Manual

Once logged in you land on the Members Area — the main page with the live radio, FT8 decode, and recent QSOs from the whole club visible right at the top even before you log in.

Forgotten password? Ask an admin to reset it — they can issue a temporary one from the Admin Portal.

Open the receiver

Click Open Receiver. The waterfall appears — a scrolling colour graph where brighter patches are stronger signals. It works like a live photograph of the band.

Tuning

• Pick a Band dropdown to jump to a sensible starting frequency.
• Type a frequency into the Frequency (MHz) box and click Tune.
• Click anywhere on the waterfall to tune to that signal. Scroll the mouse wheel to nudge up or down in 100 Hz steps.
• On mobile: use the jog wheel (circular dial) for fine control. Lock prevents accidental retunes; Snap rounds to nearest kHz.

S-meter & Signal Strength

The arc gauge above the waterfall shows signal strength from S1–S9 and beyond. If background noise is pinning it, lower the AGC-T slider. Change AGC mode to "Off" and set a manual AGC level to get a fixed gain.

Audio

Volume slider and Mute control what you hear through your headphones/speakers. The oscilloscope shows the incoming audio waveform in real time.

If you want a copy of what you hear, the Record button saves a WAV file to wherever you point it.

PTT

Press and hold the PTT button (or the round microphone button) to transmit. The mic button glows green while receiving and red while transmitting.

Your browser will ask for microphone permission the first time — you must allow this for transmitting to work.

Audio controls

Control	What it does
Mic Gain	How loud your voice goes into the radio (0–3×, client-side). Raise if people say you're quiet.
TX Power	RF power level. Leave as set unless you know what you're changing.
Speech Processor	Radio's hardware compressor. Raises average loudness without clipping. Good for DX.
8-band EQ	Radio's hardware equaliser (TX and RX separately). Shapes your transmitted audio.
Tune ATU	Runs the automatic antenna tuner. Only needed after changing band.
Tune Tone	Sends a steady carrier for antenna testing. Auto-stops after 120 seconds.

TX Level

The Level bar in the FT8/TX panel shows the DAX input level. Keep it in the yellow zone — the red zone means ALC is limiting, which causes distortion and splatter on the band.

Settings are saved per-user and restored automatically each time you open the receiver.

Taking turns

Only one person can transmit at a time. If transmit is busy you'll see "Busy — in use by [callsign]". It frees up within 5 minutes or sooner. The station owner (GI7NKK) can always override.

Quick start

1. Open Receiver → tune to 14.074 MHz (20m FT8) or 21.074 MHz (15m FT8)
2. Set mode to DIGU
3. Click the FT8 button — the decode panel opens bottom-left
4. Wait up to 15 seconds — live spots appear

Understanding the decode panel

Each row is a decoded station: UTC · dB · DT · Hz · Message

• dB: signal strength. Negative = weaker, positive = strong. -10 to +20 are all workable.
• Hz: where their signal is in the audio passband (350–2700 Hz)

Click once on a CQ spot to fill in the DX callsign, grid, parity and TX marker position.
Double-click to fill in AND immediately start transmitting.

Working a QSO manually

1. Fill in My Call (GI7NKK) and My Grid (IO74) — saved automatically
2. Click a CQ spot → DX fields fill in, Tx2 is selected
3. Tick Hold TX Freq to lock your transmit position
4. Tick Auto Seq — COBRAS will advance through the exchange as the DX replies
5. Click Enable TX → the exchange runs automatically:
   • You call (Tx2) → DX sends report → you send R-report (Tx4) → DX sends RR73 → you send 73 (Tx6)
6. A Log QSO popup appears — check details and save

Auto QSO (fully hands-free)

Click Auto QSO and COBRAS does everything: picks the best CQ spot, calls, completes the exchange, logs, and moves to the next station. It skips stations you've already worked on that band (from your full logbook). Click Stop Auto at any time.

FT8 TX Drive

The TX Drive slider in the FT8 panel sets transmit level. 70% is recommended — this gives ≈81W at a comfortable Level bar reading (yellow zone, not red). Raising it beyond 80–90% rarely adds useful power as the PA saturates.

FT8 Bot (unattended operation)

For fully unattended contacts while away from the desk, there's a command-line bot. Ask GI7NKK to run it — or see the FT8 Operations Manual for full details.

Multi-Band FT8 (the watch + operating cockpit)

The Multi-FT8 page watches up to 4 bands at once (one radio slice per band). Pick how many panels (2/3/4) and the band for each, then Start All. Each panel decodes its band live.

