ParkWatch
Manual

ParkWatch user guide.

Everything ParkWatch does, screen by screen.

Everything ParkWatch does, screen by screen. For install and known limitations, see README.md.

Contents

  1. Opening ParkWatch
  2. The spot list
  3. Filtering
  4. Working a station
  5. Stations To Work queue
  6. The map
  7. DX Info and DXpeditions
  8. Spotting
  9. Logging
  10. Manual QSO
  11. Alerts
  12. Rig control
  13. Top activators and the ticker
  14. Activator Log
  15. Past activations
  16. Keeping ParkWatch updated
  17. Settings reference
  18. Troubleshooting

1. Opening ParkWatch

Click the ParkWatch icon in the Chrome toolbar. By default it opens in a new browser tab. Prefer a separate floating window? Settings → Station → Open ParkWatch in.

Either way, ParkWatch won't open twice — if it's already open, that tab or window is brought to the front.

Your award totals sit along the top once you're signed in to pota.app — "10,005 parks hunted · 234 entities hunted". Beside the parks total is a small net change for the current UTC day: a green +5 if you've hunted five new parks since 00:00 UTC (red for a rare decrease, dim +0 before your first new park of the day). It re-baselines automatically at 00:00 UTC.

First run. A short wizard collects your callsign, gridsquare and which programs to watch. For a US callsign it confirms the licence against the FCC database (via callook.info) and fills in your licence class automatically — a light check to keep the tool ham-focused and catch typos, never a hard gate; if the lookup can't confirm it (offline, or a non-US call), you just continue. Change anything later in Settings.

2. The spot list

Each row is one spotted station:

[logo]  14.243   W1AW  SSB  NEW PARK  ×3       [＋] [QSY] [Log] [Spot] [Park] [QRZ]
        20m       US-0001 ＋KFF-1234  Acadia National Park  US-ME  412 km NE  4m
  • Logo — POTA, WWFF, LLOTA, IOTA (island), or DX (globe), plus a combined mark for a dual park.
  • Frequency and band, callsign, mode. For DX-cluster and IOTA spots — which carry no mode of their own — ParkWatch derives one from the spot comment or the frequency, following the Canadian (RAC) band plan.
  • Program pill — a small POTA / WWFF / LLOTA / IOTA / DX tag beside the reference, so the program is clear at a glance. (It's hidden automatically on very narrow windows, where the logo already shows the program.)
  • NEW PARK / NEW STATE — you've never worked this park, or still need this state. Requires POTA award data (sign in at pota.app).
  • NEW PARK also appears on WWFF spots, once you have imported your WWFF log.
  • NEW DXCC — an entity you've never worked. POTA uses your award data; WWFF uses your imported log.
  • TOP 25 (gold) — the station is in one of DXCC's 25 most-wanted entities (from the ClubLog most-wanted list) — worth chasing.
  • ATNO — nobody has ever activated this park. The rarest thing on the list.
  • RARE REFERENCE — nobody has activated it in the last two years.

ATNO and RARE bypass the band and mode filters — the rarest catches stay on the spot list (and keep alerting) even when you've filtered to specific bands or modes. Turn that off, or limit ATNO/rare alerts to bands and modes you can actually work, under Settings → Alerts → ATNO & rare activations.

  • IOTA — an Islands-on-the-Air spot, tagged with its island group.
  • DX (purple) — this station is an announced DXpedition, cross-checked against the DX Info list (see DX Info).
  • ×3 — how many times you've worked this park before.
  • ＋KFF-1234 — a dual park: one QSO counts for both programs.
  • ⚠ OUT OF BAND / NO PRIVILEGE (red) — a warning that you can't legally transmit here (see below).
  • Distance and bearing from your gridsquare, and how long ago it was spotted.

Out-of-band / privilege warnings (US operators). Set your US license class — the setup wizard confirms your callsign against the FCC database and fills your class in for you, or you can set it in Settings → Station. ParkWatch then checks every spot against your class's privileges from the FCC/ARRL band chart and flags the ones you can't work:

  • ⚠ OUT OF BAND — the frequency is outside every US amateur band.
  • NO PRIVILEGE — in a band, but your class has no privileges there (e.g. a Technician on a 20m spot, or a General at 14.200 MHz).
  • NOT YOUR PRIVILEGE — your class has the segment but not for that mode (e.g. a phone spot in a CW/data-only segment for your class).

