Preferences
The Preferences page lets you customize Hamtrax to fit your operating style. From profile identity to subscription management, everything is accessible from a single place.
Accessing Preferences
- Open Settings from the sidebar.
- Navigate between tabs: Account, Preferences, Plans, Radio Control, and Help.
Account
The Account tab starts with your getting-started checklist, followed by profile identity, security settings, and account actions.
Getting-Started Checklist
The connected task circles match the floating onboarding banner and update as soon as you import contacts, log a native hunted POTA contact, create radio and antenna profiles, or tap Share on a contact map. Tap any circle for exact steps and a direct action button; tasks can be completed in any order.
Hamtrax waits until your account preferences and logbook are ready before showing this card. It starts expanded while work remains and collapsed after all six tasks are complete. It remains available here after completion and even if you permanently hide the floating banner.
Profile Identity
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Photo | Upload a profile photo (JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, HEIC, or HEIF). Images are automatically resized before upload, so there's no fixed file-size limit. |
| Callsign | Your amateur radio callsign. Looked up through Hamtrax's callsign lookup as you type. |
| Name | Your display name as it appears across the app. |
| Username | A unique @username others can search for. |
See Changing Your Profile for exactly what happens across the app when you edit each of these fields.
Plan
A summary of your current subscription plan. Founders see their founder number and lifetime status. Paid subscribers see their plan tier and renewal date. Free users see a prompt to view available plans.
Security
For email/password accounts, you can change your password or change your email. OAuth users (Google, Apple) see a notice that credentials are managed by their provider.
Account Actions
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Sign out | Sign out of your account on this device. |
| Delete account | Permanently delete your authentication profile and server-stored integration credentials. Hamtrax removes the email address from the retained profile and stops automated activity and product emails. Contact logs and other logbook data are preserved and become inaccessible through that account. |
Preferences
The Preferences tab contains Language, Station, Map, My Activations, and Integrations. iOS builds also show Notifications.
Language
Choose the language Hamtrax displays in — English, Spanish, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, German, or French. Selection is saved to your account so it persists across devices.
Station
The Station section includes band plan and location settings.
Band Plan
Your default regulatory agency and license class determine frequency allocations and mode suggestions throughout the app.
| Agency | Region |
|---|---|
| FCC -- United States | IARU Region 2 |
| ISED / RAC -- Canada | IARU Region 2 |
| IARU Region 1 -- Europe & Africa | IARU Region 1 |
| ACMA -- Australia | IARU Region 3 |
These are auto-detected from your callsign during account setup, but you can change them at any time. If your agency issues only one license class, the license class field shows "Not applicable" and is deactivated, with a short note underneath explaining why.
Location
Hamtrax uses your location to find nearby parks and stations. You can control how your location is determined:
| Mode | How It Works |
|---|---|
| Callsign | Location is derived from Hamtrax's callsign lookup. |
| Device | Uses your device's GPS for real-time location. Requires location permission. |
| Manual | You set coordinates, a grid square, or search for a place — cities as well as parks and landmarks. Optionally set an expiration (1, 4, 8, or 24 hours) or choose "Never Revert" to keep the manual location indefinitely. |
Your grid square is calculated automatically from your coordinates, or you can enter it manually in Manual mode.
Your chosen method never changes by itself. If your selected method doesn't have data yet — say GPS permission is still pending, or your callsign is still resolving — Hamtrax quietly uses the best available source in the meantime and shows a notice in the location picker explaining what it's doing.
Callsign-based location is a good default if you operate from a fixed station. Switch to Device mode for portable or mobile operations.
Map
The Map section controls marker sizes and how the Hunt map keeps its activator list in sync.
Marker Sizes
Each marker type can be set to Small, Medium, or Large:
| Marker | Description |
|---|---|
| POTA markers | Parks on the Air park markers. |
| Contact markers | Markers for logged contacts. |
Hunting Map Hover
Auto-scroll activator list is on by default. On wide screens, hovering over an activator marker on the Hunt map scrolls the list on the left to that activator. Turn this setting off to keep the list in place while you explore the map; the matching marker and card still highlight each other.
My Activations
These settings only affect contact logging during an active activation.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Auto-detect Park to Park | While you're activating, automatically check Park to Park when the station you're logging is also spotted at a park. |
| Suggest respot on frequency change | While you're activating, show a respot checkbox in the QSO form when your frequency differs from your last spotted frequency. |
The spot visibility window (how recent a spot must be to show) is not here — it lives in the hunting panel's recency filter, which is its single source of truth. The "Auto-spot when hunting" toggle (which posts a confirming spot to POTA.app when you Add an activator) also lives in the hunting tab itself; it defaults to on each session and is intentionally not persisted.
