HamRS, the prefect amateur radio logbook?

HamRS Pro introduction

HamRS has been on my iPhone and iPad for many years now – it’s been the perfect companion to my Summits on the Air (SOTA) activations. It wasn’t anything extraordinary, it just looked good, was tailored for SOTA contacts and just worked well.

Sadly, development of the product stopped for a while and I thought that was that. I soldiered on with it, logging portable contacts using it, exporting the data and importing it into RumLogNG on my Mac. This worked and I was happy enough with this arrangement.

HamRS Pro, streets ahead of HamRS

Then the HamRS developer announced HamRS Pro. Wow, this was HamRS on steroids, so many useful additions were now available to me. These included the ability to:

• Automatically log FT8/4 contacts from WSJT-X.
• Sync contacts from my phone to my Mac so all of my logs are on all of my devices.
• Use HamRS on my Windows laptop (for portable ops from the back of the van), Raspberry Pi, Linux and Android devices.
• Log contacts from multiple operators into one logbook at special event stations.
• Use any callsign for a logbook and assign different QRZ accounts to them.
• Have custom templates for POTA, SOTA and generic contacts out of the box.
• Create custom log templates that contain just the fields I need – for RSGB FM club contests, for example.
• Control my radio from the software for voice contacts.
• Map contacts – you can see them on my POTA activation reports.

This new software has revolutionised my amateur radio operations and I now only run one logbook on several devices.

Logbook listing

The front page provides you with a list of your logbooks. You can see which template the logbook uses, how many contacts have been logged, when it was created and when it was last modified. The ellipses (:) at the end of the logbook row enable you to edit the logbook itself (changing the title, template used and date created), duplicate the logbook, export it, or delete it. An interesting security to prevent you from accidentally deleting a logbook is that you have to type the logbook title into a field as confirmation. Over the years I have deleted things accidentally because all I’ve had to do is click one of two buttons. I appreciate this attention to detail.

Adding, editing and deleting individual contacts

To edit the contacts, delete individual contacts, or edit one, you simply click on the logbooks name and the logbook opens up.

When adding contacts, you can enter the static information in the blue bar across the top of the contact record. This is information that doesn’t change from one contact to another, such as the band/frequency, mode, power, your callsign, your location and grid, state and county. This is a nice touch.

Below that you enter the variable information about the contact, the things that are unique to that contact. This will include callsign, signal reports, their location and comments/notes. I think the comments go on the QSL card and notes are local to your log book, though I could be wrong – I don’t use them either way.

The information you can enter is determined by the template you use for the logbook. So the POTA template contains fields for their and my POTA reference, and the SOTA template contains SOTA related fields.

Below this are icons to enable you to store more information about the station and the operator – useful when working special event stations I guess. Once everything has been entered and you click the [ Save ] button, the contact will be added to the list of contacts in the lower half of the screen. The list can be sorted by one field, ascending or descending, and there are a set of ellipses at the end of each contact’s line that enable you to delete or edit the record.

Customising the listing and bulk edits

At the bottom of the window you can specify how many contacts you want displaying at a time (25, 50, 100, or 500), and perform bulk edits.

Bulk edits enable you to modify some/all contacts in a logbook in one easy step. I find that I have to do this to set my POTA reference on each QSO record as there doesn’t appear to be a way to do this automatically. I think this needs looking at for a future version.

To effect a bulk edit you simply select the QSO records you want to edit (a tick box appears next to each record when you click the [ Bulk Edit ] button, or select al the records (a tick box that appears next to the [ Bulk Edit ] button for this purpose) and then either select a field to edit, or move the selected records to a different logbook. If you select a field, you can enter the data that needs to placed in that field in each selected QSO record. You can update multiple fields in a single operation.

Logbook actions

At the top of this logbook window is an [ Actions ] button that enables you to lookup QSOs, import contacts from and ADIF file, export your contacts or upload them to QRZ. Providing you have entered your authentication creds, HamRS will upload all contacts made in this logbook to the QRZ database you specified when setting up the callsign you’re using. You can do this throughout your operating stint – only contacts made since the last update will be uploaded.

I do have an issue with this QRZ upload feature though. My main logbook has tens of thousands of contacts imported from RUMlogNG. I’ve uploaded the contacts to QRZ expecting it to detect that they’re already in the QRZ database and flag them as uploaded in HamRS Pro. It has detected they already exist, but not flagged them as uploaded in HamRS. This means that when I attempt to upload new contacts to QRZ, it does upload them and flag them as uploaded, but it still goes through the thousands of older contacts checking them against the QRZ database. This does need a fix, but is only an issue if you insist on keeping all your contacts from home inn one logbook. The workaround is to start a new main logbook and call it volume 2 – problem solved.