The tooltip explains exactly why. Non-US operators keep a simple band-edge check and don't see the class-based warnings.

Hide the ones you can't work. Settings → Station has a Hide spots I can't work option that drops every out-of-privilege spot from the list, leaving only what you can legally work. It's on by default for Technician and General (who have the most to filter out) and off for Advanced and Extra — change it any time.

IOTA and DX spots come from the DX clusters (on by default). Country flags on these rows are taken from the operator's callsign, since there's no park to place them by.

DX and IOTA spots age off the list after 30 minutes, the same as POTA and the other programs, so the feed stays current.

Community notes. A shared, curated list of callsign notes — a friend, a club, a well-known operator — puts a short italic note beside the callsign on any spot it recognises, and again in the Activator Log when you work that station. The list refreshes on its own once a day; there's nothing to set up.

Known-hunter alerts. List callsigns under Settings → Known hunters, tick Desktop notification when a known hunter works/spots anyone (Settings → Alerts), and you get an OS notification the moment one of them shows up on the cluster. If the spot came from a ParkWatch hunter pressing Log, it reads "VE9CF just worked VE9CZ at CA-1234 · 20m FT8" — a real QSO, with the activator's reference, band and mode. Any other cluster spot reads "… just spotted …" instead, since a plain spot only means they heard the activator, not that they worked them.

3. Filtering

Above the list:

  • Search — matches callsign, reference, park name or location.
  • Band — a dropdown of band checkboxes: tick as many as you like (e.g. 20m, 17m and 10m) to see just those, or leave it on All bands. Mode works the same way (SSB / CW / FT8 / FT4). With none ticked, everything shows.
  • Needed only — hide everything you've already worked.
  • Hide hunted / Hide US / Hide POTA / Hide WWFF / Hide LLOTA / Hide IOTA / Hide DX.

(Out-of-privilege spots are hidden via a separate Settings → Station option — see The spot list.)

Filters persist between sessions.

A park you click on the map is always shown, even if your filters would hide it — otherwise the highlight would go nowhere.

4. Working a station

Every action is available three ways: the row buttons, a right-click menu on any row, and the buttons on a queue entry. They all do the same thing.

Action What it does
＋ / Queue Add to Stations To Work (turns to ✓)
Log Open the log dialog — also spots the station by default
Spot Re-spot this station
QSY Tune your radio to it (needs TCI enabled)
Park Open the park page on pota.app
QRZ Open the activator on QRZ
Watchlist Add/remove from your watchlist (right-click only)
Do-not-spot Add/remove from your do-not-spot list (right-click only)

5. Stations To Work queue

The panel to the right of the spot list.

Adding: click ＋ on a row, or right-click → Add to queue.

Each entry shows callsign, frequency, reference, mode and park name, with its own Log / QSY / Spot buttons.

Queue entries survive the panel closing and the station dropping off the feed. A station no longer being spotted appears dimmed with a dashed border — it may have gone QRT, but its saved frequency still works.

If a queued station moves, you get a desktop notification and the entry shows a badge:

  • amber QSY 14.243 → 14.250 — moved within the band
  • red BAND CHANGE — changed band entirely (higher-priority alert)

Drift under 500 Hz is ignored. Turn these off in Settings → Alerts.

Logging or spotting a queued station removes it from the queue — you've worked it. Clear empties the queue.

6. The map

Click Map in the toolbar. It opens in its own tab.

Two views:

  • On air now — currently spotted stations.
  • All references — parks and lakes in the area you're looking at. These load for the visible area, so pan or zoom and more fill in. A loading indicator appears while POTA/WWFF data is fetched.

Pins: blue POTA, green WWFF, purple LLOTA. An amber ring means a park you've never hunted. A star is your home location.

Band and mode filters (On-air view): tap chips for 80m/40m/20m/17m/15m/12m/ 10m/6m and SSB/CW/FT8-FT4/Other. Multi-select — tap several. All clears.

