Settings

Settings keeps your account, operating preferences, external connections, plan, radio, and help in one place.

Accessing Settings

1. Open Settings from the sidebar.
2. Navigate between tabs: Account, Preferences, Integrations, Plans, Radio Control, and Help.

Account

The Account tab starts with your Get Started checklist, followed by profile identity, security settings, and account actions.

Get Started Checklist

The animated percentage bar matches the floating onboarding banner and updates as soon as you import contacts, log a native hunted POTA contact, create a radio profile, connect QRZ, or tap Share on a contact map. A successful Connect QRZ updates both checklist surfaces immediately; no contact import is required, and an existing connection counts when the checklist loads. Import contacts is a separate milestone that requires a user-initiated import to add at least one new contact. Tap any task dot—or its label—for the same exact steps and direct action button; tasks can be completed in any order. The six circles sit on evenly spaced completion points, with the last circle at the bar's right edge.

Hamtrax waits until your account preferences, logbook, and QRZ connection status are ready before showing this card. It starts expanded while work remains. If the final task finishes while the card is open, the last circle gives a short radiant bounce before the card collapses. Reduce Motion resolves the final transition immediately. Returning after all six tasks are complete starts it collapsed. 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 shown on your showcase.

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.

Changing your password here requires your current one. If you can't sign in at all, use Forgot password? on the sign-in screen instead — see I Can't Sign In.

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. Before removing sign-in access, Hamtrax closes unfinished Stripe Checkout Sessions, immediately cancels every recurring or trialing Stripe subscription linked to the account, and confirms billing has stopped; if Stripe cannot confirm that, the account is not deleted. Cancellation does not automatically issue a refund or prorated credit. App Store subscriptions must still be canceled separately in Apple Subscriptions. 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, Logbook, My Activations, and Notifications. Inside Notifications, the Push notifications toggle appears only in the iOS app; the email switches appear on every platform.

Language

Choose the language Hamtrax displays in — English, Spanish, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, German, French, or Korean. 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. They also drive the band-plan warning triangles on Hunt spots.

The card is headed Band plan, and the summary row beneath that heading carries the value alone — your current agency and applicable license class, for example FCC – United States · Amateur Extra. Select the row, which carries a chevron on its right, to open an editor containing only these two dropdowns. The available license classes follow the agency you select. Each choice saves automatically; Done, the close button, Escape, or tapping outside closes the editor without undoing changes.

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

Hamtrax auto-detects these from your callsign — whether you provide it at signup or add it later in Settings → Account — but you can change them anytime. If you have no callsign on file, no band plan is set until you pick one here. If the selected plan has no license classes to choose from, the license dropdown shows Not applicable and is disabled, with a short note underneath explaining why.

Directly beneath that summary row, in the same card, sits the switch for the warnings your band plan drives:

Setting

Description

Warn when outside

On by default. The Band plan card heading supplies the rest of the name — the switch warns you when a spot is outside that plan. Flags any spot whose frequency falls outside your band plan with an orange warning triangle on the spot row, in the activation detail modal, in the DX country detail view beside the station's frequency and mode, and in the map popup. Turn it off to hide those triangles on spots — the small triangle printed beside the switch's own name is a sample of the marker, not a warning, so it stays either way. Warnings appear only when you have a band plan on file — the row above is where you set one. The switch saves automatically.

Location

Hamtrax uses your location to find nearby parks, stations, and repeaters. The Location row names the source it is using on its first line — Using Callsign Location, Using Device location, or Using Manual entry — with the resolved place, grid square, and coordinates beneath it when available. When resolved, the country appears on its own line beneath the place name. Select the row, which carries a chevron on its right, to open My Location, the same picker used by the Hunt panel's My Location row.

Choose one of the three source cards:

Mode	How It Works
Callsign	Location is derived from Hamtrax's callsign lookup. Some registrations carry no position a map can use — a PO box, a military APO/FPO address, an incomplete record — and for those this mode is unavailable and the picker tells you to use Device or Manual instead.
Device	Uses your device's GPS for real-time location. Requires location permission. The selected card shows permission status and the last location update when available.
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.