QSO map

Also in the logbook window is a QSO map that now works very well, it never seemed to work for me when it was just plain old HamRS. But in the Pro version it’s fast and pretty accurate – providing you have an Internet connection. New for version 2.50, released a few days ago, is the ability to save the map for inclusion in web pages, etc. I use this and previously had to rest to setting up the map (position, zoom level and layers) by hand and take a screen shot. This new feature is most welcome. The layers include the type of map and whether blobs, lines, the grey line showing the evening and labels (callsigns) are displayed.

POTA and SOTA spots

Finally, in the logbook window you can also view the POTA spots of the latest activations underway, or planned, if the logbook is using the POTA template. You can also spot yourself from here for other POTA chasers to find you. Predictably, SOTA spots are available if you’re using the SOTA template. These spots are not available when using other tables. It is a nice touch though.

Callsign profiles

Details of the various callsigns you might operate under are stored in profiles and these can be accessed by clicking on the Profiles menu in the top right corner of the window.

Each callsign appears on the menu and can be selected by simply clicking over them. From here-on-in, all contacts will be created and attributed to the profile selected at that time. So it is quite feasible for one of my logbooks to contain contacts made by G7LFC, GB8SOS and GB0RNLI. I’m not sure why you’d want this and not create a separate logbook for each callsign used, but it is there.

A profile contains details of the callsign and that callsigns authentication credential’s for the associated external QRZ and HamQTH databases. It’s worth noting that these QRZ creds are just for looking up a contact’s details and populating fields on the QSO record, they are not the QRP API creds used for uploading QSO records to your QRZ logbook, they’re stored somewhere else.

Settings

The settings menu reveals a dark panel that slides out from the right of the window. From here you can enable/disable callsign lookups and notifications, specify the default lookup database (QRZ, HamQTH, or Hamdb) and enable/disable the virtual keyboard, dark mode (note that dark mode maps look horrible), the use of a font especially designed for those with dyslexia (great, I’ve never seen much software offer this), local time instead of UTC. Finally, there’s an option to ‘live sync’. This is only available to subscribers as it uses the authors services to accomplish this. When used it is relatively quick and painless.

FT8

Clicking the FT8 option on the menu bar will make HamRS Pro listen out for message beacons from WSJT-X, or similar software. Contacts beaconed by these applications will be automatically added to the logbook open at that time. Instructions on the settings you need to use in WSJT-X application can be found in the Config settings.

A word of caution here. If you switch this feature on and WSJT-X is running, a green indicator will appear next to the menu option. If you start making contacts, and you haven’t opened a logbook in HamRS, those beaconed contacts will be lost – you must open a logbook to capture those beaconed contacts. I’ve learned that the hard way.

Rig

I’ve never used this option so I cannot comment on how well it works. It uses either Hamlib or Flrig to communicate with your transceiver, so either/both of these applications need to be installed and configured before rig control can be used. Instructions on the settings you need to use in Hamlib/Flrig can also be found in the Config settings.

Once set up, the Rig menu option simply needs to be clicked to start controlling your rig.

Config

Are config options settings? I don’t know – I would have thought so and put both under the same menu item, but the author clearly thinks differently. Under the Config menu are five tabs for configuring Operator details (not used yet), Offline data, Integrations, Rig Control and Custom templates.

Offline data

HamRS stores a local copy of the POTA Parks database on your device. This is checked every time you start the application and the latest updates downloaded if applicable. This enables your POTA references to be verified even if you don’t have access to the Internet – parks can be pretty remote. If you want to initiate a manual check for updates, you can.

I wonder why SOTA details aren’t downloaded? There’s no option for this.

There is also an operator’s database. I’m not sure where this information comes from, but it presumably works as a callsign lookup database for, again, when you’re without an Internet connection.

Integrations

Syncing your data in HamRS on one device, with HamRS on another device requires the use of HamRS Sync. This feature is enabled when you subscribe and you will receive an API key in return. You put the API key on this screen in all your instances of HamRS and everything will start to sync.

You can also enter your QRZ API to upload your contacts from HamRS to your QRZ logbook. This may require a subscription to a QRZ service, but it appears to work pretty seamlessly when configured here.

When you press that FT8 link on the menu to connect HamRS to you running copy of WSJT-X, or compatible, application, the settings on this page will be used to effect the link. I used the default settings and I’ve never had an issue.

Rig control

Again, the Rig control settings are on this page too, though it’s simply a case of selecting Hamlib or Flrig.