Clicking a pin opens a popup with the program logo and details, and highlights that park in the ParkWatch spot list. From the popup you can Queue, Spot, Log, open the Park page, open QRZ, or Show in list (which also brings ParkWatch to the front). Hovering shows the popup; clicking pins it open so you can reach the buttons.

Moving the panel: drag the "ParkWatch Map" header anywhere on screen. Double-click it to snap back to the corner. Its position is remembered.

7. DX Info and DXpeditions

The DX Info panel in the sidebar lists announced DXpeditions for the next 60 days, pulled from NG3K's ADXO calendar and refreshed twice a day.

  • Each entry shows the callsign, the dates, and a status badge — green ON AIR when the operation is active now, red OFF AIR otherwise.
  • ParkWatch cross-checks every spot against this list. When a station you're seeing is one of these DXpeditions, its row gets a purple DX tag — so the rare one stands out whether it arrives on a DX cluster or as an ordinary POTA spot.

DX Info is one of several sidebar tabs (alongside your call info, statistics and the solar panel). Show or hide it, and pick which tabs appear, in Settings → Sidebar. Drag the panel's edge to resize it.

The DX clusters that feed DX and IOTA spots are configured in Settings → Spotting. A DX-cluster spot shows the operator's country, and — when its callsign matches a DXpedition on the list above — the announced dates and on-air status right on the row. IOTA cluster spots also carry the island group name, and get distance and bearing like any other spot.

8. Spotting

Click Spot in the toolbar (self-spot) or on any row (re-spot).

"Spot On Your Favourite Programs" lets you post to several at once. Tick each program — POTA, WWFF, LLOTA, IOTA — and give its reference:

  • A dual park automatically posts to both POTA and WWFF — no double-posting.
  • Typing a reference into the wrong row moves it to the right one automatically (each program's references identify themselves).
  • Enabled DX clusters get the spot too. An IOTA reference with no park posts to the DX cluster (pota.app and WWFF need a park), with the island in the comment so IOTA chasers can find it.
  • A comment on its own — no program ticked, no island — also posts a plain DX-cluster spot: handy for a CQ note, a QRP flag, or anything the park feeds don't take. (Needs DX-cluster sending on under Settings → Spotting.)

Frequency accepts kHz or MHz — type 14243 or 14.243, and it echoes back what it understood plus the band.

Find references near me uses your device's actual location (not your home grid) to list the nearest POTA, WWFF and LLOTA references. Tap one to fill it in. It tells you whether it used the device fix or fell back to your grid.

LLOTA spotting needs two things: post one spot on llota.app yourself first (ParkWatch learns the request format by watching), and keep a signed-in llota.app tab open when you spot.

9. Logging

Click Log on any spot. The dialog is pre-filled from the spot.

Program checkboxes. The dialog has a POTA / WWFF / LLOTA / IOTA row, each with its logo, a tick, and a reference box — the same layout as the Spot dialog. ParkWatch pre-ticks every program the station is known to be in and fills each reference (a dual park ticks both POTA and WWFF; an IOTA spot ticks IOTA). You can tick, untick or edit any of them before saving — what stays ticked is exactly what gets logged and spotted.

"Spot this station too" is ticked by default — one click both spots and logs. Untick it when catching up on QSOs after the fact. If spotting fails, the QSO is still logged; you'll see both results.

Destinations (Settings → Logging), all optional and simultaneous:

Destination Notes
Local ADIF queue Always on. Export ADIF in the footer downloads them
QRZ Logbook Needs your logbook API key
Wavelog / Cloudlog URL, API key and station ID
UDP Station Master Pro (port 2333), Log4OM (2236), or your own

Each program's reference is written to its own ADIF field — POTA_REF, WWFF_REF, LLOTA_REF, and IOTA for an island. An IOTA reference is never written as a POTA park, so loggers like Station Master Pro file it correctly.

10. Manual QSO

Click Manual QSO in the toolbar to log a contact by hand — a DX ragchew, a QSO you forgot to log at the time, anything with no spot to click.

Fill in the callsign, frequency, mode, RST and time (UTC is pre-filled). The same program checkboxes as the Log dialog are here but optional: tick POTA, WWFF, LLOTA or IOTA and add a reference only if the contact belongs to one.