Manual grid entry accepts 4-, 6-, or 8-character Maidenhead locators. From the third through sixth character, Hamtrax offers up to five likely six-character matches and narrows the list as you type. Suggestions are optional: any valid locator can still be entered.

Choices save automatically. Done, the close button, Escape, or tapping outside closes the picker without undoing changes. In Manual mode, Clear override removes the saved manual location early.

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 uses the best available source and explains it in the picker. Settings also keeps the fallback or unavailable-source warning below the summary, so you can see it without opening the picker.

info

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 holds two cards. The first controls interactive-map city names, marker sizes, and how Hunting maps keep their lists in sync. The second, Filters, holds the band and mode each Hunt panel opens on.

Major City Names

Major city names is on by default. Hamtrax starts with cities above 10 million people at world zoom, then lowers the population threshold through 5 million, 2 million, 1 million, and 250,000 as you zoom in. A small dot anchors each displayed name at the city's coordinates; MapLibre hides the name and dot together when they would overlap another label.

The preference applies to interactive Hunt, Activate, Logbook, park, and signal report maps. The public Profile World Coverage visualization stays unchanged. On maps that crossfade to detailed OpenStreetMap tiles, turning the preference off hides only Hamtrax's overview names and coordinate dots; place names baked into those detailed tiles remain visible. Signal report maps keep the Hamtrax labels at focused zooms because they do not use that raster layer.

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 a marker on any Hunting map scrolls the list on the left to the matching item. Turn this setting off to keep the list in place while you explore the map; the matching marker and list item still highlight each other.

Filters

Parks on the Air, DX Chasing, and Repeaters each keep their own band/mode pair here. The band-plan warning switch, Warn when outside, is not in this card: it sits with the band plan it depends on, under Station → Band plan.

Setting	Description
Mode	The mode that program's Hunt panel mode filter starts on each time you open it. Unset — so every mode shows — for Parks on the Air and DX Chasing, on new and existing accounts; the Repeaters row arrives pre-set instead (below). Pick SSB, CW, FT8, FT4, FM, RTTY, PSK, AM, JT65, or SSTV and the panel opens filtered to it. Change it under Filters in the Hunt panel itself and that change holds while you stay in the tab; your default returns the next time you open it. A Parks on the Air default other than FT8 also leaves FT8 Auto-Hunt with no targets until you widen the filter.
Band	The band that program's Hunt panel band filter starts on each time you open it. Unset — so every band shows — for Parks on the Air and DX Chasing, on new and existing accounts. Pick any band the hunt filter offers (160m, 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, 10m, 6m, 2m, or 70cm) and the panel opens filtered to it, with the same override behavior as Mode.

The card shows one summary row per hunt program — Parks on the Air, DX Chasing, and Repeaters each keep their own Mode/Band pair, and any future program gets its own row. A row names only what you actually pinned: Mode: FM on its own, Band: 2m on its own, and Mode: FM · Band: 2m when both are set. A program with neither set simply reads All, in the quietest supporting type. Select a program's row, each of which carries a chevron on its right, to open only that program's Mode and Band dropdowns, where No default is the option that clears either half again. Changes save automatically; Done, the close button, Escape, or tapping outside closes the editor without undoing them.

The bands you chase countries on aren't usually the bands you hunt parks on, so switching hunt tabs swaps in that program's saved pair. A default you saved before DX Chasing existed carries over as your Parks on the Air pair; DX Chasing starts clean.

Repeaters is the one row that doesn't read All: Hamtrax ships it set to 2m and FM — the band and mode nearly all repeater work happens on — so its row arrives reading Mode: FM · Band: 2m. Change it or clear it in its editor exactly like the others — your choice saves automatically, and clearing it stays cleared rather than snapping back to 2m/FM. The Repeaters hunt surface lists the repeaters near you rather than a live spot feed, so it carries no filter bar of its own; the pair you choose here is that program's stored default.

Neither default changes what Clear does in the Hunt panel — it removes the current band and mode filters rather than falling back to or changing your saved default. The separate Last Spotted window stays as set.

Logbook

How dates and times read in your logbook.

