A Guide to HamDash

Your world of weather, space weather, DX, and more — at a glance

What HamDash is, in one paragraph

HamDash is a free, browser-based situational-awareness dashboard for radio amateurs, shortwave listeners, and anyone curious about the radio hobby. You open a web address — hamdash.com — and the dashboard is running. There is nothing to download, nothing to install, no drivers, no accounts required to look around, and no special equipment. It works on any modern device with a web browser: a phone, a tablet, a laptop, a desktop, on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, or iOS. HamDash gathers live information from dozens of public, authoritative data feeds and presents it in a single clean screen, organised into dashboards you can read at a glance. It tells you what the radio bands are doing right now, where signals are travelling, what the Sun is doing to propagation, where the weather may affect your station or your safety, who is on the air from parks and summits, and much more.

This guide is the complete, authoritative reference for HamDash. It starts at the root — what you see when you first arrive — and works outward, branch by branch, through every dashboard, every panel, and every feature. You do not need to read it in order. Use the contents below to jump to whatever you want to understand.

The philosophy: why HamDash works the way it does
Getting started: your first visit
How HamDash is organised: dashboards and the navigation menu
The six dashboards, panel by panel
The full feature tree: every page in the menu
The free SDR receiver inside HamDash
Customising your dashboard
Accounts, settings, and your callsign
Where HamDash sits in the radio world
Frequently asked questions
Support and community
Glossary of terms

1. The philosophy: why HamDash works the way it does

Before the features, it helps to understand the four ideas that shape everything in HamDash. They explain why it looks and behaves differently from other tools in the hobby.

Instant, with nothing to set up. Many radio dashboards are programs you must install on a small computer (such as a Raspberry Pi), configure, and maintain. HamDash is the opposite. You type the web address and it is already running. There is no installation step that can go wrong, no drivers, and no separate parts to keep updated.
It works on anything. Because HamDash runs in the browser, it does not care what kind of computer or phone you have, or which operating system it runs. The same dashboard appears on a Windows laptop, a Mac, a Linux machine, an Android tablet, or an iPhone.
Everything from trusted public sources. HamDash does not invent data. It collects live information from official and well-established public feeds — space weather agencies, propagation networks, spotting clusters, weather services — and presents it clearly. Where data comes from a particular source, that source is credited.
Clean, not cluttered. Many hobby websites are crowded with advertisements, pop-ups, and competing panels until the thing you came for is hard to find. HamDash is deliberately kept clean. The screen is the information you want, presented so it can be understood at a glance.

HamDash is free and community-supported. It exists to help people get into the hobby, stay in it, understand it, and enjoy it — and to give experienced operators a fast, reliable picture of conditions.

2. Getting started: your first visit

Getting started could not be simpler.

Open the dashboard. In any web browser, go to HamDash.com. The dashboard loads and begins showing live data immediately.
No account needed to explore. You can browse the dashboards and read the data without signing in. Some personal features (such as seeing reception reports for your own callsign) become available once you tell HamDash who you are — see section 8.
Set your location and callsign (optional but recommended). Entering your location lets HamDash calculate bearings, distances, and propagation relative to your station. Entering your callsign personalises features that depend on it.
Pick a dashboard. Use the navigation menu (described next) to move between the six dashboards and all the individual pages.
Use it on the move. Because it is browser-based, you can keep HamDash open on a tablet in the shack, glance at it on your phone in the field, or run it full-screen on a monitor as an always-on status board.

HamDash has two layers you navigate between: dashboards and pages.

Dashboards are curated screens that bring together several panels on one theme — for example, everything about space weather in one place. There are six dashboards, described in section 4. Each dashboard is designed so you can understand the whole situation at a glance, without clicking around.
Pages are individual, focused views — a single map, a single tool, a single list. The dashboards are built from these. You can also visit pages directly from the menu.

The navigation menu groups everything into six clear families, so you always know where to look:

Monitor — what is happening on the air right now (live map, DX spots, HF signals, digital modes, beacons).
Activate — features for people getting on the air: parks, summits and other activations, satellites, contests, and a QSO log.
Weather — weather that affects your station and your safety.
Listen — ways to listen: live shortwave streams, a shortwave directory, remote WebSDRs, and the free SDR receiver.
Tools — calculators, lookups, propagation prediction, band plans, and learning resources.
Community — about HamDash, the YouTube channel and reviews, and the Facebook group.

