clock, with the UTC value in the hover tooltip instead.

Wrong park?​

The park lock protects the folder, not a typo. If you logged an entire activation under the wrong reference, open that activation folder in the Logbook and click the faint Wrong park? button under the folder name — or, while the session is still running, the same button under the park line in the activation header.

The Change Park dialog shows the park you're currently logged at, then lets you search for the right one by name or reference, and tells you how many contacts the change will touch. Update Park stays disabled until your pick resolves to a real park and differs from the one you're on. The correction needs an internet connection. Confirming validates the whole activation first, then commits the folder's name, reference, and location together with every re-stamped contact. The change is all-or-nothing and safe to retry, so an interruption cannot leave only part of the activation corrected. Per-contact park editing stays locked.

This is also the repair for a folder listed under Unrecognized program because its saved park was never a usable reference — a park name stored where US-1234 belongs. The dialog shows that unusable value as the current park; search for the real one and confirm, and the folder rejoins its program and accepts contacts again. You don't need a valid park in order to set one.

Three limits worth knowing:

  • If another activation folder already exists for the corrected park on the same date, Hamtrax blocks the correction rather than making a second folder for the same park and day, and tells you which folder is already there.
  • If you already sent that log to POTA, re-upload the corrected version. The dialog reminds you, but Hamtrax can't change what POTA already has.
  • Renaming the folder is not a shortcut for this. A rename only changes the label, so a new name in the callsign@reference-YYYYMMDD form that claims a different park, date, or callsign is refused — it would leave the folder advertising one activation while its contacts say another. Wrong park? is the one route that moves the folder and its contacts together.

Activation QSO edit warning​

If a contact belongs to a POTA activation, Hamtrax displays a warning dialog before you edit it. Activation contacts have already been logged under a specific activation session, and changes you make in Hamtrax are not synced back to the POTA website. The warning reminds you that any edits (callsign corrections, frequency changes, etc.) must also be updated manually on pota.app to keep both logs consistent.

You can check "Hide this message in the future" in the warning dialog to suppress it for subsequent edits. This preference is saved to your account.

Share Contact​

Every contact in your logbook can be turned into a shareable digital contact card — your digital QSL card, a visual confirmation of your radio contact, complete with a map showing the signal path between stations.

Generating a card​

  1. Open the Logbook and find the contact you want, or open one of your own activation or hunting folders from Showcase.
  2. Tap the contact row to expand its actions.
  3. Click Share Contact. A modal opens and generates the card automatically.

The card includes a mini world map with a great-circle arc between your station and the contacted station, along with contact details: date, time, frequency, band, mode, RST reports, grid squares, and distance. Activity references and satellite information are included when available. A recognized activity reference uses its program's label and, when available, its resolved location. POTA references keep the familiar park artwork; unknown or contradictory program data uses the neutral Reference label and no POTA decoration.

Use the right-aligned Options button above the preview to feature QRP or low-wattage operation and, if needed, enter the exact wattage before regenerating the card.

Downloading and sharing​

The modal footer offers two actions:

  • Download — saves a 1600 × 1000 PNG, ideal for social media, messaging, and printing.
  • Share — on supported devices (mobile, tablets), opens the native share sheet so you can send the card directly to messaging apps, email, or social media.
note

Contact cards need coordinates for both stations. Hamtrax first uses coordinates already saved on the contact and can recover a missing activation origin from the recorded activation location. Set your location in Settings only when a non-activation contact does not already contain your coordinates or grid; the contacted station must also have coordinates or a grid.

Tips​

tip

The form closes after a successful local save. A failed save leaves it open with your draft intact. If you need to log another contact quickly, open it again -- it starts fresh at the current UTC date and time with the mode's standard report (SSB and 59, reshaped if you change mode), and the radio/antenna fields show whatever is currently selected across Hamtrax.

warning

Callsign and frequency are required. A POTA month also requires a resolved park, and a DX month requires a valid selected entity; neither accepts a future date/time. Contacts without a date or time may cause issues when exporting to ADIF or syncing with external logbooks. It is best to let the auto-populated date and time stand unless you are back-filling old contacts.

Photos​

The Log page shows an Images grid for each content folder — all four photo slots at once as a 2×2 square, with placeholder squares marking the ones still empty. The + button opens a multi-select picker, so you can upload several photos in one browse (up to 4 per folder, 10 MB each) and delete individual photos by tapping the red X on any thumbnail. See Folders for supported formats, validation, and the messages Hamtrax shows on success and failure.