Setting

Description

Show my local time

Off by default. Contacts are logged and organized in UTC — the ham radio standard — so contact rows display the UTC day and 24-hour time (e.g. 02:22z, the z being ham shorthand for Zulu/UTC) their folders are keyed by, and a row can never look like it landed in the wrong month. Hover over a row's time to see it in your local timezone. Turn this on to read contact rows in your local timezone on a 12-hour clock instead, with the UTC value moving to the hover tooltip. Exports always window on UTC days, matching the labels. Display-only: stored dates, folder names, ADIF/CSV export values, and the auto-organization guardrails stay UTC either way. Saved to your account, so it follows you across devices.

My Activations

These settings affect contact logging in your activations — the live activation logger and the quick-add card on a finished activation folder, except Callsign number row, which is the live logger only. They don't change the full QSO form, hunt logging, or import defaults.

Setting	Description
Auto-detect Park to Park	On by default. While you're activating, fills the Their park field automatically when exactly one recent activity program and reference match the station you're logging -- and logging that contact posts a courtesy P2P spot for them on POTA.app. If several identities match, the field stays blank for you to choose. Turning it off stops only the automatic fill and its courtesy spot: Their park stays right there in the Add Contact card, and a park you type in yourself is never spotted for the other station. See Park-to-Park.
Pre-fill perfect signal reports	On by default. Activation contact forms start at 59 (phone) / 599 (CW and other RST modes). Turn it off and both report fields start unset — POTA doesn't require signal reports, so a contact saves with none unless you set one while logging or by editing the contact later. Unset reports show as dim dashes instead of digits, and exports simply omit the report fields.
Callsign number row	On by default. In the live activation Add Contact panel on a touchscreen, a 0–9 key row floats directly above the on-screen keyboard so digits go in without switching to the number layout. Turn it off to use the keyboard's own number layer instead. The row does not appear in sign-up, Settings, the Logbook, Hunt, or other callsign fields — which is why it sits here rather than with the logbook-wide settings.

note

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 Spot toggle in the Hunt configuration card (which posts a confirming hunter spot to POTA.app when you tap Contacted on an activator) also lives in the hunting tab itself; it defaults to on each session and is intentionally not persisted. The separate Heard button sends a spot on demand whether that toggle is on or off.

There is no auto-close toggle either. Idle activations always close after 24 hours without a new contact — it isn't optional, because an open activation is what hunted contacts file into — and what suppresses repeater logging — so a session left open for weeks would keep claiming contacts you made from home and keep the Repeaters tab shut. See Idle activations close themselves.

Notifications

One place for everything Hamtrax sends you.

Push notifications — iOS app only. Receive Hamtrax announcements on this device.

Every automated email Hamtrax can send has its own switch, on every platform:

Email	What it is
Nearby activations	Someone is activating a park near your callsign location.
Parks near me	A one-time email listing the closest POTA parks to your location.
Product announcements	New Hamtrax features and releases.
Review requests	The occasional ask to review Hamtrax on the App Store.

Changes save to your account immediately and follow you across devices.

Account and security emails — password resets, and notices about your account such as a Pro grant — are always sent and have no switch.

Unsubscribing from the email itself

Every one of those emails carries an Unsubscribe or change which emails you get link in its footer, and Gmail and Yahoo show their own one-click unsubscribe control at the top of the message. Both work without signing in.

The link opens a Hamtrax page listing the same four emails with checkboxes. Untick what you don't want and choose Save preferences, or choose Turn off all Hamtrax emails to silence all four at once. These are the same settings shown here in Settings, so a change made either way shows up in both.

The page never shows your email address or callsign, and the link doesn't expire — one from an old archived message still works. Your mail provider's one-click control silences only the type of email you used it from, leaving the others on.

App Store review prompt

On the iOS app, Hamtrax occasionally asks Enjoying Hamtrax? after a good session — once you have 20 real hunted contacts behind you, or right after finishing an activation of ten or more. Yes, loving it opens the App Store review sheet; Not really opens the in-app feedback form instead. The prompt appears at most once a week, waits 90 days after you answer either way, and stops on its own if you close it three times in a row. Don't ask me again, inside the prompt itself, turns it off permanently — that opt-out is separate from the Review requests email switch under Notifications. The web app never shows the prompt.

