Field Ops Guide

01

Getting Started

Open the app in a web browser and click New Net at the top of the page (or you'll land there directly if no net is active in your tab). This is your working page for the whole net — check-ins, the map, the roster, and every control you need all live here.

The first time you arrive, you'll be asked to log in, create an account, or Continue as Guest. Nothing about running a net requires an account — guest access is the full experience. See §29 for exactly what differs between the two, and how to run more than one net at once.

02

Starting a Net

Fill in the Net Setup section:

• Net Name — e.g. "Tuesday Night 2m Net"
• Repeater — the repeater or frequency in use
• Secondary Freq — an optional backup/alternate frequency
• NCO — your own callsign as Net Control

An Operating Mode dropdown above the form (default "Custom") can fill in every field below at once from a named, admin-defined preset — see the Administrator's Guide for how these are built. Picking one collapses the detailed checkboxes; a "»" toggle lets you peek at the real settings without leaving the preset, and changing any one field by hand flips the picker back to "Custom."

Below that, a set of checkboxes controls what this net turns on — three original ones:

• Allow others to view net — on by default; turns this net's live Viewer page on. Turn it off to run privately.
• Allow viewers to send messages to Net Control — lets people watching the Viewer page send you a one-way note (see §22).
• Collect EOC status — turns on Emergency Operations status reporting for every check-in (see §26). A Template dropdown appears next to it once checked — pick which set of categories this net collects.

Alongside those, one checkbox turns on each incident-management module this guide covers — Critical Alerts, Task Assignments, Mutual-Aid Requests, Resource Status, Frequency Status (repeaters), BA Control, Operational Period, Command Staff, Communications Plan, Situation Reports, and Welfare Check. Every module is off by default; turn on only the ones this net actually needs. Each module's own section in this guide notes its exact checkbox label.

Click Start Net when ready. Most of these fields pre-fill from your saved defaults (see §28) so a recurring weekly net takes one click.

Typing start alone into the Callsign field (see §4) does the same thing instantly, using your saved defaults, without needing to open this form at all.

03

Checking In Stations

Type a callsign into the Callsign box under Check In and press Enter (or click Check In). HamNetTracker looks the callsign up automatically — name, grid square, and location — and adds it to the roster and the map. If the same callsign checks in again later (e.g. they came back on frequency), their existing roster row is updated in place instead of creating a duplicate — a small "x2", "x3" badge next to their callsign shows how many times.

If a callsign truly can't be found, the operator still gets added to the roster with an unknown location, listed separately under Location Unknown next to the map.

04

The N1MM-Style Command Line

Everything above can be done with the mouse, but the Callsign field also accepts short typed commands — handy for a fast-moving net or an operator who prefers to keep both hands on the keyboard. Type help into the Callsign field any time for a live, personalized version of this list (it includes your own EOC categories if enabled).

Top-level commands

Type alone in the Callsign field:

Attach to a callsign

Type right after checking one in, or after selecting a record (see below), with a leading period:

(The exact shortcodes depend on which EOC template is active, and only apply to Color/Yes-No categories — help always shows the current net's real codes. Choice-type categories have no shorthand; set those from the status popup.)

Navigating the roster without the mouse

05

The Roster

The roster table shows every check-in with:

• Callsign and Name — both editable directly in the table; click in, correct it, and click away (or press Enter) to save.
• Signal — click the button to open a quick Signal Report popup: click a bar for Quality (1–5) and Strength (1–9), or mark No Contact.
• EOC Status (only shown if this net collects it) — click to open the status popup for that station; see §26.
• Grid and Checked In time.
• Actions — a small set of icon buttons per row:
  • a pin-with-a-line-through-it icon clears a stale/wrong location (keeps them on the roster, moves them to the Location Unknown list)
  • 🎯 lets you click a spot on the map to set their location by hand
  • ✕ removes the check-in entirely

Drag the ⠿ handle on the left of any row to reorder the roster by hand (e.g. to put a corrected re-entry back where it belongs).

