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Changing Your Profile

Your profile is made up of four fields -- your photo, callsign, display name, and username. Each one shows up in more than one place across Hamtrax, so editing it has effects beyond the Settings screen. This page explains exactly what changes when you edit each field, so there are no surprises.

You can edit all four fields under Settings → Account → Profile. Your photo saves the moment you pick it. The callsign, display name, and username each have their own confirm button -- you make your edit, and a Change Callsign, Change Name, or Change Username button appears to save it. Nothing about your identity changes until you press that button.

Your Photo​

Your profile photo is your visual identity in Hamtrax.

Where it appears:

  • Your showcase header, next to your callsign -- both your own Showcase tab and your public showcase page.
  • The user menu at the top right, and the showcase button at the foot of the sidebar.
  • Your own location pin on the map.

What happens when you change it:

  1. The moment you pick a new image, Hamtrax shows it everywhere immediately -- the user menu, your showcase, and any other surface that displays your photo update right away, before the upload even finishes.
  2. The file uploads to cloud storage in the background. Your previous photo stays exactly where it is until the new one is stored and saved to your profile -- nothing is removed on the strength of an upload that hasn't finished yet.
  3. If the upload fails, your previous photo comes back and you'll see an error message. If you hadn't set a photo yet, the card returns to the Hamtrax beaver rather than sitting on the image you tried to add. Either way you keep what you had, and you can pick another file right away.

Accepted formats: JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, HEIC, or HEIF. Images are resized before upload, so there is no fixed file-size limit.

If a photo can't be drawn: anywhere Hamtrax would show a picture and can't -- yours or another operator's -- it draws the Hamtrax beaver in its place instead of a broken-image icon. That is the same stand-in you see before anyone has set a photo, and it holds everywhere a photo appears, including the Profile image card in Settings.

Your Callsign​

Your callsign is the backbone of your operating identity, and Hamtrax uses it for more than just display.

Where it appears:

  • Your showcase, shown prominently at the top.
  • Throughout the app wherever your contacts and activations are attributed to you.

What happens when you change it:

  1. The new callsign is validated as you type. It must be at least 3 characters, and the field cannot be left blank.
  2. Hamtrax looks the callsign up through its callsign lookup system to fetch the operator's license class and location (for example, "Matthew, MO"). You'll see a green check once the lookup succeeds.
  3. Only when the callsign is found does a Change Callsign button appear. If Hamtrax can't validate the callsign, you'll see "New callsign not found: cannot update" -- no button appears and nothing is saved, which keeps a mistyped or unknown callsign from ever being written to your account. Tap that message (or its ✕) to discard your edit and restore your saved callsign.
  4. Press Change Callsign to save it. A Saved indicator confirms the change. Pressing the button re-runs the license and location lookups, and if your location is set to Callsign mode (Settings → Preferences → Station → Location), your operating location updates to match the new callsign's registered location.
  5. Hamtrax also checks the new callsign's public POTA profile and imports its most recent public hunter QSOs into your monthly Hunting folders — a one-time import per callsign. They show up in your logbook a couple of minutes later, the next time you open the app or refresh your log, and existing contacts are never duplicated. See Automatic POTA starter import.

If the lookup can't find your callsign at all, see Hamtrax Can't Find My Callsign for the recommended path.

Settings isn't the only place you can save it

Anywhere Hamtrax asks for a callsign it doesn't have yet — logging a hunt, spotting a POTA activator with Heard, adding a contact by hand, importing a logbook — the prompt now takes it directly, rather than sending you here and costing you whatever you were in the middle of. It is the same field, with the same lookup and the same rule: only a callsign the callbook confirms is ever written to your account. Everything on this page still applies, including the automatic POTA starter import and the band-plan detection above. During an import, Hamtrax reads the operator callsign off the file and offers it pre-filled, so confirming is usually one tap. Those prompts all assume an account, because a callsign is saved onto one — a signed-out visitor who taps any of them gets the ordinary Create Free Account window first, and meets the callsign field afterward.

info

Your regulatory agency and license class are auto-detected from your callsign the first time you set one — at signup or when you add it here later. If you change to a callsign from a different country or license class, review Settings → Preferences → Station → Band Plan to make sure your frequency allocations are still correct.

Your Display Name​

Your display name is the human-friendly name shown alongside your callsign.

Where it appears:

  • Your showcase, under your callsign.
  • Anywhere in the app that pairs your name with your callsign.

What happens when you change it:

  1. As soon as you edit the field, a Change Name button appears. Press it to save -- a Saved indicator confirms the change. Nothing is stored until you click the button.
  2. It updates everywhere your display name is shown.

Your display name is purely cosmetic -- it does not affect search, lookups, or how your contacts are stored.

Your Username​

Your username is your unique @handle -- a freely chosen, changeable identifier shown on your showcase.

Where it appears:

  • Your showcase, shown as @username.

What happens when you change it:

  1. As you type, Hamtrax checks availability in real time. You'll see one of: Checking…, Available, Already taken, or an invalid message if the format isn't allowed.
  2. Usernames are automatically normalized to lowercase, and only certain characters are permitted.
  3. Because a username must be unique, the change only takes effect when you press Change Username -- and because it must be available, that button only appears once availability is confirmed.
  4. Once changed, your old username is released and becomes available for anyone else to claim, so let your contacts know if you change it.
note

Your username is different from your callsign: your callsign is verified against the callbook, while your username is a freely chosen, changeable handle. Your showcase is shared by its own short code, not by either one.

  • Preferences -- the full tour of the Settings page
  • Your Showcase -- your public operator profile, where these fields appear