Integrations

The Integrations tab sits between Preferences and Plans. It owns QRZ, LoTW, and POTA connections, POTA spot comments, and the offline POTA database. Each connection has a concise status row that opens its setup and management page. Public POTA spots, the park database, and spot comments remain available without connecting a POTA account. Connecting POTA enables activation-log uploads. File-only services stay in the import/export guides instead of appearing as connected.

Service	What linking does
Logbook of The World	Encrypts your ARRL LoTW credentials in a local passphrase vault. An explicit sync sends them through Hamtrax's authenticated gateway only long enough to fetch a read-only confirmation report, then marks exact callsign/date/minute/band/mode/station matches. Unmatched confirmations stay on that device for later retries while the remote cursor advances. Submitting contacts still requires ADIF plus TQSL.
Parks on the Air	Signs in to your POTA account so Hamtrax can submit completed activation folders and check their upload status, and keeps that session renewed for you. See POTA activation uploads.
QRZ Logbook	Connects one QRZ Logbook API key so Hamtrax can import QRZ contacts. An Auto-Push New Contacts toggle sends each new contact you log to QRZ automatically; it is the only way Hamtrax sends contacts to QRZ.

Each connector row displays its current setup or connection state and opens that connector's page.

Selecting Connect or Manage for QRZ or LoTW from the Import Contacts Import from connection screen opens that connector's dedicated page directly.

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. Select Import from QRZ on the connected page to open Import Contacts and begin the QRZ fetch and routing immediately; method and provider selection are skipped, while Review and Finalize remain unchanged. While connected, Auto-Push New Contacts keeps that QRZ logbook in step with new contacts, edits, and deletes — Exporting has the exact rules. The toggle is per-logbook: connecting a different logbook's key switches it off until you enable it again. See Import from QRZ for direct-connection and file-export instructions.

LoTW deliberately remains device-local until you choose Sync Confirmations. Your vault passphrase is never stored; unlocking decrypts the credentials in memory for that session. The server gateway does not become another credential vault, and LoTW never uploads Hamtrax contacts through this page.

POTA Activation Uploads

Open the POTA connection page. Beneath the connection status it asks Step 1: How did you create your POTA account?, clarifies with How did you first sign into POTA on POTA.app? — with a Why do you need this? control beside it that opens a short explanation — and lists two rows: Email and password, You created your POTA account with an email address and a password., and Amazon, Facebook, or Google, You created your POTA account by signing in with Amazon, Facebook, or Google. Selecting a row opens that answer's own page, one level deeper, with a Back control that returns here; connecting there brings you straight back to this page, where the connected status appears.

The Email and password page — subtitled Sign in with your pota.app account — is headed Step 2: Sign in to POTA and holds the sign-in form. It reads Use the email and password you sign in to pota.app with. The password goes only to POTA's sign-in service; Hamtrax keeps an encrypted session that it renews automatically, so uploads keep working without reconnecting. Enter the POTA email and POTA password you use at pota.app, then select Sign in; the button reads Signing in to POTA… while it works. The sign-in itself runs in your own browser, straight to AWS Cognito — the sign-in service POTA uses — so your password never reaches Hamtrax and is never stored. POTA hands back a session, Hamtrax encrypts it for server-side storage, and the stored credential is never returned to the app.

Once POTA confirms the account, the page shows Connected, your POTA display name, Verified callsigns with the callsigns registered to that account, and the line Stays connected. Hamtrax renews the POTA session automatically. There is no expiry date to watch: Hamtrax refreshes the session for you whenever an upload runs or it checks the connection, well before that session would run out, so uploads keep working without another trip to this page. The question and both rows disappear while you're signed in — to use a different POTA account, disconnect first. POTA decides how long the connection itself lasts and doesn't publish that limit; if it ever ends, Hamtrax shows the session as expired and you sign in again.

If POTA rejects what you entered, POTA didn't accept that email and password. Check them and try again. appears beneath the password field. An account POTA guards with a step Hamtrax can't complete — a second factor, or a password change POTA is forcing — reads This POTA account needs an extra sign-in step Hamtrax can't complete. Sign in at pota.app and use the Connect Hamtrax bookmark instead. If POTA's sign-in service can't be reached at all, a notification says POTA's sign-in service couldn't be reached. Try again shortly.