Spot this station too works here as well — with a program ticked it spots that program; with only an island reference (or none) it spots the DX cluster. The contact goes to every logbook you've set up.

11. Alerts

Settings → Alerts.

  • Which flags — new park, new state.
  • Mode groups and bands — only alert on what you can work.
  • Watchlist — always alert for these calls.
  • Do-not-spot list — operators who've asked not to be re-spotted. Their Spot button is disabled.
  • Queue QSY alerts — see section 5.

Phone alerts — ntfy (free, no account), Pushover, or your own webhook.

12. Rig control

Settings → Radio. Turn on rig control and a QSY button appears on every spot and queue entry, tuning your radio with one click. ParkWatch speaks four different backends — pick the one your station already uses:

Backend How it connects Notes
TCI WebSocket, straight from the browser Station Master Pro, ExpertSDR2/3, Thetis. No helper needed.
FLRig XML-RPC over HTTP, straight from the browser Runs on macOS, Windows and Linux. Turn on FLRig's XML-RPC server (Config → Xmlrpc). No helper needed.
Hamlib rigctld over TCP, through the ParkWatch helper Station Master Pro's built-in Hamlib server (often port 2345), WSJT-X's, or a standalone rigctld (4532). Needs the helper installed.
OmniRig COM automation, through the helper Windows only — the option is hidden on macOS. Needs the helper plus pywin32 (pip install pywin32).

Set the address and port to match your software (defaults are filled in), and Test connection confirms it. ParkWatch reads the frequency, tunes, and — with Set mode too ticked — sets the mode as well. If changing bands over a real CAT link doesn't switch the mode, raise the mode-set delay (try 400–600 ms) so the band change settles before the mode command is sent.

FLRig is reached over a local HTTP port, so the first time you use it ParkWatch asks permission to connect to it. Hamlib and OmniRig go through the same small helper used for UDP logging and the DX cluster — nothing extra to run if you already have it.

13. Top activators and the ticker

Top activators sits below the queue: the five most active operators of the current UTC day, ranked by distinct parks activated, then spot count. Click one to filter the list to them.

This is tallied by ParkWatch as it polls — it reflects the time ParkWatch was running, and resets at 00:00 UTC.

The ticker along the bottom scrolls scheduled activations for the next 7 days. Hover to pause, click an entry to open that park.

14. Activator Log

For when you're the one in the park. Click Activate in the ParkWatch toolbar; it opens in its own tab.

Setting up the activation

Fill in your callsign, grid, frequency and mode, then pick what you're activating from the Add Activity picker — POTA, WWFF, LLOTA or IOTA — and give each its reference. Activating several at once is just several ticked rows.

With rig control on, the frequency reads straight from your radio when you open the page and then follows it once a second as you tune, so the log always shows where you actually are. Type a frequency yourself and tracking stops — it's yours to set; the Rig button re-engages it. With no radio it quietly leaves the field for you to fill in.

There's also a Portable / Expedition / Calling CQ option for when you're just working a pileup with no on-the-air program. Tick it and you can run and log without a park reference at all.

Find references near me uses your device's actual location — not your home grid — and lists the nearest references across the programs. Tap one to fill it in; a two-fer fills its counterpart automatically, and the park name drops into the comment that goes on every contact.

What comment reaches your logging software. While you're activating (you've added an activity), the park name is the default comment on every contact — but a per-QSO comment you type takes priority over it. In every other mode (Hunter/Chasing, Portable/Expedition, calling CQ with no program) only the per-QSO comment is sent; there's no activation comment to fall back on.

Self-spot posts to every ticked program at once, plus your DX clusters. When you're calling CQ or on an expedition with no program, it spots to the DX cluster only (that's the one place a reference-less spot can go). Re-spot every 10 minutes keeps you visible while you run — it re-spots to the same places, DX cluster included. You spot once for the activation; logging a contact never re-spots you.

Needed Parks Active Currently. Below the setup fields, this list shows the POTA and WWFF parks you still need (your NEW PARK spots) that are on the air right now — on any band or mode, newest first, refreshing every minute. It lets you keep the setup tab open and still catch a wanted park the moment it's spotted, without flipping back to the hunting feed. It only lists parks you haven't hunted before; DX and IOTA aren't included.