You move freely between dashboards and pages at any time. Nothing you do is destructive, so explore without worry.

4. The six dashboards, panel by panel

These are the heart of HamDash. Each dashboard is a single screen combining several live panels on one theme. Below, each dashboard is broken down into the panels it contains and what each one tells you.

Home dashboard

The Home dashboard is your overview — the single screen that answers "what is going on right now?" the moment you arrive. It contains:

Grey-line map. A world map showing the grey line — the moving band of twilight where day meets night. The grey line is important to operators because long-distance propagation on the lower bands is often enhanced along it. At a glance you see which parts of the world are in daylight, which in darkness, and where the enhanced-propagation zone currently lies.
FT8 propagation globes (40m, 20m, 15m, 10m). Four interactive 3-D globes, one for each of the most active bands. They visualise where FT8 digital signals are actually being heard right now, drawn as arcs from transmitter to receiver and as a heat-style overlay of activity. Because FT8 is extremely sensitive and widely used, these globes are one of the best real-time pictures of where each band is open. You can see at a glance whether 20m is reaching across an ocean or 10m has come alive.
Bands report banner. A plain-language summary strip telling you the current state of the bands — a quick read of whether conditions are poor, fair, or good.
Band activity. A panel summarising how busy each band is, so you can choose where to operate or listen.
Live solar panel. A current view of solar activity — the Sun is the single biggest driver of radio propagation, and this gives you the headline numbers and imagery at a glance.
Live geomagnetic / particles panel. A current view of the Earth's geomagnetic environment and charged-particle activity, which affects propagation (especially on polar paths) and can warn of disturbed conditions.
About HamDash panel. A short introduction to the project for newcomers.
Facebook group panel. A direct link into the HamDash community group, where users help one another and share news.

Bands & Live Map dashboard

This dashboard is about where signals are travelling and which bands are open. It is the propagation and activity command centre. It contains:

FT8 propagation globes (overview). A combined, multi-band view of FT8 reception activity — a wider companion to the per-band globes on the Home screen, letting you compare bands side by side.
Band activity. Current activity levels across the bands.
Live map. A live world map of spots and activity you can interact with — pan, zoom, and read who is being heard where.
MUF predictor. The Maximum Usable Frequency: the highest frequency likely to be supported by the ionosphere on a given path right now. This tells you which bands stand a chance of working long distance.
SSB path. A panel focused on voice (SSB) path conditions.
Band health. An at-a-glance health indicator for each band.
Band propagation. A propagation summary per band.
RBN path matrix. Data from the Reverse Beacon Network — a worldwide network of automated receivers that constantly listen and report what they hear. The path matrix shows which paths are open based on these automated detections.
RBN band SNR. Signal-to-noise readings from the Reverse Beacon Network, band by band — a measured, objective picture of how strong signals are being received.
Band openings. Highlights of bands that are currently open.
DX spots. Live reports of distant stations being worked, from the DX spotting network — the classic "who is on, where, and on what frequency" feed that DX chasers rely on.
RBN spots. Individual spot reports from the Reverse Beacon Network.
Stations heard. A list of stations recently heard/reported.

Together these panels let you answer, at a glance: Is the band open? To where? How strong? Who is on?

Space Weather dashboard

Radio propagation is governed by the Sun and the Earth's upper atmosphere. This dashboard is the most complete space-weather picture in HamDash, drawn from official space-weather sources. It contains:

Solar overview. The headline solar numbers in one place — the quick read on solar activity.
Space weather panel. A general current space-weather summary.
D-layer panel. The D-layer of the ionosphere absorbs lower-frequency signals during the day; this panel shows current D-layer absorption, which affects how usable the lower bands are.
Space weather guide. An explanatory panel that helps newcomers understand what the space-weather numbers actually mean for their operating.
Solar output. Current solar output measurements.
Solar activity. A view of ongoing solar activity.
Geomagnetic K and solar wind. The K-index measures geomagnetic disturbance; solar wind speed and conditions drive it. High disturbance can degrade propagation and trigger auroras. This panel shows both.
Geomagnetic noise / protons. Particle and noise conditions in the geomagnetic environment.
X-ray flux. Solar X-ray flux, which spikes during solar flares. A flare can cause sudden ionospheric disturbances that black out the higher bands on the daylight side of the Earth — this panel is your early warning.
Ionospheric map. A map of current ionospheric conditions.
Aurora oval. A live map of the auroral oval drawn directly from official NOAA data, showing where auroral activity is occurring. Aurora both disrupts polar HF paths and enables certain VHF propagation, so it matters in both directions.
Solar imagery. Live images of the Sun.
NOAA scales. The official NOAA space-weather scales for radio blackouts, solar radiation storms, and geomagnetic storms — a standardised severity read.
Solar events. A feed of notable solar events.
SWPC alerts. Active alerts issued by the Space Weather Prediction Center — the formal warnings, watches, and advisories.

At a glance, this dashboard answers: Is the Sun helping or hurting propagation right now, and is a disturbance coming?

Field & Weather dashboard

This dashboard is about terrestrial weather — the weather that affects your antenna, your portable operating, and your personal safety. It contains:

Field weather. Current local weather conditions relevant to operating, especially portable/field operating.
Weather warnings. Official weather warnings for your area.
Lightning / weather. Lightning activity — important both for safety (disconnect antennas in a storm) and because lightning is a major source of radio noise.
NOAA radar. Weather radar from NOAA (United States).
Radar map. A general weather radar map.
Met Office radar. Weather radar from the UK Met Office.
Japan radar. Weather radar covering Japan.
MENA radar. Weather radar covering the Middle East and North Africa.
Asia-Pacific radar. Weather radar covering the Asia-Pacific region.

The multiple regional radars mean HamDash serves operators worldwide, not just in one country. At a glance, this dashboard answers: Is the weather safe for my station, and is it adding noise or risk?

Operator Tools dashboard

This dashboard gathers the practical, everyday tools an operator reaches for. It contains:

Callsign lookup. Look up a callsign to find the operator's details.
Repeater finder. Find repeaters — useful when travelling or operating in a new area.
Bearing calculator. Calculate the beam heading and distance from your location to another — point your directional antenna correctly.
Solar terminator. A view of the day/night terminator (closely related to the grey line) for planning lower-band contacts.
Contest calendar. A calendar of upcoming radio contests, so you know what activity to expect on the bands and when.
Weather synopsis. A weather summary panel.

At a glance, this dashboard answers: I need to look something up or work something out — where is the tool?

POTA Monitor dashboard

POTA stands for Parks on the Air — a hugely popular activity in which operators ("activators") transmit from designated parks, and other operators ("hunters") work them. The POTA Monitor is a dedicated, curated screen for following live park activity. It shows who is currently activating which park, on what frequency and mode, so hunters can find them and listeners can tune in.

A note on how HamDash sources POTA data. HamDash takes care to respect the programs it draws from. For POTA, HamDash makes no direct calls to the POTA program's own service; it uses a public, openly-licensed aggregation instead, and credits it. This is part of HamDash's wider principle of being a good citizen toward the data sources and communities it relies on.

Beyond the six dashboards, HamDash offers many focused pages, organised into the six menu families. This section walks the entire tree so nothing is missed.

Monitor group — what is on the air now

Live Map. A full-screen interactive world map of current activity and spots.
DX Plus. An enhanced DX spots view — distant stations being worked, with extra context.
HF Signals. A view of HF band signal activity.
FT8 Digimodes. A focused view of FT8 and other digital-mode activity and the stations being heard.
Beacons. Information on propagation beacons — low-power stations that transmit continuously so you can gauge whether a band is open to their location.

Activate group — getting on the air

POTA. The Parks on the Air monitor (see the POTA Monitor dashboard above).
Activations. A page for activation programs beyond POTA — for example summits and other "on the air" schemes — showing who is currently active from those locations. (HamDash applies the same good-citizen sourcing principles here as it does for POTA.)
Satellites. Amateur-satellite information, including a satellite tracker, so you can see which birds are overhead and when.
Contests. The contest calendar — what is running and what is coming up.
QSO Log. A logging page to record your contacts.

Weather group

Weather Safety. The gateway to the Field & Weather dashboard and its radar, warning, and lightning panels (see above).