The Amazon, Facebook, or Google page — subtitled Copy your POTA session with a bookmark — is headed Step 2: Copy your POTA session and holds the alternative. It reads Those sign-ins can't be used here. Instead, copy your signed-in POTA session from pota.app with the Connect Hamtrax bookmark and paste it below. Hamtrax then keeps it renewed, the same as signing in. Under Steps for, a dropdown chooses which steps you see; Hamtrax pre-selects the setup it detects — the Hamtrax app, iPhone or iPad, Android, or the browser on your computer, with Opera taking the Chrome, Edge, or Brave steps — and you can correct it at any time. The choices are Chrome, Edge, or Brave on a computer; Firefox on a computer; Safari on a Mac; Safari on iPhone or iPad; Chrome on Android; Hamtrax app on iPhone or iPad; Hamtrax app on Android.

Each setup's steps end with the bookmark copying your POTA session out of a signed-in pota.app:

• Chrome, Edge, or Brave on a computer — press Ctrl+Shift+B (⌘+Shift+B on a Mac) if no bookmarks bar is showing; drag the Connect Hamtrax link out of the steps onto that bar; open pota.app, sign in, and click Connect Hamtrax on the bar.
• Firefox on a computer — right-click the Connect Hamtrax link and choose Bookmark Link; open pota.app, sign in, then open the Bookmarks menu and click Connect Hamtrax.
• Safari on a Mac — control-click the Connect Hamtrax link and choose Add Link to Bookmarks; open pota.app, sign in, then open the Bookmarks menu and click Connect Hamtrax.
• Safari on iPhone or iPad — press Copy bookmark link; in Safari, open pota.app and sign in; tap Share, then Add Bookmark, then Save; tap the Bookmarks button, tap Edit, tap the new bookmark, replace its address with the copied link, name it Connect Hamtrax, and tap Done; back on pota.app, open Bookmarks and tap Connect Hamtrax.
• Chrome on Android — press Copy bookmark link; in Chrome, open pota.app and sign in; tap the three dots, then the star, to bookmark the page; tap the three dots, then Bookmarks, then the three dots next to the new bookmark, then Edit, replace the address with the copied link, name it Connect Hamtrax, and go back; back on pota.app, tap the address bar, type Connect Hamtrax, and pick it from the list.
• Hamtrax app on iPhone or iPad and Hamtrax app on Android — the matching Safari or Chrome steps above, introduced by The Hamtrax app can't run bookmarks, so do these steps once in Safari (or Chrome), then come back here and paste. Any computer works too, and the connection then works on every device.

Every setup closes with Back in Hamtrax, paste it into POTA session and press Connect POTA. The computer setups add one last resort below that: No bookmarks at all? On pota.app, open the browser console, run copy(document.cookie), and paste that instead.

Selecting the bookmark while signed in at pota.app copies your POTA session and confirms Copied. Paste it into Hamtrax under POTA session. If you weren't signed in, it says Sign in at pota.app first, then click Connect Hamtrax again. instead; if your browser blocks the clipboard, it shows the session in a prompt for you to copy by hand. Copy bookmark link confirms with Bookmark link copied; if that copy is blocked, Could not copy the bookmark link asks you to press and hold the Connect Hamtrax link and choose Copy Link instead.

Below the steps sit the POTA session field (Paste what Connect Hamtrax copied) and Connect POTA — labelled Refresh POTA session once a pasted connection exists — and then the closing line Once connected, uploads work from every device, and Hamtrax keeps the session renewed.

What the bookmark copies includes the part POTA uses to renew a session, so a connection made this way keeps itself alive exactly like signing in: the page shows Stays connected. Hamtrax renews the POTA session automatically. with no expiry date, and the question disappears along with both rows. Even a copy whose session has already gone stale connects, because Hamtrax renews it on the spot. POTA decides how long the underlying connection lasts; when it ends, the page shows the session as expired — select the bookmark again and paste the fresh copy.

The field shows what you paste as plain text, so you can see at a glance whether the copy came across whole. Because it stays readable on screen, treat it like a password: connect somewhere private, and never share it in screenshots, messages, or support reports.

