The phone procedures in this chapter describe the reviewed native development app, whose availability and delivery are separate from the desktop/Core release. Use the connected Core's capability/refusal messages; see build and verification scope before treating these instructions as release acceptance.
Use this chapter to adapt the app to the way you listen: a phone in your hand, headphones away from the desk, an iPad on a stand, or a longer cellular session. The This phone or This iPad badge identifies a preference kept on that device. A Core badge identifies a station setting. These can appear on the same page, so check the badge of the particular group before changing it.
The phone operating chapter covers an ordinary receive and transmit session. Sharing a Core covers device and receiver ownership. The settings below refine those workflows.
The toolbar Display sheet is a quick control surface for its named pan. It says Pan N · this phone and changes that pan's local waterfall and spectrum presentation. Palette, waterfall level mode, Colour gain and Black level affect waterfall contrast. Fill, Line, and Spectrum height affect the trace. Top and Range move the visible dBm scale. Read the scale labels and trace after each change. CTUN changes the relationship between tuned frequency and pan center; read the sheet's note and verify the flag after toggling it. LIVE returns from a historical view. A disabled extra names the missing Core capability.
Tap More display options in Setup for Setup > Display > On this phone. The page contains station and local controls together, so follow its scope badge on each group:
| Group | What it changes and how to check |
|---|---|
| Band plan | Choose from plans advertised by the Core. This changes the Core's plan for desktop and all devices. Size changes the plan's visual size on this phone. Check the selected plan and strip at the bottom of the band. |
| Core display groups | The Core describes its analyzer groups and owns offered FFT, window, Hz/bin target, and frame-rate settings. These are shared. Check the badge and bin-width readout; an older Core shows them greyed with an explanation. |
| Waterfall | Choose palette and, when available, Clarity, Auto, Noise floor, or Manual levels. High level and Low level are manual endpoints; Core levels can arrive later. Colour gain and Black level refine contrast. |
| Waterfall: more | Set detector/averaging when those are not in Core groups, update period, opacity, stop-on-transmit, timestamps/time zone, look-back depth, filter and zero-line overlays, or a custom gradient. Copy buttons transfer the visible scale endpoints to levels or back. The footer reports retained history for the current period. |
| Spectrum / Spectrum: more | Set fill, gradient, line width, spectrum height, trace/passband color and strength, classic peak hold, and zero line. Older-Core pages can expose detector, averaging, and decimation locally when supported. Calibration is disabled because the Core has already applied radio calibration. |
| Grid & Scales / Grid & Scales: more | Set grid visibility/step and dBm top/bottom; show the dBm scale and choose frequency-label alignment. If the Core supplies a noise-floor estimate, the bottom can follow it and optionally preserve the range. |
| Noise floor / Peaks | The noise-floor line and shift, active peak hold, and peak blobs require Core display extras. Classic peak hold is separate. Follow the disabled reason if extras are unavailable. |
| On the band / Colours / View | Toggle cursor frequency, bin width, frame rate, and strongest-signal readout; choose its corner and update rate. Set local grid, marker, line, and label colors. Extended view is available only when described by the Core; CTUN is a pan view setting. |
| Transmit display | Local transmit scale top/range, waterfall levels/palette, and DUP. The Core's transmit display contains station analyzer settings and affects devices viewing it. Check its badge and returned values. |
For a weak-signal view, select the correct pan, set waterfall Levels to Manual, and adjust High/Low around the current noise and signal. Use a copy button if you want those endpoints to match the dBm scale; otherwise tune them separately. Set the scale/grid so peaks remain visible, then adjust trace and palette. Return to the band and inspect the noise floor and a strong nearby signal. A disabled control's footer tells whether the Core lacks the catalog or does not support that choice. Most groups belong to this phone; Core or Both badges identify settings with broader effect. Desktop controls with similar names may have another owner; see desktop display procedures.