Integrations
The Integrations section lets you link external accounts so Hamtrax can use them for callsign lookups, your public showcase, and explicit contact import or upload actions. Each integration is its own panel inside the section.
| Service | What linking does |
|---|---|
| N1MM Logger+ | Connects Hamtrax to a running N1MM Logger+ instance so contacts logged in N1MM flow into Hamtrax. |
| Logbook of The World | Stores your ARRL LoTW credentials. Hamtrax can pull QSL confirmations from LoTW and apply them to matching local contacts. Submitting contacts to LoTW still requires exporting an ADIF and uploading via TQSL. |
| QRZ Logbook | Connects one QRZ Logbook API key so Hamtrax can import QRZ contacts and upload contacts directly from the Export screen. |
| HamQTH Logbook | Stores your HamQTH.com credentials and lets Hamtrax push contacts up to your HamQTH logbook. |
| POTA | Parks on the Air. No setup required — works automatically via the public POTA API. |
Each connector displays its current setup or connection state.
QRZ is a connect-once integration. Hamtrax validates the API key before encrypting it for server-side storage; the stored key is never sent back to the app. After that, QRZ import and upload work anywhere you are signed in to the same Hamtrax account, with no vault passphrase or unlock step. Replace API key validates a new key before replacing the current connection, while Disconnect removes the stored key. See Get Your QRZ Logbook API Key for setup instructions.
POTA Park Database
This section also hosts the POTA Park Database card, which manages the park catalog stored on your device for instant, offline park lookups. Hamtrax keeps its park data synced with POTA automatically — the cloud copy updates within about an hour of POTA publishing changes, and new accounts start with the current list. The card shows how many parks you have stored, your dataset version next to the latest available one, and — when a newer dataset exists — what the latest POTA update added: how many new parks, and which states and countries they're in. Drop & refresh pulls the latest dataset immediately.
Email
Email preference controls are planned for a future release, and the automated welcome email is currently disabled. For now, contact info@hamtrax.com to opt out of optional activity or product emails. Stored opt-outs are enforced immediately before delivery; account-security emails you request are separate.
Radio Control
The Radio Control tab is where Hamtrax connects to a supported rig for live radio state. Radio control is native iOS only because the browser cannot open the raw Wi-Fi socket the radio uses.
| Platform | What You See |
|---|---|
| Browser / web | An iOS-only card with an App Store link. The page stops there so the unavailable status, diagnostic, and troubleshooting panels do not appear on web. |
| Native iOS app | Connection setup, live status, diagnostic log tools, how-it-connects details, and troubleshooting. |
A connected radio also unlocks FT8 Auto-Hunt on the hunting activator list -- a card that works FT8 activators hands-free through the rig. It appears only while a radio is connected here. See FT8 Auto-Hunt for how it targets, transmits, and logs.
While connected, the navbar shows a radio status pill: a green computer icon at rest ("Connected"), switching to a pulsing red tower ("Transmitting") whenever the rig is actually keyed -- confirmed by the rig itself, so you always know when your transmitter is on the air, from anywhere in the app.
The connection stays alive in the background -- indefinitely. Switch to any other app for as long as you like and your radio stays connected. Hamtrax does this by quietly running the radio's receiver audio through a silent, always-on playback engine, which keeps iOS from suspending the app. You'll never hear it and there's nothing to configure -- it just works.
If that engine ever can't run -- a phone call or Siri interrupts it while you're away, or the audio channel drops -- Hamtrax falls back to a safety net: it holds the session about 20 seconds, then closes it cleanly so the radio frees its single connection slot instead of holding a dead session hostage. The moment you return, Hamtrax reconnects on its own -- no radio restart, no manual reconnect -- and recovers the link even if it died while you were gone.
Help
The Help tab gives you quick access to onboarding and support:
| Card | Description |
|---|---|
| Hunting walkthrough | Replay the guided first-run walkthrough that teaches how the app fits together -- making contacts in Hunting or Activating, then keeping them all in your Logbook -- by working a synthetic practice activator end to end. |
| Open docs | Jump to this documentation site. |
| Submit feedback | Open the in-app feedback form to report a bug or request a feature. |
Plans
The Plans tab shows your current subscription plan and allows you to manage your subscription.
Related Pages
- Changing Your Profile -- what changes when you edit your photo, callsign, name, or username
- Your Showcase -- your public operator profile
- Solar Dashboard -- see current propagation conditions
- Band Plan -- uses your agency and license class preferences