06

The Map

Every checked-in station with a known location appears as a pin. Use:

• Recenter on Net Control — snaps the map back to your own location.
• Show Signal Reach — a color-coded overlay estimating how far signal reaches in each direction, built from this net's own signal reports.
• Show Historical Reach — the same idea, but pooled from every past net run by the same Net Control callsign from the same location — useful for seeing your station's typical coverage over time, not just tonight's.

The map, roster, and side panels (Location Unknown / Messages) can be dragged into whatever order you prefer using the handle at the top of each panel — this is just a personal display preference and doesn't affect anyone else's view or the underlying data.

Right-clicking anywhere on the map opens a context menu — this is also how you drop a damage report (§17) or a task pin (§13), and how you copy coordinates or re-center on a specific point.

07

Your Connection Status

A small 3-lamp stoplight sits immediately to the right of the ❔ Help button. It's a genuine 3-light housing — red, amber, green — with exactly one lamp lit at a time:

• Green — the server's own internet connection is up.
• Red — the server's own internet connection is currently unreachable.
• Amber — shown only briefly at page load, before the first check has completed.

This reflects the app server's own internet connection, not your browser's — every Net Controller looking at any net sees the same lamp at the same time, since it's one shared check (a request to a well-known Google endpoint every 30 seconds) rather than a per-browser or per-net reading. Hovering the stoplight shows exactly when it was last checked (e.g. "Internet connectivity: online (checked 12s ago)").

If it turns red, HamNetTracker itself keeps working over your local network — check-ins, the roster, and the map all still function. What stops working is anything that needs the outside internet: new callsign lookups (QRZ), live APRS positions, weather data, SMS/push Critical Alerts, and the map tiles themselves.

08

Command Overview

A separate dashboard page that merges Scribe, Media Relations, Missing Persons, EOC status, and every other module's current numbers into one screen, plus a live activity timeline. It's reached only by direct URL (/CommandOverview) — bookmark it, since it isn't linked from the main navigation.

Command Overview requires an admin account, separate from the guest access that's normally enough to run a net. A visitor who isn't signed in sees a "Log In / Create Account / Continue as Guest" gate first; once past that, if the signed-in account isn't a site admin, the page instead shows "This account doesn't have admin access."

With no net picked, it shows a picker: Open Nets and Submitted Nets (marked read-only), each linking straight into that net's dashboard.

Once a net is selected, the top bar has quick links to Directory Lookup (opens Resources in a new tab) and View Live Map (opens the public Viewer page for this net), plus Log Out.

Status tiles

A grid of tiles, refreshed every 10 seconds, one per module — appearing only if that module is turned on for this net (Check-Ins, Missing Persons, and Media Relations always show):

Every tile is read-only display — there's no editing, composing, or deleting anything from Command Overview itself; it's a monitoring view, not a control panel.

Recent Activity

A live, time-sorted timeline (most recent first, newest 100 events) merging every module's history in one feed: Scribe entries, Press releases, Missing Persons status changes, waypoints dropped, damage report changes, EOC status changes, repeater status changes, BA Control readings, closed PAR events, task/mutual-aid status changes, and new SITREPs. Each row shows a timestamp, a colored source badge (Scribe, Press, Missing, Waypoint, Damage, EOC, Frequency, BAControl, PAR, TaskAssignment, MutualAid, SITREP), and a short description.

09

Weather Conditions & Alerts

A compact temperature/wind box floats over the map (drag it anywhere; your position is remembered per-browser). Click it to open the Current Weather Conditions detail popup: temperature, wind, humidity, pressure, visibility, conditions text, station name, and when it was observed — any field the station doesn't report is simply left off rather than shown as "n/a". A °F/mph vs °C/km/h toggle at the top switches units instantly (no server round-trip) and is remembered across NetControl, the Viewer, and Command Overview. Conditions refresh from the server every 5 minutes, sourced from your net's controller location (falling back to the first check-in/waypoint/damage report/resource location with coordinates if the controller's own location was never set). The same widget appears on Command Overview too, just not draggable there.

