Terms and privacy
Last updated 2026-08-19
Written in plain language on purpose. ShackNerd is early software from one developer, and these are the honest ground rules for using it.
Terms of use
It is provided as-is
ShackNerd is provided as-is, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author is not liable for any damages arising from its use, including damage to equipment, lost contacts, missed contest multipliers, or anything else. Your only remedy if you are unhappy with the software is to stop using it.
For what it is worth: ShackNerd speaks to your radio using the same documented CAT commands Icom's own software uses, and its diagnostic features are read-only by design. It has no mechanism for touching your radio's firmware. But the paragraph above still applies.
You are the licensed operator
ShackNerd can key a transmitter. You are responsible for everything your station transmits: holding a valid licence, operating within its privileges, following your country's regulations, and making sure the radio is connected to a suitable antenna or dummy load. The software includes safeguards, such as a transmit watchdog and a transmit disable, but safeguards do not transfer responsibility. If remote operation is restricted where you are licensed, that is yours to know.
Securing your station is your call
ShackNerd ships with transmit disabled and supports an access password, and remote access by name refuses to run without one. If you choose to run it open on a network you do not fully trust, that choice and its consequences are yours.
Early software
Features may change, break, or disappear between versions while ShackNerd is in early access. Nothing here promises future features, future support for any particular radio, or that the project continues at all.
Trademarks
Icom is a trademark of Icom Incorporated. ShackNerd is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Icom, and the name is used only to identify compatibility. WSJT-X, wfview, Tailscale and other names belong to their respective owners.
Privacy
The software
ShackNerd runs on your computer and talks to your radio. It has no accounts, no telemetry, and no analytics. It never phones home. Your settings, your log, and your radio's network password stay in a local database on your machine and are sent nowhere.
The only outbound connections it ever makes are ones you switch on:
- Reverse Beacon Network spotting, off by default, connects to the RBN's public feed and sends it your callsign as the login, because that is how the feed works.
- Remote access setup uses your own Tailscale installation to issue a certificate for your machine's name.
- Radio reports are files saved to your device. One is sent to us only if you attach it to an email yourself. Reports contain how your radio describes itself and carry no passwords and no network addresses.
This website
The site is static pages with no cookies, no analytics, and no tracking. It is hosted on DigitalOcean, whose infrastructure keeps ordinary server logs, such as IP addresses of requests, under DigitalOcean's privacy policy.
If you write to [email protected], the mail is handled by Google Workspace and read by the developer. Radio reports you send are used to build support for your radio model and their technical contents may be reflected in the public protocol notes. Your email address and callsign are never published or shared.
Questions
[email protected]. If these terms change meaningfully, the date at the top changes with them.