Maps Overview
Hamtrax gives you two ways to visualize live ham radio activity: an interactive 2D map and a stacked list view. Both live inside the Activity tab and share the same real-time spot data, so you always see the two views together.
What the Map Shows
The Activity-tab map renders POTA (Parks on the Air) activations as park markers. Marker color reflects the activation's status — default, hunted, attempted, or marked for retry. Hamtrax also renders maps in other places (the Logbook tab plots your logged QSOs with great-circle arc lines, and the POTA activation detail modal draws arcs from a park out to its spotters), but those are covered in their own sections of the docs.
Switching Views
The map and the list aren't two separate modes — they're laid out together:
- Open the Activity tab.
- On wide screens (tablet and up), the list panel sits to the left of the map.
- On narrow screens, the list overlays the map and you can collapse or expand it with the floating chevron above the panel's bottom edge (drag the chevron up/down or tap to toggle).
[SCREENSHOT: Activity tab showing 2D map with activity markers]
What You'll See
The map displays live POTA activations as colored park markers. On a hover device, tapping a marker opens the activation detail modal directly. On touch devices, tapping a marker first raises a popup with the spot's label and a see details link so you can read what you tapped before opening the full modal.
Map Controls
A small floating pill at the bottom-center of the map lets you recenter on your location and zoom in or out without pinching. See the 2D Map page for details.
Marker Clustering
When you're zoomed out, nearby spots are grouped into clusters to keep the map readable. Each cluster shows a count of how many spots it contains. Zoom in or tap the cluster to expand it and see individual markers.
Day/Night Overlay
The 2D map shows a real-time day/night overlay. The shaded region represents nighttime, and the boundary between light and dark is the gray line -- a prime zone for enhanced propagation on HF.
The gray line updates automatically based on the current UTC time. It's especially useful for DXers looking to take advantage of twilight propagation paths.
Connection Lines
When the map is rendering your logged QSOs (for example, in the Logbook tab's map view), it draws great-circle arc lines between your station location and each contact's location.
Stacked List View
If you prefer browsing spots without focusing on the map, the stacked list view shows activity as a scrollable, filterable list. You can filter by band or mode and tap any item to see its full details. The list view is always available alongside the map — they share the screen rather than swapping in and out.
Related Pages
- 2D Map -- Pan, zoom, and explore activity on the interactive flat map.
- Activity Overview -- Learn about all the activity programs Hamtrax supports.
- Preferences -- Configure map display settings.