Live Alerts

Live Alerts is the place you go to pin stations, see your notifications, and choose what logic is used to trigger notifications.

The screen has two tabs: Recent Alerts and Settings. Pins sit at the top of Settings. Everything here follows your active callsign in Settings.

Pinned callsigns

The Pinned list holds up to ten callsigns for the active log. Tap + to add one. The callsign must look like a real DX call; it does not need a Club Log log of its own. Spots and RBN still exist for stations that never uploaded. Portable operating suffixes such as /P, /M, or /MM are not offered as pins from Live Bands (those are a location, not a different station).

You can also pin from Live Bands by swiping a row and choosing Alert, or from Expeditions when you turn on You’re in the log (that usually adds a pin as well, when there is room).

Each card shows the callsign. When that station has been on the air recently, a LIVE badge appears. LIVE means they are QRV right now (or were, within the server’s activity window). It is not an alert, and pinning does not replay Live Bands history. Tap LIVE to open a livestream if the station has enabled one.

Swipe a card to Remove. That drops the pin and both alert types for that callsign.

Each of the three things on a pin is independent, and each alert type is capped at ten per active callsign:

• the pin itself (a bookmark)
• Activity alerts (wake me when they are on)
• You’re in the log alerts (they just logged you)

You can pin without either alert, enable activity from Live Bands without opening this screen, or keep an in-log watch from Expeditions without activity alerts. If an alert list is full when you add one, the app may drop the oldest of that type and tell you. A full pin list can still leave an activity watch in place with a note that the bookmark was not added.

The match is the exact callsign. TN8GD and TN8GD/P are different pins.

Activity alerts

Turn Activity alerts on to be told when that callsign appears on the air: a real QSO uploaded to Club Log, a DX Cluster spot, or an RBN/Skimmer report.

This is not a “still QRV” heartbeat. Live Bands and the LIVE badge already answer whether they are on. A 24/7 DXpedition parked on one band would otherwise ping you all day. Instead the app tracks a set of live slots for that pin — each slot is a band plus CW, Phone, or Digital — and only notifies you when something in that set changes.

You get a push when:

• they first appear (or come back after the whole station has been quiet)
• they QSY onto a new live slot (a new band, or a new mode bucket on a band they are already using)
• a slot that had gone quiet for two hours is heard again (a resume, not a heartbeat)

You do not get a push when:

• they keep working the same slot (spots and QSOs on 20m CW while they are already live on 20m CW only refresh “last heard”)
• Live Bands still shows them — that feed is recent activity, not a reason to re-alert

A multi-op expedition is several radios at once. Being live on 20m CW and 17m FT8 at the same time is two slots. A QSY onto 15m is a third. The original bands stay quiet while they are still being heard there.

Spots versus logged QSOs

A logged QSO is trusted immediately. If they QSY and Club Log sees a real contact on the new slot, you can be alerted on that first QSO.

A DX Cluster spot or RBN/Skimmer report on a slot they are not already live on is treated more carefully: one stray decode is held, and a second hit on that same slot confirms it. Crying wolf on a busted skimmer is worse than a missed first spot. Exception: if the station had gone fully quiet, the next hit is “they’re back” even from a spot, the same as first appearance.

IQF (below) does not apply to activity alerts. Source toggles for QSOs / Cluster / Skimmer also do not apply — a pin uses every feed. Alert modes and Alert bands do still apply, so you will not be woken for Digital if you turned Digital off, or for 6m if that band is off.

Successive activity pushes for the same pin replace each other in the notification tray (a QSY updates the existing banner rather than stacking ten of them).

Filters on a pin

When activity alerts are on, three optional filters appear:

• Only needed band slots — fire when the activity is a new band you still need for that DXCC entity. On by default for a new pin.
• Only needed mode slots — fire when the activity is a remaining mode (CW / Phone / Digital) you still need on a band you already have. On by default for a new pin.
• Only QSOs with my CQ Zone — for logged QSOs only, only fire when the other station is in your CQ zone. Off by default. Cluster and RBN are not zone-filtered this way.

Turn both slot filters off if you want every new slot and every resume, including repeats you already have confirmed. Leave both on (the default) if you only want to be woken when they are giving you something you still need. You can run them independently: band-only, mode-only, or both.

The zone filter stacks with the slot filters. When it is on, a QSO must pass the slot filters and be in your CQ zone.

You’re in the log alerts

This is the classic expedition watch: your callsign just appeared in their Club Log log. It is separate from activity alerts. It is not held down the way activity is — each time you hit their log can notify you. It is not gated by IQF or by the QSO / Cluster / Skimmer source toggles.

Turning this off on a pin removes the in-log watch only. Activity alerts and the pin stay as they were.

