16. Spots and reporters

Spot Hub joins cluster spots, digital decodes and reporter activity into the panadapter and a shared spot list. A callsign/grid identity is used by the services that sign in or publish reception reports. Spot source connections and the stored spot list belong to the Core; the way labels look on a particular band display is local to that computer or phone.

On desktop, open Tools > Spot Hub or press Ctrl+Shift+S. The modeless window has Settings, one tab for each source, Spot List, and Display. On iPhone or iPad, open Tools > Spot Hub. Its page links to the Core's Spot List, Core source pages, Core identity, and a phone-local Display page. A phone can control a supported Core source while away from the Core computer; WSJT-X and SpotCollector are different because their UDP listeners run on each computer.

Set the identity before connecting

On desktop select Settings. Enter Callsign and Grid Square, then select Save & Propagate. Callsigns and grids are trimmed and uppercased. The callsign must contain 3 to 12 characters; the Maidenhead grid must be 4 or 6 characters. A grid of another length is rejected, and the red status text explains the rejection. The optional FreeDV Status Message is limited to 200 characters and appears with your FreeDV Reporter station. Select Save & Propagate again after any edit. The summary below the button shows the saved identity and time, and Saved flashes briefly.

The button stores the identity in the Core's settings, updates the open Cluster, RBN and PSK Reporter fields, and updates connected reporter clients without requiring a reconnect. The identity is station-wide. Before changing it on a shared Core, coordinate with other operators because sources they are using will also publish or sign in with the new values.

On the phone, Tools > Spot Hub > Settings edits the Core's Callsign and Grid square. The phone sends each value when it is committed; the current value is read from Core settings. The page says when the Core is disconnected or refuses a write. Source pages can override the callsign for that source, and PSK Reporter also has its own grid field. Those overrides do not replace the shared identity.

Use a licensed station callsign and the operating position's actual Maidenhead locator. A callsign alone is not enough for PSK Reporter. FreeDV Reporter also needs the locator for distance and heading calculations. For its live station list, status message, and operator-directed QSY requests, see Chapter 15.

Spot Hub identity is configured before starting a feed. Callsign and grid are blank in this desktop development capture; Save and Propagate has not been used. Do not treat an open Settings window as a connected source.

Connect the source that supplies the spot

Each source owns its own connection state. A green Connected or Listening status means the client/listener has started; it does not guarantee that incoming spots match the current band or list filters. The desktop's Auto-Connect and Auto-Start switches persist and apply on later Core starts. They do not start a source immediately. Use the adjacent Connect or Start button for the current session. To stop, use Disconnect or Stop. Read the status label and the source console after each action. On the phone, source pages show a state dot, Core status text, Connect or Disconnect, editable Core settings, and a rolling console where that source has one.

On the phone, the Core can connect Cluster, RBN, POTA, and PSK Reporter. These source pages use the same saved endpoints and identity values. Cluster and RBN have a Command field and Send button; a command is sent to that service and echoed into the Core console. POTA exposes Poll every in seconds. PSK Reporter exposes callsign/grid and the auto-start setting. The WSJT-X and SpotCollector rows explain that those listeners do not run from the Core for this app; use the computer that owns their UDP listener. FreeDV has its own implemented Core reporter page. Open Spot Hub > FreeDV and choose Connect. Check the header for the connected state and the console for the service response. Disconnect stops that Core reporter connection. Under At the Core, Hide my station from the dashboard changes the station's reporter visibility and Auto-start controls starting when the Core starts. Under On this phone, Distances in miles and Frequencies in kHz change only this handset's displayed units. Read a disabled reason or refusal beside the request; a phone-local unit change cannot repair a refused Core connection. The separate Tools > FreeDV Reporter is the station-list/QSY view described in chapter 15.

Troubleshoot a source that will not start or has no rows

1. Check Settings first. If the callsign/grid are missing, save them there and reopen or refresh the source page. PSK Reporter requires both.
2. Check the source's own status. Disconnected, Stopped, Error, and Listening refer to different states. An error includes the client or socket's explanation.
3. For Cluster or RBN, confirm the host, port and callsign with the service operator. A successful TCP connection should show Connected and server text in the console. A connection error means no incoming spot has been proven.
4. For WSJT-X, verify the external application's destination address and port match Spot Hub, that it sends on the same network interface, and that the listener is showing Listening. For SpotCollector, verify that the PC is broadcasting to the configured port. These are local UDP receive paths; a phone cannot substitute for the desktop listener.
5. For POTA or FreeDV, check the polling/connection status and inspect the console for errors. A running service with no new rows can simply have no recent activity.
6. Open Spot List and enable the expected source pill and band. Open Display and check the source's Show spots from source setting. These are separate filters; a source can be active while its rows are hidden.

Read, filter and tune from Spot List

The desktop Spot List merges all seven sources. Columns are Time (UTC, HH:mm), Freq (kHz), DX Call, Mode, Comment, Spotter, Band, and Source. DX Call identifies the station/activity being spotted; Spotter identifies who reported it. Freq and Band locate the activity, and Time is the UTC spot time. Rows represent source observations, not confirmed contacts. New arrivals appear at the top. Click a column header to sort; frequency sorts numerically. The stored table is bounded to its most recent 500 entries. Spot ages and display-overlay expiry are controlled separately under Display.