A weather alert banner appears above the map whenever the National Weather Service (or, north of the border, Environment Canada) currently lists an active alert for your net's location — nothing in the app itself triggers these, they come straight from the live government feed. Each alert shows its event name, a severity color, and how long until it expires. On the map, alerts with usable boundary data are drawn as colored, always-visible shapes (never hidden by "Hide All Icons," since a hazard warning should always stay visible) — click one for the full headline. A Show/Hide Weather Alerts button in the map toolbar toggles the whole feature (on by default); on Command Overview the banner has no toggle and is always shown.

10

Critical Alerts

Pages contacts by email, SMS, and/or push notification the moment something goes critical — independent of anyone actually watching the screen. Turn it on via Enable Critical Alerts at Start Net or Edit Net, then click Manage Alert Contacts... next to it. Unlike most other modules, adding and managing contacts here does not require being signed in — a guest can set this up too.

Adding and verifying a contact

In the Critical Alerts — Contacts modal, fill in Name, Email, and/or Phone and click + Add Contact — both channels are wanted by default; untick Email/SMS in the contacts table afterward if a contact only wants one. A contact must confirm their own address before alerts actually reach it:

• Email — click Send verification email; the contact clicks the link in that email within 24 hours to confirm. A resend is blocked for 60 seconds after sending.
• SMS — click Send code; the contact reads you (or types in themselves) the code texted to their phone, valid 10 minutes, then Confirm.

A separate Enable Push Notifications on This Browser button pages whoever is looking at this specific browser/device — unrelated to the contacts above, and needs no verification.

Use Send Test Alert at any time to confirm delivery actually works — it runs the exact same delivery path a real alert would, so a successful test is real proof.

What actually triggers a real alert

Evaluated automatically every 30 seconds, whether or not anyone has this net open:

Each condition only re-alerts once it resolves and re-trips — no repeat paging for the same ongoing problem. A "Critical Alerts" tile appears on the map's side column whenever there's an unacknowledged alert; click it for a history you can acknowledge from.

11

Operational Periods, SITREPs & Handover

Turn on Show Operational Period for a multi-day activation that needs ICS-202/203-style shift structure. The panel is visible to guests too (read-only — "View only — log in to manage"); signed-in users get the full set of controls below.

Objectives and the per-period org chart

Each Operational Period has its own Objectives text block and its own Command Staff / Org Chart Role/Person table — this is separate from the standing Command Staff panel (§12) and starts blank for every new period. Click Start New Period to close the current period and open the next one, numbered automatically; you're asked to confirm, and warned if any handover checklist items are still unchecked. A Previous Periods dropdown lets you review — and still edit — any past period.

Handover Checklist

Below the org chart, each period gets its own snapshot of a shift- change checklist (the wording itself is managed by an administrator — see the Administrator's Guide). Each item has a checkbox — Pending until checked, Confirmed (with who and when) once it is — plus an optional Notes popup. Checking/unchecking saves immediately, no separate Save step.

Situation Reports (SITREP)

A numbered "captain's log," opened from its own tile. The first time you open it on a fresh net, entry #1 is created automatically so nothing you type is lost; click New SITREP any time after that to file the next one. Each entry automatically snapshots your current Objectives and Resource Status counts the instant it's created (frozen from then on, even if the real numbers later change), plus fields you fill in by hand: Prepared By, Situation Summary, Weather, Significant Events, Actions Planned, and Outstanding Needs. A Previous SITREPs picker reviews past entries, still editable until the net is submitted. Command Overview's own SITREP tile always shows just the latest one, read-only.

Printing

The IAP Packet (Print menu, or the 🖨 button inside the Operational Period modal) bundles Objectives, the standing Command Staff org chart, the Handover Checklist, Communications Plan, and a live Resource Status snapshot for whichever period you're viewing. Each SITREP can be printed on its own (the 🖨 button inside its modal) as a standalone ICS-209-style report.

12

Command Staff & Communications Plan

Command Staff

Turn on Show Command Staff for a standing Role/Person org chart (Incident Commander, Ops Section Chief, Safety Officer, etc.) — separate from any per-period roles in §11, and also shown read-only on Command Overview. The chart itself is visible to anyone; only signed-in users get the editing controls: + Position adds a root position, + Sub-Position nests one under it, + Add Person / + Co-Lead assigns people (with an optional agency), and ✕ removes either. Assigning a second person to an "Incident Commander" position automatically relabels it Unified Command everywhere it's shown.