Pasting a bare POTA session token still works, but it carries nothing to renew and lasts only a day: that connection shows Session expires with the date instead of the renewing line, and it leaves the question on screen so you can switch to Email and password at any time.

A paste Hamtrax can't use produces an error beside the field — That doesn't look like a POTA session. On pota.app, click the Connect Hamtrax bookmark and paste what it copies., This POTA session has expired. Sign in at pota.app, click the Connect Hamtrax bookmark again, and paste the fresh copy., or POTA rejected this session. Sign in at pota.app again, click the Connect Hamtrax bookmark, and paste the fresh copy. Your entry stays in the field after a failed attempt, still readable, so you can check it rather than retyping blind. If Hamtrax cannot confirm the connection or the check is temporarily unavailable, try the check again later; that message does not establish that the paste is bad. Internet-connection advice appears only when the device reports that it is offline. Connection errors do not call for changes to your activation log.

The POTA session field clears only after a successful connection, and refreshing an existing session also shows a success notification. Disconnect POTA sits just beneath the connection status and appears only while the connection is active; it removes the stored session and its refresh token and cancels unsent requests, while submission receipts remain to prevent duplicate uploads. An expired session has no disconnect: connecting again replaces it.

The Finish page's Upload to POTA on Finish option starts off and remembers your choice for the connected POTA account. You can also upload a completed activation from its folder. Read Uploading an activation to POTA for review, status, and duplicate protections.

POTA Spot Comments

Under Settings → Integrations → POTA → Default spot comments, each comment type has its own row summarizing what that comment sends — its link, then each element it adds, then your own text. Each row carries a chevron on its right; select the row for the comment you want to change:

Setting	Used for
Hunt spot comment	Heard and automatic spots after Contacted when the Hunt Spot switch is on.
Activation spot comment	Automatic Spot on start and manual Spot Yourself spots during your activation.

The editor opens one full-width, multi-line Your comment box for the selected type — the same long-form field the Logbook uses for folder notes — and beneath it a row of pills that chooses what Hamtrax puts ahead of your text. The box previews the comment as you build it, showing a small tag for each part in the order it is sent — your link first, then each element you have switched on — with your own words typed underneath. The link tag shows the address it resolves to, so you can see which one the recycle pill has selected. A spot comment is always sent as one line, so a line break you type or paste becomes a space. The pills decide everything else.

Press and hold the eye button in the bottom-right corner of the box and the box itself becomes the finished comment — the tags turn into the real link, equipment, and your words, exactly as POTA will receive them, built from the equipment you have selected right now. Release to go back to editing. Anything you have switched off — or switched on but have no saved profile for — simply is not in it. Because no activation is running while you are in Settings, the preview leaves out the power an activation spot would add after the radio.

Pill	What it adds
hamtrax.com / My showcase	The required opening link. Its recycle icon swaps between the bare hamtrax.com and your hamtrax.com/{shortcode} showcase link. The pill stays on hamtrax.com and cannot be swapped until your account has a short link.
Radio	Your current radio's manufacturer and model — plus the power you are running, on an activation.
Antenna	Your current antenna.

A selected pill is filled and carries an ✕ to remove it; an unselected one is outlined with a ＋ to add it. The link is followed by |, and everything after it is separated by a single space, so a full comment reads hamtrax.com/103 | Icom IC-705 10W Wolf River Coil CQ POTA.

Hamtrax limits the complete sent comment to 60 characters, including the link and separators, keeping the link intact when trailing text needs shortening. The counter beside Your comment tells you what is left for your own words. Radio and Antenna each reserve 15 characters whether or not your current equipment fills them, so the count shrinks as you add pills and grows as you remove them: with a three-character short link it runs from 46 characters (bare link, no equipment) down to 10 (showcase link and both equipment pills). Adding a pill trims text that no longer fits, rather than letting it disappear at spot time.

An equipment name too long for its 15 characters drops leading words first, so the model survives — Chelegance MC-750 is sent as MC-750, never Chelegance MC-7.

Comments saved before the pills existed keep behaving the same way: a default you had left blank arrives with Radio and Antenna already selected, while a default you had typed arrives with your text and both equipment pills off. Both keep the showcase link.

