Operating

Everything you use while actually working stations.

Everything here lives in the Operate workspace, the first tab; the digital modes, CW and the log each have their own.

Tuning

There are five ways to move, and they all respect the step you have selected in the row under the dial (10 Hz to 5 kHz):

• The dial. Drag the tick-mark tape under the waterfall. Each 16 pixels of drag is one step, so the feel does not change when you zoom the scope. A quick flick spins it with momentum like a weighted knob; a slow drag stops dead where you stop.
• Tap the waterfall. Jumps to the tapped signal, snapped to your step, so with 1 kHz selected you land on a clean kilohertz rather than 7.203.47.
• Drag on the waterfall. Tunes continuously at the same rate as the dial.
• Scroll wheel over the frequency readout or the dial tape: one notch is one step. Over the waterfall the wheel also tunes, at half rate, but only once the cursor has rested there for a moment, so scrolling the page past the scope never moves the radio. A toggle on the Display settings page turns waterfall wheel tuning off entirely.
• Type it. Tap the frequency readout, enter 14.074 or 7200 or a raw count in hertz, press Enter. The readout shows frequencies the way the radio's own display does: 7.233.20.

Bands and presets

Presets and bands holds both. The band buttons remember where you last were on each band, including mode, exactly like the radio's own band stacking. Presets are frequencies you name and keep: your nets, your calling frequencies, the local repeater input you monitor.

Modes and filters

The mode buttons live below the scope, with the three filter presets and a width slider that shows the passband drawn live on the spectrum edge. The DATA toggle selects the radio's data input for digital modes; see the digital modes guide.

Split, VFO B, RIT

The VFO B, split and offsets section has A and B selection, A/B exchange, A=B, SPLIT, and RIT/XIT with a clearable offset. Working DX split is first class: type VFO B's transmit frequency into the box beside SPLIT, or tap +1k, +2k or +5k to set the customary offsets above your receive frequency. The scope span buttons underneath resize the panadapter without touching the radio's front panel, and the toggles row includes the antenna tuner: inline, bypass, and a TUNE cycle that is gated behind transmit permission because tuning transmits.

The meters

Receiving, the S meter reads in segments like the radio's own, with a peak marker that hangs at the loudest recent reading. Transmitting, the same meter becomes power, with SWR and ALC beside it. It switches the moment you key, so the first syllable of a transmission is metered as transmit, not receive.

Display settings

The Display section sets the waterfall floor, range, smoothing and scroll rate. These, and your tuning step, are remembered per browser, so your phone and your desktop can each keep their own.

The band map

Turn on DX cluster in Settings and every station the cluster hears about is laid along the waterfall at its actual frequency: tap a callsign to tune straight to it. Stations already in your log are dimmed; a station that would be a new country or a new band is highlighted. Spots age out after fifteen minutes. Small teal ticks along the bottom edge are FT8 stations recently decoded, pinned at the radio frequency they were heard on. The feed uses your callsign as its login and the default VE7CC node unless you name another.

Instant replay

While audio is playing, two buttons under the audio controls replay the last ten or thirty seconds of what you just heard, for the callsign that went by too fast. Live audio pauses during the replay and resumes when it ends.

Parks on the Air

The Parks on the Air section on the Operate screen shows who is activating a park right now, straight from the POTA spot feed. Tap a row and two things happen: the radio tunes to the activator's frequency, and their callsign lands in the quick-log bar ready to log. Activators you have worked before sit dimmed. On the other chair, type your park reference and Spot myself announces you on the feed at your current frequency and mode.

Contest mode

Contest mode lives in the CW workspace now, beside the keyer it is usually worked with: a serial number that increments itself with every contact, a dupe check scoped to this contest and this band (working the same station again on a new band is the whole point), and a rate meter keeping the last-hour pace. The exchange is stored in its own fields, so Export Cabrillo in the Log workspace produces a submittable log with every QSO line filled in; only the header's contest name is yours to complete.

Sharing the radio at a club station

Give each browser an Operator name in Settings and a roster appears above the cockpit showing who is connected and who holds the transmit key. Ask for the key raises a polite notice the current holder sees; nothing is ever taken, because grabbing a transmitter mid-QSO is not politeness. Every contact logged carries the operator's name, so one shared log still says who worked whom. When someone else moves the shared dial, the roster says so for a moment, "Dave tuned to 14.074 MHz", so a retune mid-QSO reads as a housemate rather than a haunting.