Print it two ways from the Print menu: ICS-203 Org Assignment List (a plain position/person table) or ICS-207 Org Chart (an actual box-and-line chart, defaulting to landscape).

Communications Plan

Turn on Show Communications Plan for a standing Function/Channel list (Command Net, Tactical, Air-to-Ground, etc.), also shown read-only on Command Overview and the Viewer. Signed-in users click + Add Channel and fill in a Function name, then pick a Source — Repeater (pick from the shared catalog), Tactical (Channel 1–30), GMRS (the 22 real FCC GMRS channels), or Other/Simplex (free text) — plus an optional note. Save & Close commits every row at once; Cancel discards changes. On the public Viewer, this renders as a simple read-only list, with a repeater still awaiting catalog approval shown generically rather than revealing its details.

13

Task & Mutual-Aid Coordination

Task/Assignment Board

Turn on Show Task/Assignment Board for ICS-204-style field tasks. Click + Add Task: Group Responsible, Assigned By, Task Description (required), Special Instructions, Status (Assigned / In Progress / Complete / Cancelled), and optional links to an Operational Period or Communications Plan channel. Change status any time via the quick dropdown right in the log table.

To pin a task to the map, right-click the spot and choose Add Task Assignment Here — the pin is color-coded by status and can be dragged to correct its location; right-click an existing pin for Edit Task Assignment or Remove from Map (the task itself stays in the log either way). Inside a task, an Assigned Resources section links it to entries already on the Resource Status Board (§14) — a reference only; it doesn't change that resource's own status.

Mutual-Aid Requests

Turn on Show Mutual-Aid Requests to track outbound requests for help from other agencies. Click + Add Request: Resource Description (required), Quantity, Justification, Priority (Routine/Priority/Immediate/Emergency), who it's requested from (an Agency or free text), an ETA, and contact details. Status moves through Requested → Approved → En Route → Arrived (or Denied/Cancelled) via the same quick-dropdown pattern. Optionally link a request to a specific task via Fulfills Task, if the Task Board is also enabled.

Both boards have their own standalone pages (/NetTaskAssignments, /NetMutualAidRequests) in addition to the compact tile embedded on NetControl; neither appears on the public Viewer.

14

Resource Status Board

Turn on Show Resource Status Board for an ICS-211/219 "T-Card" board tracking deployed assets (vehicles, equipment, teams). Anyone can view it; adding or changing anything requires signing in.

Click + Add Asset to open Add / Manage Assets: pick a Company (or "(No Company)"), check off the assets to add to this net's board, and click Done. + New Company and a "New Asset" mini-form let you grow the shared catalog on the fly, without leaving the modal.

Each asset becomes a small colored tile: Assigned to Task (green), Available (amber), Staged (teal), or Out of Service (red). Click a tile to change its status, add notes, or delete it from this net's board (the catalog entry itself is untouched). Hovering shows its full status history. Drag a tile's ⠿ handle to reorder the board, or drop it directly onto the map to place (or move) its pin — right-click a placed pin for status changes, an APRS refresh, or to pull it back off the map.

15

Repeater & Frequency Status

Turn on Show Repeaters map layer to place the shared repeater catalog on your map. Click Show Repeaters in the map toolbar (it becomes Hide Repeaters once on); pins are color-coded — Primary (green), Backup (teal), Degraded (amber), Down (red), or grey if no condition has ever been recorded.

Click a pin to report or change its condition: four status buttons (Primary/Backup/Degraded/Down) save immediately, plus Clear (removes this net's tracking, leaves the catalog entry alone) and a Notes toggle for a monitoring operator's name and a short note. If several repeaters share a site, the popup stacks a section for each. Hovering a reported pin shows its full status history for this net. Setting status never requires signing in — only a Submitted net locks it.

The underlying repeater list itself is a shared, crowdsourced catalog maintained centrally, not owned by any one net — see the Administrator's Guide for how entries are submitted and approved.