Listen group — ways to listen

SW Live Stream. Listen to live shortwave broadcast streams.
SW Directory. A directory of shortwave broadcasts — who is transmitting what, where, and when.
WebSDR. Access to remote WebSDR receivers around the world, so you can listen on distant radios through your browser.
SDR Receiver (Free). The free software-defined-radio receiver built into HamDash — see section 6.
Buy an RTL-SDR Dongle. A page recommending the inexpensive USB receiver hardware that turns the free SDR receiver into a real, live radio you can tune.

Tools group

Tools. The collection of operator calculators and utilities (callsign and repeater lookups, bearing and distance, solar terminator, and related tools).
AI Propagation. A propagation-prediction feature that helps forecast band conditions.
Callsign Lookup. Look up any callsign.
QRZ Logbook. Integration with the QRZ logbook service.
Repeater Lookup. Find repeaters by area.
Band Plan. Reference charts showing which parts of each band are used for which modes — essential for operating legally and courteously.
Education. Learning resources for newcomers and those studying for or growing into the hobby.

Community group

About HamDash App. Background on the project.
YouTube Channel. The official HamDash YouTube channel.
YouTube Reviews. Video reviews of HamDash.
Facebook Group. The community group — the primary place to ask questions, get help, and share. Because HamDash is a free, one-person project, the community group is where support naturally happens, and it is friendly and active.

6. The free SDR receiver inside HamDash

One of HamDash's most remarkable features is that it includes a working software-defined-radio (SDR) receiver that runs entirely in your browser. This is a genuine radio you can tune and listen to, not a simulation.

What it is. This built-in receiver is the free "Lite" edition of a larger receiver product called SDRcom. It is full of useful features, but it is deliberately a lighter version of the paid SDRcom Pro edition (which is covered in its own separate guide). Inside HamDash it is labelled "SDR Receiver (Free)".

What you need to use it. The free receiver works with an inexpensive USB receiver dongle called an RTL-SDR. You plug the dongle into your computer (or into an Android device using a USB OTG adapter), connect it to an antenna, and the receiver tunes real, live signals. HamDash includes a page to help you buy a suitable dongle.

How it connects. The receiver talks to the dongle using a browser technology called WebUSB. This means there is nothing to install — the browser itself talks to the hardware. It works in Chromium-based browsers (such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge), and notably it also works on Android devices plugged into a dongle via USB OTG, completely plug-and-go.

What the free Lite receiver can do. The Lite edition includes:

Tuning in the common modes: USB, LSB, AM, NFM, WFM, and CW.
A basic waterfall display (a scrolling visual picture of the radio spectrum, so you can see signals as well as hear them).
The W4PAH FT8 decoder — HamDash's own clean-room FT8 decoder, which decodes the popular FT8 digital mode right in the browser.
Memory banks for storing your favourite frequencies (5 banks of 10 slots, 50 in total).
A diagnostics overlay.

What it does not include (and where to get more). The Lite edition does not include the more advanced features of SDRcom Pro — such as aircraft (ADS-B) decoding, the intelligent band-scanning "personalities," FT4 decoding, the high-resolution waterfalls, the advanced noise-reduction equaliser, the recorder, and the signal-intelligence tools. Those are described fully in the separate Guide to SDRcom Pro. The free Lite receiver is a complete, enjoyable radio in its own right and an ideal way to discover whether SDR listening is for you.

Try it now — it's free. Open HamDash.com in any browser and the dashboard is running in seconds. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.

7. Customising your dashboard

HamDash dashboards are designed to be useful out of the box, but several can be arranged to suit you. Where a dashboard supports it, panels can be rearranged into a custom layout, and there is an option to reset the layout back to the default if you want to start fresh. This lets you put the panels you care about most where you want them, while keeping the ability to return to the standard arrangement at any time.

8. Accounts, settings, and your callsign

Exploring without an account. You can use the dashboards and read live data freely.
Your callsign. Entering your callsign personalises features that depend on it — most importantly, seeing which stations are hearing you and which you are hearing in reception-report features. Until you set a callsign, those features will prompt you to do so.
Your location and grid. Setting your location (or Maidenhead grid square) lets HamDash compute bearings, distances, and propagation relative to your station, and tailor local weather and warnings.
Settings. Preferences such as your station details are kept so the dashboards can present information relative to you.