Two dropdowns above the list narrow it by band and mode, each a checkbox multi-select — tick, say, 20m and FT8 / FT4 to watch just those. The filter also scopes the voice alert below, so with FT8 / FT4 ticked you're only told about digital parks.

Tap ** Voice on that panel to turn on a spoken alert: when a new needed park appears, a voice announces "Needed park — POTA" (or WWFF), so you can keep an ear out for a wanted park while running FT8 / FT4 in another window. The newest arrival also flashes in the list. (The first time you switch it on, ParkWatch speaks a short confirmation — browsers require that to enable audio.)

Calling CQ vs Hunter / Chasing

Two operating modes sit at the top of the page:

  • Calling CQ — you're running a frequency and stations come to you (activator / DXpedition style). You self-spot, and a pile-up helper appears: jot the partial callsigns you hear into the box, then click one to drop it into the log as you work it.
  • Hunter / Chasing — you're searching and pouncing. Two options unlock:
  • Spot the stations I work posts each station you log to its own program (POTA/WWFF/LLOTA — they need a park reference).
  • Spot to DX cluster posts a cluster spot for every station you work, park or not. If that station has a POTA, WWFF or IOTA reference (from the P2P and IOTA # fields), that reference is what's sent — far more useful to other hunters than a generic note. Only when it has none does your custom spot comment go out instead.

A per-QSO comment field also appears in Hunter / Chasing — a one-off note for a single contact, kept separate from the activation comment that rides on every QSO, and cleared after each contact. If Spot to DX cluster is on, that note goes out on the cluster spot too (alongside any reference). It's hidden while Calling CQ.

Their POTA / WWFF / LLOTA / IOTA. When you work a station that's activating a park or island that isn't on the spot list, four small fields — Their POTA, Their WWFF, Their LLOTA and Their IOTA — let you record what they're activating, so the reference lands in your log (and ADIF: POTA_REF, WWFF_REF, LLOTA_REF, IOTA). POTA takes several separated by commas for an n-fer; the others take one. The entry form is identical in every mode — Calling CQ, Hunter / Chasing, and Portable / Expedition — so these fields always appear; you can work and log a park station whichever way you're operating.

POTA is the only n-fer. If the station is on two or more POTA references (comma-separated, e.g. CA-0001, CA-0002), each park becomes its own log record — a 2-fer logs two rows, same call and time, one POTA reference each. WWFF, LLOTA and IOTA take a single reference each and ride on the first record only; you can't enter more than one of them. A contact on one POTA park (or none) is a single row. You don't need a park of your own to log; Enter always logs.

Each program is spotted separately either way.

Park-to-park shows green. When you're activating a program yourself and work a station on the same program, the reference is a genuine park-to-park — so it's shown green in the log. A POTA REF goes green when you're activating POTA, a WWFF REF when you're activating WWFF (POTA and WWFF only for now), making your P2P contacts easy to pick out at a glance. The same green carries into the row's hover tooltip, so a park-to-park reads identically whether you're scanning the table or hovering for the full detail.

Entering a Their POTA / WWFF / LLOTA reference also spots that station to the program when you log — you've told ParkWatch exactly what they're running, so it puts them on pota.app / WWFF Spotline / LLOTA for the rest of the community, even if "Spot the stations I work" is off. Great for a park that isn't on the feed yet. You can turn this off under Settings → Spotting. Their IOTA has no program of its own, so it (and any per-QSO comment) is posted to the DX cluster instead — the cluster is the only outlet an island reference has.

Logging contacts

The entry form is the same in every mode and tabs in logging order — callsign → RST s → RST r → Their POTA → Their WWFF → Their LLOTA → Their IOTA → Comment — and Enter logs from any field.

Field Notes
Callsign Looked up as you type — name, QTH, state/province, country fill in
RST s / RST r Default 59, editable
State / Province From QRZ, but editable — once you type in it, a later lookup won't overwrite you. For operators away from their registered address
Their POTA / WWFF / LLOTA What the station you worked is activating. Several POTA parks, comma separated — US-0001, US-0002 — and each POTA park logs its own row. WWFF, LLOTA and IOTA are single references (first record only). Shown in every mode
IOTA # The island reference of the station you worked, if any — written to the ADIF IOTA field

As you type a callsign, ParkWatch shows the operator's QRZ details and a beam heading from your grid, your recent QRZ QSOs with them, and — when the call is on the shared list — a community note (a friend, a club, a well-known operator; see The spot list).