16

Welfare Check & Missing Persons

The public Welfare Check page

A fully public, anonymous page (/WelfareCheck) where anyone can search for a specific person by full first and last name, on any incident that has this turned on. It never lists names or shows a roster — it returns exactly one of: no record found, "Located Safe," "still Missing," or (for an ambiguous or sensitive match) "please contact Net Control directly." Every search is logged as an inquiry for Net Control to review — nothing is ever written straight into the real log from here.

Reviewing inquiries (Net Control side)

On the Missing Persons Log page, a Welfare Check Inquiries panel lists every pending inquiry with the requester's contact info and any details they gave. For each one, choose Promote to Log (creates a real Missing Persons entry from it) or Dismiss.

Missing Persons Log

Reached at /NetMissingPersons. A report needs at least a Last Name; Status is Missing, Located Safe, or Deceased. Records are grouped into three collapsed panels by status — only one open at a time, and no name is visible on screen until you deliberately open that panel. Submitting a report with a matching last name first checks for possible duplicates — on this net, and on any other currently-active net within 10 km — so you can update an existing record instead of creating a second one for the same person.

17

Damage Assessment Log

Right-click anywhere on the map and choose Report Damage Here to drop a pin: Category (Structure, Power Line, Road, Bridge, Water/Sewer, Communications, Fire, Flooding, Debris, Other), Severity (Affected/Minor/Major/Destroyed), Status (Reported/Verified/Resolved), a description, and notes. Pins are triangular and color-coded by severity, and can be dragged to correct their location.

The standalone list page (/NetDamageAssessment) shows every report in one sortable, filterable table — filter by severity or status, or search category/description/notes. You can add or edit reports here too, but latitude/longitude are locked on this page; moving a pin's location has to be done by dragging it on the map itself.

18

Media Relations & Media Viewer

The Press Log (/NetPress) tracks press releases through three states — Draft, Released, and Archived — set the same way as any other field: open a release, change its Status, and save. A release needs at least a Title; Released By, a date, a URL link, and the story text are all optional.

Draft and Archived releases are only ever visible internally, to signed-in members with access to that net. Once a release is marked Released, it also appears on the public Media Viewer page (/MediaViewer) — a read-only card view anyone can visit, which checks for new releases automatically every 10 seconds.

19

NetScribe

A separate radio-traffic log, kept by a second operator apart from the roster — reached at /NetScribe, or from a link pointed at a specific net. A guest can optionally give a callsign/name before starting; a signed-in user's identity is used automatically. Each entry records a Time, Callsign, Direction (In/Out), Message, and Notes.

Quick Entry shorthand

The Quick Entry box accepts one shorthand line instead of filling out separate fields:

The callsign is always the first word on the line. Escape jumps back to Quick Entry from anywhere on the page.

20

Formal Message Log

Numbered, delivery-tracked formal traffic — distinct from NetScribe's informal running log. Reached at /radiogram. Your organization's preferred template (ICS-213 or ARRL Radiogram, changeable on My Account) decides which fields the entry form shows; a guest always gets ICS-213.

Click + New Message to file one: Precedence (Routine/Priority/Immediate/Emergency), From/To Station and Name, Subject (ICS-213) or Handling Instructions/Place of Origin (Radiogram), the Message text itself, and Notes. Message numbers are assigned automatically by the server, in order, and never reused.

Every message starts Filed and moves forward through a one-way funnel:

Sort or filter the log by Precedence, Status, or a free-text search across station/name/subject/message. Each message can be printed individually, or use Print Full Log at the top for everything at once.

21

BA Control

Tracks breathing-apparatus (SCBA) air levels for crew members currently wearing BA — reached at /BAControl. Turn it on per net from Setup or Edit Net (Enable BA Control, plus a BA full-bottle duration (minutes) field, default 30).

Click + Add to BA Control to add people — pick from a crewed asset's roster, search your organization's roster, or type a name directly — then set their starting air percentage. Each tile shows a countdown bar; the remaining time is computed from that starting percentage, the full-bottle duration, and time elapsed, and is color-banded in thirds:

• Green — more than two-thirds remaining
• Amber — one- to two-thirds remaining
• Red — one-third or less remaining

At 20% remaining or less, a still-on-air tile starts hard-blinking to demand attention. Click a tile to update its reading (a fresh radio check resets the countdown), mark it Exited, flag an Emergency, or remove the person entirely.

