Category: Software

  • Ham Radio Apps and Software Worth Having, Phone and PC

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide My shack is full of dedicated logging and mapping software, and my phone carries its own lineup for when I am away from the desk. When I am checking a repeater before a drive, spotting myself for a POTA activation, or getting the shack ready for a…

  • Ham Radio Apps for APRS Tracking on Your Phone

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. You do not need a radio with a built-in TNC to get onto APRS. A collection of solid phone apps lets you track, message, and monitor the APRS network directly from a device you already carry everywhere. How Phone-Based APRS Actually Works Most APRS phone apps connect…

  • Setting Up a Backup Shack Computer: Redundancy for Software-Dependent Stations

    Part of our Building Your First Ham Radio Station guide. Modern shacks lean on software for logging, digital modes, CAT control, and often remote operation, which means a dead computer can take your entire station offline just as effectively as a dead radio, and most hams have a backup plan for the radio but not…

  • Building a Backup and Sync Routine for Your Logbook

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. Years of logged contacts represent real, often irreplaceable data, especially confirmed contacts working toward awards like WAS or DXCC, and a single hard drive failure without a backup can wipe out a decade of logging in an instant. Why This Gets Overlooked Logging software like Ham Radio…

  • FT-857D CAT Control Setup with Ham Radio Deluxe

    Part of our The Yaesu FT-857D: The Complete Guide. The Physical Connection CAT control on the FT-857D runs through the Mini-DIN CAT jack on the rear panel, not the DATA jack used for digital mode audio. You’ll need a CAT cable with a USB-to-serial adapter on the computer end, since the radio predates native USB.…

  • Airband and Public Safety Scanning with an SDR

    An RTL-SDR dongle replaces a dedicated scanner for airband, and gets you most of the way there on trunked public safety systems too.

  • Setting Up a Personal Ham Radio Website or QRZ Bio

    A good QRZ bio is the first thing a lot of hams see about you. Here is what actually makes one useful.

  • Pi-Star vs. WPSD: Why I Switched My DMR Hotspots

    Part of our Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts guide. I ran Pi-Star for a long time before switching over, and now every hotspot I own runs WPSD. Both projects do the same underlying job, but a couple years of running both back to back has made the differences pretty clear to…

  • PotaCat and EchoCat: Remote Control Your Radio From Your Phone

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. I’ve tried a handful of remote rig control setups, and most of them made me want to throw my laptop across the shack. Port forwarding, VPN tunnels, software that only half works with your radio’s CAT protocol. So when I heard about PotaCat and its phone companion…

  • Nexus: One Free Program Trying to Replace Your Whole Digital Shack

    Nexus is a free, open-source program from KD9TAW that tries to fold your decoder, logger, mapper, alerter, and panadapter into one app. Here is what I found after digging into it.

  • What Is ATAK (CivTAK)? Tactical Mapping and Team Awareness Explained for Hams

    Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness guide. If you’ve spent any time in EmComm, SAR, or preparedness circles lately, you’ve probably seen the acronym ATAK thrown around next to phrases like “situational awareness” and “common operating picture.” It sounds military because it is military, but the civilian version has quietly become one of the…

  • Setting Up WIRES-X on the FTX-1: Registration, Software, and Getting Connected

    Getting the FTX-1 onto WIRES-X, from radio ID registration through the PC software’s confusing COM port setup, laid out start to finish.

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