Time is stamped in UTC automatically. Each contact is sent straight to whatever external logging you've set up — QRZ Logbook, Wavelog/Cloudlog, Station Master Pro or Log4OM over UDP — and appears in the session list below, newest first.

The session survives closing the tab, so a flat battery doesn't cost you the log.

Hover any logged row for a tidy summary — time, band and mode, name and QTH, the four references (POTA / WWFF / LLOTA / IOTA) and your comment. To keep the table easy to scan, a long Name / QTH is trimmed with an ellipsis (…) so every row stays the same height; the full name and location are always there in the hover.

Logging from WSJT-X

Running FT8 or FT4? Turn on Log contacts from WSJT-X — either in the Activator Log or under Settings → Digital — and every QSO you log in WSJT-X or JTDX drops straight into the active session, stamped with your park reference(s). No manual entry. Like a typed contact, it's then held about a minute before being sent to your loggers — long enough to correct a bad decode or delete it — and sent automatically after that (or the moment you press Finish). Right-click a row and choose Send now to skip the wait.

Set it up once, in WSJT-X (or JTDX): File → Settings → Reporting.

  • Under UDP Server, set the address to 127.0.0.1 and the port to 2237. This is the only setting ParkWatch needs — WSJT-X sends its "QSO Logged" message here the instant you click Log QSO.
  • Leave the Secondary UDP Server unchecked. Do not tick "Enable logged contact ADIF broadcast". That's a separate, deprecated feature that sends a different raw-ADIF format on the same port and stops ParkWatch from seeing your contacts. The primary UDP Server above is all you need.

ParkWatch's helper must be installed; it happily shares port 2237 with JTAlert or GridTracker. To avoid duplicates, log to ParkWatch or from WSJT-X directly to another program — not both. If nothing shows up, open the Digital settings tab and click Test helper: it reports whether the helper is running, whether it's hearing WSJT-X, and how many QSO messages have arrived.

FT8 only carries the callsign and grid, so — if your QRZ sign-in is set up under Settings → Logging — ParkWatch looks each contact up on QRZ before logging it, filling in the name, QTH, state, county, DXCC and zones. The grid you actually exchanged stays as-is. You can turn this off in Settings → Digital.

The activation sidebar

The right-hand sidebar carries Activation details, a Map, live Stats, Solar conditions, and a Hunters tab — the same known-hunters intel as the main window, so you can see which operators you follow are spotting while you run your activation.

Exporting

Export ADIF produces one file per program, named the way both POTA and WWFF want them: VE9CF@CA-4961_20260726.adi.

Two details that matter for credit:

  • Your reference goes in MY_SIG_INFO (the activator field). SIG_INFO is reserved for the other station's park in a park-to-park.
  • An IOTA activation writes your island to MY_IOTA, not MY_SIG_INFO — the correct field for an island you're operating from.
  • A contact at a POTA n-fer becomes one record per park in the POTA file. The WWFF file gets exactly one record per contact, because WWFF only credits a single reference.

Finish archives the activation and clears the slate for the next one.

15. Past activations

History (in the Activator Log) opens a list of everything you've archived — date, references, contact count, callsign, grid, bands, modes, time span and comment.

Each entry has a download button per program, so you can re-download a log months later if a program asks for it. Deleting warns you to download first.

16. Keeping ParkWatch updated

ParkWatch watches a shared Google Drive folder and notifies you when a new build appears. The notification offers:

  • Yes, install — downloads the right bundle for your platform, installs it, and reloads. Your previous version is backed up beside the folder first.
  • Remind me later — defers it (a day by default) and brings it back.

If an update adds a new permission, Chrome disables the extension until you re-enable it in chrome://extensions. The notification tells you when that's the case.