These settings change the comment, not when a spot is sent. Closing an activation and courtesy park-to-park spots keep their own QRT and P2P messages on the bare hamtrax.com link, within the same total limit.

Choose Save to save the selected default with your account preferences and close the editor. Cancel, the close button, Escape, or tapping outside the editor discards unsaved edits. Saved defaults follow you across devices. An offline edit stays on this device until it can sync; sending a POTA spot still needs a live connection.

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. The Hamtrax cloud copy checks POTA about hourly, and a new account opened online starts with the current list. The card shows how many parks this device has stored, your dataset version next to the latest available one, and — when a newer dataset exists — how many more parks the newer database contains than your local copy.

Auto-update parks database is on by default. When a signed-in device detects that its local copy is stale while online, it quietly downloads and imports the newer dataset. The preference follows your Hamtrax account, but every device keeps and refreshes its own offline database. Turning it off stops future automatic download attempts; it does not remove parks already stored or cancel a refresh already underway. When automatic updates are off or a refresh cannot complete, the next eligible signed-in, online app open retains the update reminder and its Settings shortcut, shown at most once a week. Drop & refresh remains available regardless of the auto-update setting to pull the latest dataset to the current device immediately.

Plans

The Plans tab compares Pro and Free side by side, with a Lifetime offer beneath them. Each card carries its own status, so once Pro is yours the Pro card holds a badge reading Current plan, Trial, For Life, or Action needed, and a panel inside it naming the plan you are on, your renewal or cancellation date, and the billing management action for the store where you subscribed.

• On web and Android, regular Pro Monthly Checkout starts a 61-day trial and automatically becomes paid unless canceled before the displayed trial end date. Pro Annual and Lifetime are charged at Checkout; promotional offers can have different terms.
• A Hamtrax account can have only one pending Checkout or live Stripe subscription. Hamtrax reuses that account's billing profile and refuses a second purchase while Checkout or recurring billing is already active—even from another device. A subscription scheduled to cancel stays live until its displayed end date.
• A plan labeled Trial becomes paid on the date shown unless you open Manage subscription and cancel it before then.
• Lifetime cannot be purchased while a monthly or annual plan can still bill. The Lifetime card's button reads Cancel subscription first and opens your billing portal (or iOS Settings → Subscriptions) instead of starting a purchase. Once the current period ends, return to the Plans tab to buy Lifetime.
• The Lifetime card is an offer only, so it disappears once you own Lifetime. The Pro card carries that status instead: a For Life badge, a note that every Pro feature is yours forever with no renewals, and View receipts & billing.
• If a conflicting legacy Checkout nevertheless completes, Hamtrax cancels the extra recurring subscription and initiates a full refund of anything paid through that rejected Checkout. Stripe and your financial institution control when the credit appears.
• Delete account immediately cancels and confirms Stripe recurring billing before sign-in access is removed. Apple subscriptions and trials remain Apple-managed and must be canceled in Apple Subscriptions.

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	Radio and connection-method selection, connection setup, live status, diagnostic log tools, how-it-connects details, and troubleshooting.

Set up control in the same order you experience it:

1. Select your radio from Hamtrax's tested-radio catalog.
2. Select one of the connection methods available for that radio.
3. Optionally choose that radio/method's Waterfall display and frequency-step preferences.
4. Complete the Connection setup shown for that method and connect.

The first available combination is Icom IC-705 → Direct Wi-Fi. Join the IC-705's Wi-Fi hotspot on your iPhone, then enter its Network User credentials in Hamtrax. Other radios and connection methods will appear in the catalog only after Hamtrax supports and tests them.

After a connection succeeds, Hamtrax remembers that radio and method on this device. With Auto-connect on app open enabled, it reconnects to that last successfully connected radio when its network is available. Merely viewing another radio or a failed connection attempt does not replace the saved target.

Waterfall

Connections that provide genuine RF-scope samples can show a spectrum and waterfall docked across the bottom of the app. The Waterfall card appears before the selected method's Connection card. Turn on Show waterfall, optionally turn on Show filter bandwidth, choose a half-span of ±2.5, ±5, ±10, ±20, ±40, or ±80 kHz, and choose a Frequency step of 1, 10, or 100 Hz, or 1 or 10 kHz. Show waterfall and Show filter bandwidth are off by default; span defaults to ±10 kHz and frequency step to 100 Hz. The same waterfall on/off control appears when you expand the green connected-radio icon in the navbar. When an enabled connection is confirmed again—even to the same radio and method—the dock reacquires its live spectrum session without requiring an app restart.