9. Where HamDash sits in the radio world

It is worth understanding what makes HamDash distinct, because it occupies a particular and deliberate place in the ecosystem of amateur-radio software.

It is a dashboard, not a single-purpose program. Many fine tools each do one thing — track satellites, predict propagation, log contacts. HamDash brings the live, at-a-glance picture together in one clean place.
It is delivered instantly in the browser. Most comparable "shack dashboard" projects descend from an older design philosophy in which the software is installed and maintained on a local computer or a small single-board computer, with separate modules that have to be kept working together. HamDash takes the modern approach: you open a web address and it runs, on any device, any operating system, with nothing to install or maintain. This is its single biggest structural difference.
Its focus is DX, propagation, space weather, and safety. HamDash is built around using your radio and understanding conditions — what the bands are doing, where signals go, what the Sun is doing, and what the weather means for your station. It deliberately leaves some specialist niches to other tools and concentrates on being the best at this.
It is a friendly on-ramp to the hobby. With its education resources, its built-in free receiver, and its clean presentation, HamDash is designed to help newcomers get in and stay in — as well as to give experienced operators a fast, reliable status board.
It is clean and free. No clutter, no pop-ups, no maze of advertisements. It is community-supported, and it connects naturally to the SDRcom family of receivers for those who want to go further.

10. Frequently asked questions

Do I need a licence to use HamDash? No. Anyone can use HamDash to observe conditions and listen. You only need an amateur licence to transmit, which is a separate matter from using the dashboard.
Do I need to install anything? No. HamDash runs in your web browser. Just open hamdash.com.
Does it cost anything? No. HamDash is free and community-supported.
What devices does it work on? Any device with a modern web browser — phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop — on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, or iOS.
Do I need a radio? No, not to use the dashboards. If you want to use the built-in free SDR receiver to listen to live signals, you need an inexpensive RTL-SDR USB dongle and an antenna.
Is my data sold or shared? HamDash is a clean, community-supported project. See the privacy information within the app for details.
What is the difference between the free receiver and SDRcom Pro? The free receiver inside HamDash is the "Lite" edition — full-featured enough to enjoy, but lighter than SDRcom Pro, which adds aircraft decoding, intelligent scanning, advanced decoders and audio processing, recording, and more. See the separate Guide to SDRcom Pro.

11. Support and community

HamDash is a free project maintained by one developer, and its support model reflects that in the best way: a friendly, active community. The Facebook group (linked in the Community menu) is where users ask questions, share discoveries, and help one another. The YouTube channel offers videos and reviews. For most questions, the community group is the fastest and friendliest route to an answer.

12. Glossary

Band — a range of radio frequencies set aside for a purpose; amateurs refer to bands by wavelength, e.g. "20m," "40m."
DX — distant stations / long-distance contacts.
FT8 / FT4 — popular weak-signal digital modes that can be decoded even when signals are too weak to hear by ear.
Grey line — the moving twilight zone between day and night, often associated with enhanced low-band propagation.
Ionosphere — the electrically charged layers of the upper atmosphere that reflect and refract HF radio signals, making long-distance contacts possible.
MUF — Maximum Usable Frequency, the highest frequency likely to propagate on a path at a given time.
POTA / SOTA / WWFF / WWBOTA — "on the air" activity programs based, respectively, on parks, summits, flora-and-fauna areas, and bunkers; operators activate locations and others hunt them.
Propagation — how radio signals travel from one place to another.
RBN (Reverse Beacon Network) — a worldwide network of automated receivers that report what they hear, giving an objective picture of band conditions.
RTL-SDR — an inexpensive USB dongle that acts as a software-defined radio receiver.
SDR (software-defined radio) — a radio whose tuning and processing are done in software rather than fixed hardware.
SSB / AM / FM / CW — common transmission modes: single sideband (voice), amplitude modulation (voice/broadcast), frequency modulation (voice), and continuous-wave Morse code.
SWL (shortwave listener) — someone who listens to radio without necessarily transmitting.
WebUSB — a browser technology that lets a web page communicate directly with USB hardware, with nothing to install.

This guide describes HamDash as a complete, feature-stable product. HamDash is free, browser-based, and community-supported. Open it any time at HamDash.com — type the address, and it is running.