Your data carries over. Known hunters, watchlist, alert settings, award progress and the daily counters all live in the browser's extension storage, which survives an update as long as you unzip the new build over your existing folder and hit Reload (↻). What wipes that storage is pressing Remove in chrome://extensions, or loading the new copy from a different folder (which forces you to remove the old one). So reload in place — don't Remove — and use Settings → Advanced → Backup & restore to export a copy before any big change.

Prefer doing it yourself? Settings → Advanced → Update notifications can be turned off, or switched to just watching a version file.

If storage does get wiped, ParkWatch offers to bring it back. When you install into a fresh folder (or after a Remove), ParkWatch checks whether the helper still holds one of its automatic backups. If it does, a green "Welcome back — your data can be restored" card appears, naming the backup's date and what it holds; one click restores your settings, activation history and QSO queue, and you carry on where you left off. This needs the ParkWatch helper installed (the backups it writes live on disk, which is what lets them survive the wipe) — an extension-only setup has nothing to restore from, so keep a manual export as well.

17. Settings reference

Tab What's there
Station Your callsign and grid, US license class and "hide spots I can't work" (out-of-band warnings)
Appearance Theme (light / dark / auto), how ParkWatch opens, how often it checks, the launch button, auto-reload, the bottom ticker on/off, and show / hide the sidebar
Spots What gets flagged in the list — NEW PARK, NEW DXCC, NEW STATE, worked-today, do-not-spot
Alerts What interrupts you — desktop notifications, band/mode/distance filters, watchlist, phone alerts
Programs POTA, WWFF (and your worked-references import), LLOTA, IOTA, dual parks, reference data
Spotting Auto-spot on log, spot comment, DX clusters, IOTA cluster, allow self-spots to the DX cluster
Sidebar Which sidebar tabs show — DX Info, statistics, solar — and their default layout
Logging ADIF, QRZ Logbook, QRZ callsign lookup, Wavelog/Cloudlog, UDP destinations
Radio Rig control — choose your backend (TCI, FLRig, Hamlib, OmniRig), its address/port, and the mode-set options
Digital WSJT-X / JTDX logging over UDP — enable it and set the port
Advanced Update notifications, the ticker's content and endpoints, diagnostics and data export

The split between Spots and Alerts is deliberate: Spots changes what you see in the list, Alerts changes what interrupts you.

Reference data (WWFF directory, LLOTA lakes, dual parks) auto-refreshes daily at 00:01 UTC. Refresh reference data now does it on demand.

18. Troubleshooting

No NEW PARK flags Sign in at pota.app in the same browser, then Settings → Programs → Re-sync award data.

No ATNO or RARE REFERENCE badges These need POTA's park activation history, which ParkWatch fetches a few parks at a time as they're spotted and caches for a day. Badges appear as that fills in — they won't all show the instant you open the panel. If none ever appear, POTA's park endpoint may have changed shape; tell me and I'll adjust.

No NEW PARK flags on WWFF spots Import your WWFF log: Settings → Programs → Import WWFF log, or sign in to WWFF LogSearch, run your Hunter search, and use the ParkWatch import panel that appears.

The spot list is empty Click Refresh. Check your filters — "Needed only" plus a band filter can hide everything. The count line shows how many are hidden.

Map has no POTA/WWFF pins in All references Zoom in. Far out, park loading is skipped deliberately to avoid huge downloads.

"Extension context invalidated" An open ParkWatch page from before a reload. Click the banner to refresh.

LLOTA spot fails Make sure a signed-in llota.app tab is open, and that you've posted at least one spot on llota.app yourself so ParkWatch has learned the format. Settings → Programs → LLOTA → Spot-post diagnostic records what happened.

Ticker is empty Settings → Advanced → Test these URLs now reports what each schedule source returned. The endpoints are editable there.

QRZ lookup isn't filling in name or state Settings → Logging → QRZ callsign lookup — check the username and password, then use Test lookup. Full detail needs a QRZ XML subscription. Country will still come from the callsign prefix without it.

"Yes, install" didn't install It needs the ParkWatch helper (installed by the install script). If it can't run, ParkWatch opens the Drive folder so you can update by hand and tells you why. After an update that changed permissions, re-enable the extension in chrome://extensions.

Something changed and now nothing works POTA's API is unofficial and undocumented. If park search or the map broke suddenly, an endpoint change is the likely cause.