Operating

The logging screen. Everything here applies to all three event types unless noted; the exchange fields differ, which is covered per type in Field Day and Special event stations.

The entry form

Focus starts in the callsign field and returns there after every logged QSO. The keyboard path is designed so a run never requires the mouse:

That Tab behaviour is deliberate. The browser default would move focus into the band buttons and out of the form entirely, which at 4 AM is how you end up typing a callsign into nothing.

Hints while you type

After three characters, the app looks the callsign up in whatever sources the event enabled. Everything here is advisory — none of it blocks logging:

• QRZ — name, state, country, if the event has credentials.
• Call history — that station's usual class and section, from the N1MM file. Prefills the exchange fields, but only ones you haven't typed into yourself.
• MASTER.SCP — a ✓ known callsign marker if the call is in the Super Check Partial list.
• Unusual format — a warning if the callsign doesn't look like a callsign (no digit, no letter, too short). Plenty of real calls trip this; it's a prompt to double-check, not a refusal.

Lookups are debounced and the reply is checked against the callsign still in the field, so a slow response can't prefill the next station's QSO.

Band and mode

The QSY drawer holds a band grid and a mode selector. The collapsed button always shows the current band and mode, so a glance confirms where you are.

• Bands: 160m through 70cm, plus SAT.
• Modes: PH (phone), CW, DIG (anything digital).
• An orange dot on a band tile means another active operator is on it. Hover for who.

If a radio is connected, band and mode follow the VFO automatically and you can ignore this entirely — see Rig control.

Duplicates

The server decides authoritatively; the form shows a heads-up as you type. What counts as a duplicate depends on the event's dupe rule:

Duplicates are logged, not rejected. They're marked, excluded from scoring, and excluded from exports. Refusing them outright would lose the record of a contact that actually happened.

Who else is on

The Operators panel lists everyone currently signed in, with their band, mode, and time since their last QSO.

• A red row and a ! mean someone else is on your band and mode.
• Operators idle more than 15 minutes grey out and stop counting toward conflicts, so a forgotten tab doesn't permanently block a band.
• Go QRT removes you from the list immediately rather than waiting for the timeout. Use it when you step away.

This panel is supplemented by Call Checkout, which is authoritative about who may transmit. On a special event a slot is held by an operator — see Special event stations. On Field Day it is held by a station, because station 2 holds 20m phone whoever is sitting at it; claiming is optional there, so a club that never opens the panel is never warned. Either way the rule is the same one the rules impose: one signal per band and mode.

Working offline

QSOs are written to browser local storage first, then sent to the server. If the send fails the QSO stays queued, the header shows a pending count, and logging continues normally. A queued QSO shows as Queued — syncing… until the server confirms it.

The queue drains by itself, on whichever of these comes first:

• the browser regaining connectivity;
• the real-time stream reconnecting, which is the earliest sign the server is back — usually a second or two after it returns;
• a retry timer at 5s, 10s, 20s, 40s and then every minute.

You can also click the pending badge to retry immediately, but you shouldn't need to. That last point matters more than it looks: a server restart or an nginx reload leaves your own network up, so the browser never sees a connectivity change. The retry and the stream reconnect are what cover it.

Three consequences worth knowing:

• Nothing is lost to a flaky link, or to the server going away. This is the point of the design. It holds in the CW window too, and in the WSJT-X relay, which spools to a file on disk.
• Replayed QSOs bypass the special-event checkout gate. By the time the browser reconnects the reservation has expired, and the contact already happened on the air. Dropping it would only lose the record.
• A queued QSO is timestamped when the server accepts it, not when you logged it, because the server stamps every contact from one clock. A long outage therefore shifts those times.

Editing and deleting

The QSO table supports inline editing of callsign, band, mode and exchange. Duplicate status is re-evaluated after an edit. Deleting a QSO removes it everywhere in real time.

A queued QSO that hasn't synced yet can be deleted locally — it never reaches the server.

Deleting doesn't destroy anything. There is no authentication here beyond the join code, so anyone can delete any contact, and a log that couldn't answer "what happened to that QSO?" would make an accident indistinguishable from a contact never logged. A deleted contact leaves the live log, the exports and the score, and moves to Deleted contacts below the table, with who deleted it. Restore puts it back.

Night mode

One click dims the interface to 35% brightness with a warm tone, to preserve dark adaptation on an overnight shift. It's separate from the light/dark theme toggle and persists across sessions.

Reading the header

A special event shows only the QSO count — there is no contest score.

The dashboard

A separate read-only view for a second screen:

• Log — every contact, filterable, with the columns you choose
• Map — worked sections plotted geographically
• Sections / Needed — grid of sections worked and the hunt list
• Rate — QSOs per hour, with gaps visible
• Bands — band × mode matrix
• Operators — per-operator totals, rate, and current band/mode
• Summary — printable ARRL-style worksheet

Special events show Log, Rate, Bands, Operators and a live On The Air list instead of the section-based views, which don't apply.

The Log view

The whole log in one table. Two things it is for: answering a question about the log without exporting it mid-event, and putting a live log on a screen at the site.

Filters combine. Pick any of them and the count beside the filter bar shows what survived — 33 of 97 above. Clear appears once anything is active.

Unrecognised sections are offered in the Sect filter alongside the real ones. That is deliberate: a typo is exactly the thing you open this view to find and correct, so filtering it out would defeat the purpose. Fix it from the logging screen's log table, which is where editing lives.

Columns picks what to show. The defaults differ by event type — a contest gets class and section, a special event gets RST, name and grid, because an SES has no contest exchange and those columns would be empty on every row. Your choice is remembered in that browser and does not affect anyone else, so the laptop driving the projector can show a different set from the one at the operating position. Reset puts the defaults back.

A contact logged while you are watching flashes briefly as it arrives, so a projected log reads as live rather than as a static table that silently changes. Nothing moves — only the background — and the flash is suppressed entirely for anyone whose system asks for reduced motion.

The view is read-only. Editing and deleting stay in the logging screen, along with the audit trail that records them.