Recent Alerts

Recent Alerts lists pushes the app has recorded for this callsign, newest first. The list paints from cache, then refreshes when you open the tab, when the app comes to the foreground, and when a push arrives, so a notification you just received should appear without a pull-to-refresh. You can still pull down to reload.

Rows include needed-entity alerts, activity alerts (for example “3B7A is active” or a band/mode line), in-log alerts (“You worked …!”), and the hourly pause advisory if you hit the cap. Each row shows an HH:mm clock (UTC by default, or local time if that is selected in Settings), a relative time, and what triggered it (a logged QSO, a DX Cluster spot, or RBN/Skimmer). Tap a needed-entity row to open a band × mode need check for that DXCC. Swipe to delete one row. The trash icon clears the whole history after confirmation.

If five or more alerts land in five minutes, or the hourly pause row appears, a tip card can pin to the top of the list: too many alerts, and a pointer to Settings to tighten filters. It shows at most once per 24 hours for this callsign. Swipe or tap × to dismiss it; dismissing does not restart the 24-hour wait.

If you have both a general needed alert (New DXCCs / New band slots / New mode slots, or an entity watch) and an activity pin on the same event, you receive the activity alert when that pin actually delivered. The more specific pin wins; you do not get both.

Settings tab — what you can turn on

General Alerts

These are blanket “needed DX” alerts against your log, not a particular callsign:

• New DXCCs — a live event is an entity you have never worked. An upload Club Log publishes as a live QSO stops New DXCCs for that entity (and the worked band/mode slot) without waiting for the award-summary rebuild.
• New band slots — a live event is a band you still need on an entity you already have.
• New mode slots — a live event is a remaining mode on a band you already have for that entity.

These three choose the kind of need. They combine with Alert modes and Alert bands further down the page: an event must match an enabled kind of need and land on an allowed band and mode. See FAQ.

Advanced… opens a sheet so these needed alerts (and entity watches) can be narrowed further, without adding rows to the main Settings page. Activity pins and in-log watches are not affected. Everything here starts unconstrained, so alerts behave as they did before you touch it.

• Only QSOs with my CQ Zone — for logged QSOs only, only fire when the station that logged the contact is in your CQ zone (a QSO on a path that involves your zone). Cluster and RBN are dropped while this is on.
• Filter by date — Entire log (the default) uses all-time confirmed need. New in [year] treats the calendar year as the need window, so an entity you confirmed in a previous year can alert again until you confirm it this year. That can increase volume, not only cut it. There is no CDXC Challenge option here (that stays on Live Bands).
• Most Wanted threshold — a rarity floor from Club Log’s global Most Wanted list (the same slider as Live Bands). Slide toward Rare to keep only the top N; All is no floor. An entity with no rank is dropped while a floor is set.
• Source (who’s operating) and Destination (who was worked) — continent, DXCC entity, and CQ zone, the same path filters as Live Bands → Filters → Advanced…. Source is the logger (or the spotter). Destination is the DX. Unresolved ends fail closed when that side has a filter set.

Reset All Filters in the sheet restores the unconstrained defaults. Apply saves them on the server (these filters run while the app is closed). Cancel discards the draft.

Needed is Club Log’s usual ladder: you are chasing confirmed status for awards. These alerts do not use reciprocal log-matching as a credit.

Alert sources

These toggles apply only to needed alerts (General Alerts and entity watches), not to pins:

• Logged QSOs — a real contact in someone’s Club Log log. The most trustworthy source.
• DX Cluster spots — cluster spots. They have a band, not a reliable mode.
• RBN / Skimmer reports — same mode gap as cluster; busted decodes happen.

All three start on. Turning one off stops needed alerts from that source only.

LoTW only (off by default) narrows needed alerts and You’re in the log watches to callsigns with recent LoTW activity, for operators who only want alerts that can be confirmed. It does not apply to activity pins.

Intelligent Quality Filter (IQF) (on by default) lets Club Log skip needed Cluster and RBN alerts when the callsign has limited evidence — it is not on Club Log’s Super Check Partial list of known DX, and has not just been hot-promoted from a burst of fresh QSOs. The aim is fewer false spots for places like P5. On CW the filter is a little stricter for callsigns starting with E or T — the two one-element Morse characters (a single dot and a single dash), which weak-signal ears and Skimmer decoders most often insert or drop by mistake — and asks for at least one logged QSO with that callsign in the last few hours before it will deliver a CW spot alert for it. A rare station that is genuinely active is logged within minutes, so the only thing this holds back is a miscopy. IQF does not apply to logged QSOs, activity pins, or in-log watches. Live Bands can optionally apply the same spot filter to its feed, via its own toggle in the filter menu (on by default, and independent of this setting).

The app also never treats the following as DX, for needed or activity: unresolved or satellite/internet entities, whitelist-blocked bogus calls, or NCDXF/IARU beacon frequencies.