22

Messages from Viewers

If Allow viewers to send messages to Net Control is on, anyone watching this net on the Viewer page can send you a short one-way note (e.g. "you're off frequency"). These appear in the Messages panel next to the map. Viewers never see a reply back through the app — treat it as a heads-up channel, not a chat.

23

Ending and Submitting a Net

• End Net — stops accepting new check-ins. The roster stays fully editable so you can clean up typos or add a late report before finalizing — as does every module in this guide.
• Submit — only available once a net has ended. Submitted nets appear in the Viewer's "Submitted Nets" list for anyone to review later (see §31).

24

Editing a Net Mid-Session

Click ✎ Edit Net (next to End Net/Submit) to change the Net Name, frequencies, or NCO callsign after the net has already started, or to adjust any of the module checkboxes described throughout this guide. Once EOC status has actually been turned on and used, the Collect EOC status checkbox and its template picker lock in place — this is intentional, so a net's EOC category set never shifts partway through.

25

Importing a Roster (Public Events)

For a public-service event with a pre-planned, fixed set of participants (a parade, a run, etc.), use Import Roster from the top navigation instead of live check-ins. Upload an .xlsx file where row 1 is Net Control and every row after is a participant (columns: First Name, Last Name, Callsign, Latitude, Longitude). Imported nets never contact QRZ — every name and location comes straight from your file, and can be corrected by hand afterward exactly like a normal check-in.

26

EOC Status Reporting

Turning on Collect EOC status (§2 or §24) replaces each check-in's normal signal-only report with a fuller Emergency Operations status: a small set of categories (e.g. Grid Power, Cell Phone, Radios), each rated one of:

• Color — Green / Yellow / Red
• Yes/No — for categories like Vehicle Mobility or Available for Assignment
• Choice — a custom set of labeled options an administrator defines

Click a station's EOC Status button in the roster to open the popup and set each category. The command-line shorthand in §4 (.ag/.xxxg etc.) can set Color/Yes-No categories without opening the popup at all; Choice categories only have the popup. Which categories appear depends on which template the net was started with — every net snapshots its own category list at the moment EOC status is turned on, so editing a template later never changes an in-progress or already-finished net's report. Templates themselves are managed by an administrator — see the Administrator's Guide.

27

Printing Reports

The Print button at the top opens a menu for a clean, printer-friendly version of the Roster, Map, Messages, and — depending on which modules this net has turned on — every log covered in this guide (Scribe, Press, Missing Persons, Damage Assessment, Formal Messages, BA Control, Repeater/Frequency Status, the IAP Packet, ICS-203/207 org exports, and more). Each opens in a new tab and prints straight away.

28

Setup (App-Wide Defaults)

The Setup (gear) button → Net Defaults holds settings that pre-fill every new net you start: default Net Name, Repeater, Secondary Freq, NCO callsign, Map Margin, every module checkbox described in this guide, and the default EOC template. Change these once and every future "Start Net" (by mouse or by typing start) begins with them already filled in.

Clear Location Cache, also on this screen, wipes every saved callsign-to-location lookup app-wide (not just this net) — every callsign will re-query fresh on its next check-in anywhere. Use this after fixing a bad QRZ record or renewing a lapsed QRZ subscription; it doesn't affect any check-in already on a roster or map.

The same Setup menu's EOC Maintenance, Position Maintenance, Crew Maintenance, and (admin-only) Manage Operating Modes entries are covered in the Administrator's Guide, since they manage shared catalogs rather than this one net.

29

Running Multiple Nets

Each browser tab tracks its own net independently — there's no limit on how many nets you can run at once, only that each needs its own tab. A Resume a Net (N) panel near the top lists every other net you can jump back into; clicking an entry switches that same tab to it.