Open Setup > General > Navigation. The choices apply immediately on this phone; they do not rearrange another device's controls.
| Tuning dial | Where it appears and how to choose it |
|---|---|
| Off | Tune with the enabled band gestures. Dial haptics and direction settings are disabled until a dial is selected. |
| Knob on the waterfall | Keep a knob opposite PTT on the main display. Useful when small corrections need to stay within reach. |
| Pop-up knob | Tap the frequency to use a larger knob in its panel. |
| Thumbwheel | Use the flat wheel along the bottom of the waterfall. |
Select one, return to Main and tune a slice you control. Check the step on the dial itself before turning it. The slice keeps its own step on each band. Haptic tick on each detent marks individual increments; Firmer bump on each whole kHz marks kHz boundaries. Reverse dial direction changes the direction that raises frequency. Compare the displayed frequency before and after a small movement to confirm the direction you expect.
The Touch group controls separate gestures:
| Preference | Effect |
|---|---|
| Drag a flag to tune | Dragging a flag or passband tunes that slice in its step. Dragging the band still moves the view. |
| Tap to tune on the band | A tap tunes the active slice at the tapped position. |
| Pinch to zoom the band | Enables pinch zoom. The waterfall's minus/plus buttons remain available. |
| Double-tap action | Choose Tune, Center or None. Center is a view action; Tune requests a frequency change. |
| Snap tap-to-tune to step | Round tap tuning to the slice's nearest step. Available when single-tap tuning or double-tap Tune is enabled. |
For a crowded display, one useful arrangement is to turn off single-tap tuning, keep flag dragging, and assign double-tap to Tune. Try the gestures in receive, then check the final VFO frequency and passband. These choices control how a request starts; ownership, lock and Core refusals still apply.
Navigation sets touch behavior on this device. Choose the gesture you will use, then test it while receiving. This native SwiftUI simulator screen shows controlled preference values, not prescribed settings.
Open Setup > Audio > On this phone, or use Main's Sound panel for the playback route. The checkmark follows the current route in both places.
Using the iPhone microphone lets AirPods retain full-quality receive playback. Choosing the AirPods microphone makes iOS use its phone-call audio profile in both directions. If playback quality changes when you select that microphone, compare with the iPhone microphone before changing the Core's DSP or network settings. Changing the phone microphone does not select a radio's front-panel mic input; the transmitter's input choice is covered in transmit setup.
iPhone voice processing is shown as Off. The Core's PROC, equalizer and leveler shape the transmitted voice. Use voice processing and profiles for those controls rather than searching for an iOS voice-effect switch.
The implemented Standard audio quality is Opus at 24 kbit/s with audio up to 8 kHz. High remains greyed with the reason that the Core does not offer it. The presence of that row is not an additional usable quality setting.
When a connected headset disappears, playback pauses and the app presents a notice. Choose the offered speaker-resume action when you are ready to play through the phone. This prevents a private headphone session from suddenly playing aloud. Once playback is running, reconnect/select headphones in Sound and confirm their route and audible output. Reconnecting headphones or selecting a route alone does not clear this paused state.
A call, Siri or another audio interruption pauses playback and ends a phone transmission. When the interruption ends, the receive audio can resume; transmit does not resume automatically. Before starting another transmission, check the route, microphone, TX badge and PTT state. Treat an interrupted transmission as ended, even if you were speaking when the interruption began.
If receive audio does not return, distinguish the paused-headphone notice from a Core reconnect message. Use the matching recovery action first. Re-pairing a Core is not a playback-route repair. See troubleshooting when the route is selected but the audio remains absent.
Open Setup > General > Battery and sessions. These are phone preferences.
| Group | Choices and outcome |
|---|---|
| Locked or in another app: Sound only | While away from the app, stop requesting band images and retain sound. On return the band subscribes again. |
| Keep the screen on | Never, While charging, or Always. Never still keeps it on while keyed; Always keeps it on while the band is showing. |
| Sleep timer | Off, 30 minutes, 1 hour or 2 hours. A running timer shows Disconnects at followed by the end time. |
| In Low Power Mode, drop to Saver | Limit the requested band to Saver quality when iOS Low Power Mode is on. |
| Slow the band when the phone is hot | Reduce display work while iOS reports heat, returning as it cools. |
For a listening session away from the screen, enable Sound only and select a sleep duration. Check the displayed disconnect time after connecting. When returning to Main, expect a new live band view; the waterfall can mark the period when the phone was locked or in another app. Historical rows are not evidence of continuous visual updates while the app was away.