Once the dock is open, one bottom-left Controls menu keeps adjustments out of the signal view. It contains Span, Frequency step, a truly continuous Sensitivity slider, a continuous color-track Noise Floor (Visual Only) slider, optional Logarithmic colors with a continuous Log anchor, a centered two-ended Color range slider, and Show filter bandwidth. Move Noise Floor right to hide waterfall colors weaker than the selected threshold; the leftmost Show all position is the default. It affects only the colored waterfall history—not the live green spectrum trace, receiver audio, radio RF gain, or scope settings.

Logarithmic colors is off by default. When enabled, it compresses weaker colors and gives the strongest signals more color separation. The Log anchor is expressed directly as “signal percentage → middle color”: its 75% default means a 75%-strength relative sample reaches the middle palette color, leaving half of the color variation for the strongest quarter of the normalized range. Moving it toward Balanced approaches a linear scale; moving it toward Strongest signals reserves progressively more of the palette for only the strongest samples. The Color range track reads Weak signals to Strong signals; moving either endpoint mirrors the other, with a narrower range making their colors more similar and a wider range increasing their difference. Sensitivity, noise-floor, log, log-anchor, and color-range changes immediately recolor the retained raw history instead of emptying the waterfall and waiting for it to refill.

The carrier and compact confirmed frequency stay fixed at the center, with the radio's confirmed mode shown beneath it. Tap the scope to tune there, or drag horizontally to move the complete spectrum and its history beneath the center marker; the preview and final target snap to the nearest selected frequency step, and Hamtrax sends one tune command when you release. Left and right chevrons beside the confirmed frequency tune exactly one selected step per press. Changing frequency or span also reprojects the retained raw history into the new view, cropping or blanking only the RF region that cannot overlap.

Waterfall on/off, filter shading, span, sensitivity, noise floor, logarithmic-color choice, log anchor, color range, and frequency step are stored on this device for each radio and connection method. The dock consumes Radio Control's shared spectrum contract: every supporting backend supplies its own RF bounds, bin count, and normalized relative levels, while radio-specific formats stay inside that adapter. Filter shading uses a separate shared rxPassband reading with signed edges relative to the carrier; it appears only when the connected backend can confirm that geometry rather than guessing. IC-705 Direct Wi-Fi is the first adapter. CAT alone does not imply either capability: the live waterfall/status control requires confirmed spectrum support, while only the filter-shading control requires rxPassband. A method without spectrum support says Not available for this connection. Levels are relative, not calibrated dBm.

Until the first valid sweep arrives, the dock says Waiting for spectrum data… and leaves history blank instead of inventing rows. If RF frames arrive before the separate confirmed dial readback, their own RF bounds can already draw the scope while the header says Waiting for confirmed radio frequency…; tuning controls appear when that confirmed frequency arrives. If the trace is active but the colored history looks empty, move Noise Floor (Visual Only) toward Show all to restore weaker colors. If the spectrum-data message persists, sensitivity and noise floor are not the issue; open Diagnostic log under Radio Control and include its scope lines when submitting feedback.

An FT8-capable connection also unlocks FT8 Auto-Hunt on the hunting activator list -- a card that works FT8 activators hands-free through the rig. If a future connection method provides CAT control without FT8, it will show only the controls it supports. 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.

For the IC-705 Direct Wi-Fi method, 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. If the waterfall is enabled, Hamtrax pauses waveform output and restores the radio's leased scope settings while backgrounded, then reacquires them on return.

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.

On a normal waterfall stop, background transition, or disconnect while CI-V is still reachable, Hamtrax restores only scope values that still match what it applied, preserving any front-panel change you made. If Wi-Fi or radio power disappears first, it does not guess at a delayed restoration on a later connection.

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, attaching screenshots if they help. On iOS, answering Not really to the Enjoying Hamtrax? prompt opens the same form.

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