• Left roster — every station heard across all bands: age (seconds since last heard), callsign, country flag, RX signal, distance, band. Click any column header to sort; type in the filter box to narrow.
• Click a station (roster row or a CQ line in a panel) → COBRAS works it for you with the full bot logic (quiet-slot pick, SWR guard, give-up). Ctrl- or ⇧-click adds it to a work queue (up to 5) — they're worked one after another, and you can remove any or jump to one.
• ▶ Auto on a panel hunts QSOs on that band. ★ auto toggles whether a slice takes part in auto operations (☆ = receive-only). ✕ closes one slice to free it on the radio (↻ re-opens it).

Pick a time window (15 min → all time). You get: a band-activity timeline, per-band summary (decodes, unique calls/grids, avg/max SNR, best DX), a region heatmap (band × continent), your furthest DX heard, and the most-heard stations. Distances are great-circle from your grid (IO74); country/region come from the callsign.

During or after a contact

Fill in the other station's Callsign and pick a signal report (RST). If operating under the club callsign, tick Using Club Callsign and enter that callsign — this routes to the Club Logbook.

Auto-recording

Tick Auto-record QSOs to capture a WAV of each contact (RX audio + your mic mixed in). When a QSO ends a review popup appears — click Save to Logbook to log it.

Saving the contact

Click End QSO. A popup lets you check the details. Click Save to Logbook — the contact is saved locally and uploaded to QRZ.com (green QRZ ✓ badge appears on the logbook row).

FT8 contacts

FT8 contacts log automatically when Auto Seq completes the exchange (or click Log QSO manually). No separate End QSO needed.

My Logbook — every contact you've personally logged. Club Logbook — contacts logged by any member under the club callsign.

ADIF Export

Click Export ADIF on either logbook page. Downloads a standards-compliant .adi file you can import into Log4OM, HRD, WSJT-X, LoTW, or any other logger.

ADIF Import

Click Import ADIF and pick a .adi file from QRZ or any logger. COBRAS deduplicates automatically — if you've already worked a station on that band it won't create a duplicate. Results show: "✓ Imported N QSOs, skipped M duplicates."

QRZ.com sync

If your QRZ API key is set (⚙ Settings on the Band Map page), every new QSO auto-uploads immediately. A QRZ ✓ badge shows on each uploaded entry. Click ↑ QRZ on any unbadged entry to manually upload it.

Viewing the map

Click Band Map in the top navigation. On first load, animated arcs draw themselves across the globe from IO74. Each arc glows in the colour for its band.

Band	Colour	Band	Colour
160m	■ Red	17m	■ Blue
80m	■ Orange	15m	■ Purple
40m	■ Yellow	12m	■ Pink
30m	■ Lime	10m	■ Magenta
20m	■ Cyan	6m	■ White

PSK Reporter overlay

The amber dashed lines show stations that are currently hearing your signals, pulled live from pskreporter.info. Click any amber line or marker for details. The overlay refreshes every 5 minutes — or hit ⟳ Refresh in the sidebar.

Popups

Click any arc or marker for a popup showing: flag, country, grid square, distance, bearing, frequency, mode, time, and SNR reports.

Controls

Control	What it does
Band toggles (sidebar)	Show/hide arcs for individual bands
PSK Reporter toggle	Show/hide the amber hearing-us overlay
Recent contacts list	Click any entry to fly the map to that contact
⬡ Pop Out	Opens the map in a new window — drag to a second monitor
⚙ Settings	Enter your Mapbox token (beautiful dark tiles) and QRZ API key

When mode is set to CW or one of the DIG modes, a Decode button appears. Click it to open a small window showing the decoded text in real time. You can Save interesting bits, Clear the view, or review past saves with the Log button.

Problem	Fix
Waterfall freezes / audio stops	Click "Open Receiver" again, or refresh the page (F5)
Transmit doesn't work	Check browser microphone permission (icon in address bar)
"Busy — in use by..."	Another member is transmitting. Wait up to 5 minutes or ask them to finish.
FT8 spots not appearing	Check mode is DIGU (not USB). Click FT8 button. Wait one 15s slot.
FT8 TX fires but never gets replies	Check parity is correct (should auto-set from spot click). Check TX freq isn't below 350 Hz.
Level bar shows -150 (flat)	DAX audio not connected — close and reopen the receiver
QRZ ✓ badge not appearing	Set your QRZ API key: Band Map → ⚙ Settings
Map arcs not showing	Hard refresh the page (Ctrl+Shift+R). Check browser console for errors.

Still stuck? Drop a note on the Suggestions page.