Alert modes and Alert bands

Alert modes (CW, Phone, Digital) and Alert bands apply to both general needed alerts and activity pins. Entity watches follow them too. Bands shown here are the ones you have enabled in Settings → Bands. They do not change what “New DXCCs” means; they only decide whether a matching event is allowed through. See FAQ.

Digital is the bucket for data modes (FT8, FT4, RTTY, and so on). Cluster and RBN often have no mode; those reports are treated as Digital unless they were classified as CW or Phone.

Alert preferences

Maximum alerts in 5 minutes (1, 5, 10, or 20; default 5) is a short burst cap. Extra alerts in that window are dropped silently.

Separately, the app allows at most 20 alerts per 15 minutes. When you hit that cap you get one advisory push (with a Stop alerting now action), and further alerts pause until the window rolls. The advisory points at Settings → General Alerts if this happens often. You’re in the log alerts are exempt from that cap — a watched station logging you is never held back.

Quiet hours, when on, are a UTC window (Start and End each show the time plus UTC). The footer repeats UTC and, when your zone differs, the same window in local time. Nothing is pushed during that window.

Entity Alerts

Watch a specific DXCC entity. Watch an Entity (or Watch a DXCC entity when the list is empty) opens a searchable picker with Needed first, then All Entities. You pick the country only — the add sheet has no band or mode controls. Swipe to remove. These still honour Alert sources, IQF, Alert modes, Alert bands, and Advanced… filters.

FAQ

If I turn on only New DXCCs and only 6m, do I only get new DXCCs on 6m?

Yes. General Alerts choose the kind of need. Alert bands and Alert modes then filter delivery. Both layers have to pass.

New DXCCs means the entity is one you have never worked, on any band. It is not “needed on 6m.” A country you already have on 20m, now appearing on 6m, is a new band slot, not a new DXCC.

Worked example. Suppose Settings looks like this:

1. Under General Alerts, New DXCCs is on. New band slots and New mode slots are off.
2. Under Alert bands, only 6m is on.
3. Under Alert modes, CW, Phone, and Digital are all on.

A live event then has to clear these steps, in order:

1. A logged QSO, DX Cluster spot, or RBN/Skimmer report arrives.
2. Club Log asks whether this is an entity you have never worked. If you already have it, New DXCCs does not apply, and the other two general toggles are off, so nothing fires.
3. If it is new, Club Log asks whether the event is on 6m. A 20m report of the same new entity is dropped.
4. If the band is allowed, Club Log asks whether the event’s mode is still on. With all three modes on, that step passes.
5. Only then do you get a push.

What that means in practice:

• A never-worked entity on 6m wakes you.
• A never-worked entity on 20m stays silent.
• Japan on 6m when you already have Japan on HF stays silent — that is a new band slot.
• Japan on 6m CW when you already have Japan on 6m Phone stays silent — that is a new mode slot.

If what you want is “wake me for anything I still need on 6m,” turn New DXCCs and New band slots on (and New mode slots if you also want remaining modes on 6m entities you already have), and leave only 6m selected under Alert bands.

Settings → Bands is a second band list. A band turned off there is also dropped from alerts. A band you have never turned off stays allowed.

Alert sound

Notification sound is not on this screen. Open More → Settings (iPhone) or Settings in the iPad sidebar. Under Alerts you can choose Silent, System alert sound, or Morse code. That choice is on the device; it is not a Club Log account preference. See Settings.

How the app avoids over-alerting

In short:

• Activity pins notify on first appearance, QSY to a new slot, or resume after two hours quiet — not while they stay on the same slot.
• Untrusted spots/skimmer need a second hit on a new slot; QSOs do not.
• Needed Cluster/RBN can be IQF-filtered; junk DXCC, beacons, and blocked calls never alert.
• Advanced… can keep needed alerts to your CQ zone, a Most Wanted floor, this year, or a source/destination path.
• Needed alerts dedup the same entity/band/mode for 15 minutes.
• A delivering activity pin suppresses a duplicate general needed alert for that same event.
• Burst (per 5 minutes) and 20 per 15 minutes caps stop a pile-up from filling the tray. A tip card on Recent Alerts can point you at Settings after a rapid burst (once per 24 hours).
• Quiet hours (UTC) and Alert modes / bands let you stay dark on Digital nights or VHF if you want.
• Activity banners for one pin collapse to a single tray item as they QSY.

Connection and permissions

Pins and history need a network connection; without one you see Device offline or an error. Delivering pushes also requires notification permission for Club Log (iOS Settings, or the Android notification prompt). If that permission is off and Recent Alerts is empty, you see Notifications are off and Open Settings, not No Alerts Yet. Pins, watches, and history all follow the active callsign.