A net you start as a guest is public to everyone, with no owner. A net you start signed in belongs to your organization, and — if you check Keep this net's editing private at Start Net — only you, an admin of your organization, or a site admin can Start/End/Submit it, edit the roster, or take check-ins afterward. That restriction never applies to the collaborative modules in this guide (Scribe, Press, Missing Persons, Damage Assessment, Formal Messages, Task/Mutual-Aid, BA Control) — any signed-in member of your organization can still use those regardless. A guest can run a net day-to-day too, but a couple of management actions need a signed-in account: managing the crew roster, and adding or editing Resource Status Board entries (guests can still view it).

Resume a Net also lists nets you've Ended but not yet Submitted, greyed out and marked "(Ended)," for up to 30 days — useful for going back to finish an After-Action Report or fix a roster entry after the fact. Ending a net only stops new check-ins; it's Submitting that actually locks everything for good (see §23).

30

Accessibility for Visually Impaired Operators

HamNetTracker is built to be fully usable with a screen reader and a keyboard alone — no mouse required for any part of running a net. This section is a quick-start for that workflow; everything else in this guide still applies, it just describes the mouse-driven version of the same features.

The core idea: almost everything you need is reachable by typing into the Callsign field — check-ins, signal/EOC reports, ending/submitting the net, even starting a new one — using the commands in §4. Type help any time for a live reference tailored to the current net.

Popups behave predictably

• Escape always closes whatever's open, from any popup in the app.
• The EOC Status, Setup, Help, and EOC Maintenance popups get the fullest treatment: opening one immediately announces its title and moves focus inside it; Tab/Shift+Tab cycle only through that popup's own controls (focus can't accidentally wander out into the roster or map behind it); and closing it — by Escape, Cancel, or Save — returns focus to exactly where it was before the popup opened.
• Confirmations and status updates (e.g. "EOC status saved for W1AW.") are announced even if the popup that triggered them has already closed.

Green/Yellow/Red and Yes/No choices

In the EOC Status popup, these work like a native set of radio buttons: arrow keys move between the options, and number keys / letter keys are shortcuts — 1/2/3 for Green/Yellow/Red, Y/N for Yes/No — so a rating can be set with a single keypress once you're on the right category.

Icon-only buttons

These are labeled for a screen reader where it matters most — for example, a station's EOC Status roster button announces exactly which categories are off their normal value (e.g. "Radios: Red"), not just a generic "button," and the EOC template maintenance screen's reorder buttons announce as "Move Category Name up/down," not just "up arrow."

Enter-to-save

In a popup like Signal Report or Setup, pressing Enter saves and closes it — but only while focus hasn't moved onto one of the popup's own interactive controls yet (e.g. right after it opens). Once you've tabbed onto a specific field or button, Enter behaves normally for that control instead.

If anything doesn't announce the way you'd expect, that's worth reporting — accessibility here is an ongoing effort, not a one-time pass.

31

The Viewer & Public Pages

Anyone — club members, family, other operators, or the general public — can follow a net or check on specific information without needing to run it or hold an account. None of these pages require a password:

Viewer — the landing page

Lists every currently active net as a colored card (name, frequency, Net Control, live check-in count) and, below that, a table of the most recently Submitted nets (name, started/ended times, check-in count, Net Control, and their grid square location). Clicking either opens that net's live view.

A net only appears here if its Allow others to view net checkbox is on — turning that off (from Setup on the Net Control page) hides it from this list and disables its direct link immediately, live, without needing to restart the net.

The individual net view

A read-only live map and roster for one net — no editing controls, since this is exactly what a viewer sees, not a Net Control tool. It updates automatically as check-ins happen. If the net allows it, a Send Msg box lets a viewer send a one-way note to Net Control (see §22) — there's no reply channel back through the app.

Once a net is submitted, its Viewer page stays available afterward (marked Finished) as a permanent, read-only record of exactly how the net ended.

Media Viewer & Welfare Check

Two more public, read-only pages follow the same pattern: the Media Viewer (/MediaViewer, see §18) shows a net's Released press items, and Welfare Check (/WelfareCheck, see §16) lets anyone search the Missing Persons Log for a specific name. Both hide the app's normal navigation menu, since they're meant to stand alone as a link shared with the public.