The sleep timer ends the session by disconnecting. It is different from a transmit time-out, which ends keying, and different from a Core service's lifetime. The station Core may continue running after this phone disconnects. Set the sleep timer to Off when you intend to listen until you explicitly leave. Recheck its end time if you change the timer during a session.
Locking the phone ends a transmission. Keeping the screen awake and permitting background audio do not provide locked-phone transmit control. Return to the foreground, read the ownership state and key deliberately for the next over.
Open Setup > CAT & Network > Data use. This session counts the session across its network use; This month on cellular tracks cellular use. The choices for Wi-Fi and cellular are stored separately.
| Mode | Requested band | Estimate displayed by the app |
|---|---|---|
| Full | 30 frames/s, full detail. | About 60 MB/hour. |
| Balanced | 15 frames/s. | About 35 MB/hour. |
| Saver | 5 frames/s, half the detail. | About 20 MB/hour. |
| Audio only | Sound without a band view. | About 13 MB/hour. |
Wi-Fi offers Full and Balanced. Cellular also offers Saver and Audio only. These rates are requests, and the displayed data amounts are estimates, not measurements or a billing guarantee. The page also estimates an additional 13 MB for each hour of talking. Use its counters and your cellular account's usage information when planning an actual allowance.
Power and heat policies can reduce the requested rate further. Serious heat halves the current request; critical heat or Low Power Mode can cap it at Saver when their switches are enabled. The Core's own display settings also limit what arrives. Choosing Full does not force a busy Core to deliver Full.
Data use distinguishes Wi-Fi from cellular choices. Read the selected mode and session totals before changing quality to diagnose a route. This native SwiftUI simulator screen uses test-start zero totals; it is not a measured data-rate example. Its acceptance-build estimate text differs from the source-baseline table above. Use your installed build's counters and estimates.
Main can show Sharing · n fps when the Core grants fewer display frames than this phone requests. Tap it to see whether the Core is busy or its connection is full. The note can identify the device holding transmit, which keeps its full band and sound while other devices share the remaining budget.
Check the reason before increasing quality or repeatedly reconnecting. If only the band is slower and audio remains clear, the allocation may be doing its intended job. If audio breaks up too, use Tools > Connection and performance and compare audio delivery with display activity. A Sharing chip alone does not diagnose Wi-Fi signal strength or microphone failure.
Open Setup > Transmit > PTT buttons. In Stop transmitting after, select an offered duration or Off, then read the returned selection and any error. This group is marked Core. The Core time-out applies to phone/iPad transmissions; the station desktop also has its own time-out setting. A Core watchdog remains part of transmit supervision. A time-out reason means the over ended, so return to receive and check the state before keying again.
The Headset button, Bluetooth PTT Pair, Action button and Buttons key a locked phone controls are disabled in the covered app. Only on-screen PTT keys from this phone. Do not configure an accessory around those labels or assume that pairing a Bluetooth audio device gives it a working PTT button. In a debug build, a PTT button test may appear; it logs button behavior and never keys the radio.
Use Setup > About this app for the phone build, device and license/link information. When reporting a session problem, record the app and Core builds, the network type, playback/microphone route, selected data mode, whether the phone was hot or in Low Power Mode, and the time the symptom began. Include whether the phone was in front, locked or returning from another app.
Setup > Diagnostics > Logs and Tools > Support Bundle provide the log and collection workflows described in troubleshooting. Sharing a bundle is an explicit action through the phone's share sheet.
Start with a saved Core and connected headphones. This is a receive session; leave PTT unkeyed throughout the setup.