Custom templates

If you want to enter a contest and only require a specific number of fields to be entered per QSO, and in a specific order, you can specify that in a custom template.

The custom template editor is a little confusing to start off with, but it actually works really well.

At the top of the form you have your template title and a label.

Below that, you can specify if you want a panel adding to your logbook template. You can choose the QSO map, POTA spot, or SOTA spot – we saw these earlier.

Below that you specify what fields you want to appear in your template. For my contest template I selected Callsign, Frequency, Band, Mode, RST Tx and RST Rx.

Next to this I specified which were the sticky fields; these are fields were the data doesn’t change from one contact to another. These fields will be placed on the blue bar across the top of the QSO window as we saw earlier. The other fields are classed as variable fields and may be different for every contact.

The Dupe Check field enables you to specify what fields needs to be checked for dupes – you will be informed when you attempt to enter a dupe whilst logging. I have selected just the callsign field as this is a single band event, but if it were an HF event I could also select Band and dupes would have to contain both the entered callsign band.

Beneath these settings we have the field layout area and this is where it gets a little complicated.

Each row has the following symbols on the right hand side …

• Bin – delete this row
• (+) – add a new row beneath this row
• Arrows – move this row up and down the list of rows

Within each row you can see how many columns will appear. A bit of thinking is required here. Each field will be allocated a sixth of the QSO form’s width if you specify six columns. So if you specify six columns and only enter details for three fields, those fields will occupy 3 / 6 columns, or 1 / 2 the width of the form.

Each column also has a bin and (+) symbol of the right hand side (as above) and a grid on the left hand side that you can grab with your mouse to reposition the fields within the row. Remember, the top field will be on the left of the row, the bottom field on the right of the row and those in between, well, in between.

As you edit your template the Template Preview will be updated at the Botton of the form. It take me a little while to work this all out, but it is actually a very handy feature and not one that logbook applications contain.

At the end of this review I will include screen shots of the whole of my template form, you can use it as a crib sheet for creating your own template.

I was going to say that my only gripe here is that you cannot export these templates and share them with other people. However I notice that there is an [ Import / Export ] button at the top of the form. I’m not sure when this appeared, I may have just missed it. However, this is a greta feature and I will include include the code for my RSGB FMAC Contest template last the end of this review for you to paste into your copy of HamRS to play around with. Happy Christmas.

Pricing

Once upon a time, I used to subscribe to Ham Radio Deluxe. Boy is that expensive for what it is. $99 (about £75 depending on the exchange rate) per year to receive product enhancements (bug fixes are free for life if you pay your first £75 and then stop). And it only works on Windows.

I’ve also been a long-time user of RumLogNG on MacOS, of which there is also a version for iOS/iPadOS. Both are free.

Compared to Ham Radio DeluxeHamRS is an absolute bargain. It is free on desktop computers (Windows, Mac, Linux and RaspbianOS) and there are two versions for most platforms, which is nice if you’re using older hardware; MacOS (Intel/Apple Silicon), Windows (32/64 bit) and RaspBianOS (32/64 bit) – Linux only gets one version. Updates are free of charge for life.

You do have to pay for the mobile app on iOS/iPadOS (£4.99) and Android (£4.79), but it’s a very small one-off payment to cover the cost of using the Apple/Android stores and these also includes free future updates.

If you want the HamRS Sync feature to keep all your devices in check, or to use multi-operator logging at special events, then this is just £1.50 a month.

Summary

I’ve already blown it really by already stating that the whole of my logging, on every platform, is performed using sync’ed HamRS. So what more is there to say?

Well, firstly, stop paying for Ham Radio Deluxe. At $99.99 a year, it’s very expensive and few people use all of its features. I certainly don’t hear the sorts of complains that users level at HRD, hurled at HamRS.

Conclusion

There’s an awful lot to like in HamRS and the improvements, whilst nice to have, are not a deal breaker.

So is it the perfect amateur radio logbook? Not quite, but oh so nearly.

Resources

RSGB FMAC Contests custom template settings

Code for my RSGB FMAC Contests

To add this code your instance of HamRS Pro and create an RSGB FMAC Contest template …

• Select Config from the top menu.
• Select the Custom Templates tab.
• Click the green [ New ] button.
• Click the [ Import / Export ] button in the top-right corner of the screen.
• Copy the code below and paste it into the IMPORT FROM CODE field at the top of the screen.
• Click the green [ Import ] button below the IMPORT FROM CODE field.
• The form will now be populated.
• Click over the green [ Save Changes ] button in the top right of the screen.

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