Use the Bands pills for 160m, 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, 10m, 6m and 2m. A lit pill includes that band; a dim pill excludes it. Use the Sources pills DX, RBN, JT, COL, POT, FDR and PSK the same way. The band and source choices persist on this desktop. A source checkbox in Display is the broader visibility gate; disabling a source there hides its spots from both the panadapter and the Spot List, even if its list pill remains lit.

On the phone, Spot List is the Core's list, shared with desktop and other phones. Tap This band to show the active slice's band, or All bands to remove that band restriction. The seven source pills use the same labels as desktop. A dimmed source pill includes no rows because the Core does not provide them to this app. Each row shows callsign, frequency, mode, source, UTC time, spotter and comment. Tap a row to tune the active slice. If the slice is locked or there is no slice to tune, the page reports the reason and disables tuning. The phone requests up to 500 recent Core records and shows “No spots match these pills and this band” when filters exclude all available rows.

On desktop, double-click a row to tune the active slice to its frequency. Hovering a row highlights the corresponding label on the panadapter when one is present. A click is not a tune gesture on the desktop table. Tuning still depends on an editable active slice; if the frequency is outside the current receiver window, the radio may retune or the view may move according to the receiver layout. For the phone's separate Auto mode action when tuning a spot, see Control the panadapter spot labels.

The desktop Clear button at the bottom of Spot List clears that table's rows. Display > Clear All Spots clears the Core's shared spot map and the table, so the panadapter overlay and every connected phone lose those spots too. It does not disconnect the sources. The source can repopulate the list as soon as another event arrives. Use the broader button only when you intend a station-wide clear.

Spot Hub in landscape keeps the source routes and list together. This native SwiftUI simulator screen has simulated Core state and no spots; it demonstrates navigation, not a working feed.

Control the panadapter spot labels

Desktop Display combines the overlay controls with a statistics panel. Spots: Enabled/Disabled shows or hides overlay labels; Memories concerns radio memory channels and is an explicitly unbuilt feature here. Auto mode requests a slice mode change when clicking a spot whose mode resolves; it does not retune the spot frequency itself. Levels controls how many label rows may stack vertically (1–10); Position moves the first label row as a percentage of panadapter height (0–100); Font Size changes label text size (8–32). Spot Lifetime controls overlay expiry and ranges from 10 seconds to 24 hours in stepped values. It does not change how long the Cluster/RBN/POTA clients stay connected.

For color, Override Colors replaces source/DXCC spot colors with the selected Spot Color. With it off, an available DXCC color or the source's spot color is retained. Override Background controls the label background; Auto selects a background automatically, while the swatch chooses a fixed background when Auto is off. Background Opacity runs from 0 to 100. Under Show spots from source, check or clear DX Cluster, RBN, WSJT-X, SpotCollector, POTA, FreeDV and PSK Reporter. This is the panadapter-and-list source gate, not a connection switch.

The statistics show table totals, unique callsigns, active sources, cty.dat entries, ADIF QSOs, DXCC entities and new DXCC/band counts in the current feed. They describe loaded/local data and current feed state; they do not verify a contact or award. Source/display changes save as you make them.

On iPhone/iPad, Display has an On the band group tagged This phone and a Show on the band row of source pills. Spots turns labels on/off. Auto mode asks the Core to set the active slice's mode to the mode resolved for a tapped spot; it is unavailable when the Core does not provide a resolved mode. Levels ranges from 1–10; Position from 0–100%; Font size from 8–32; and Opacity from 0–100%. Override colours, Spot colour, Override background, and Background colour change this phone's presentation. The phone never places labels behind a flag. Its source pills hide those source labels on this phone's band, but do not stop the Core's feed or remove rows from the shared Spot List. A separate At the Core section controls shared Lifetime and Clear all spots. Lifetime starts at 30 minutes and offers 10–55 seconds in 5-second steps, 5–55 minutes in 5-minute steps, and 1–24 hours in 1-hour steps. Clear all spots opens a confirmation and clears every device's Core spot set.

When several labels overlap at one frequency on desktop, a +N badge represents collapsed labels. Click a label to tune and notify the source UI of that spot; click the badge to choose from its hidden spots. Hovering a label shows callsign, frequency, source, spotter and age. Right-click a label for its wired actions: Tune to [callsign] tunes the active slice, Lookup on QRZ opens the callsign lookup page, and Remove Spot removes that spot from the overlay. Right-clicking the panadapter away from a label opens the panadapter context menu instead. On the phone, tap a label to open its details, then select Tune or Close. A +N badge opens a sheet of the hidden labels; tap one to tune. The phone's separate Show on the band source pills control local visibility.

Source-specific actions and scope

For FreeDV station status, filtering, messages and QSY, use Chapter 15. A reporter's incoming station list is distinct from the spot marker overlay described here.