Hunter Mode

Hunter mode is the default view. It shows live spots from all your enabled sources in a sortable table and/or interactive map.

Reading the spot table

Worked-station indicators

Both worked indicators update automatically when you log a contact in POTACAT — there’s nothing to sync from pota.app. Watchlist matches can also raise a corner flag and play a chime (enable in Settings).

Note: The worked-today match also considers the park reference, so an activator who moves to a new park shows as workable again even if you worked them earlier in the day. Grey-outs clear at UTC midnight — a station you worked yesterday (UTC) turning white again is expected, not a bug.

Spot-source pills

Every spot carries a pill identifying the network it came from (POTA, SOTA, DX cluster, and so on). When the same station is spotted by more than one source, POTACAT de-duplicates the spots into a single row carrying multiple badges (for example POTA + DX + CWops).

Tip: Hover the FreeDV pill to see a countdown to the next poll — FreeDV spots come from a source that can only be polled about every five minutes.

Multiple spots for the same callsign

If a station is spotted on more than one frequency, each spot stays in the table. POTACAT deliberately does not drop the older spot when a call is re-spotted elsewhere — otherwise a single bogus re-spot could knock a real activator off everyone’s table. Two spots within 0.5 kHz of each other highlight together as the same station. Use the hide options below to tidy up spots you don’t want.

Tip: The spot you’ve clicked to tune to is held on screen past its normal timeout, so the station you’re working doesn’t age out of the table mid-QSO.

Skipping and hiding spots

Skip

Skip marks a spot to be passed over — it’s designed for Scan mode. Skips are tracked per callsign + frequency, kept in memory only, and reset when you restart POTACAT. A skip does not follow an activator who QSYs to a new frequency. Stations you’ve already worked today are auto-skipped during a scan; click Unskip to force one back in.

A Hide button next to Skip hides the station until they QSY to a new band.

Right-click hide

Right-click any spot to hide it for 1 hour, 2 hours, 1 UTC day, or forever. The hide applies to that callsign + frequency — not to everything from that call — and every hide can be reviewed (and undone) in the hidden-spots list.

Hiding worked stations and parks

Three related checkboxes control worked-spot hiding:

A hidden worked station reappears at the next UTC day or as soon as the activator changes parks. There’s also a Hide QRT spots option, and a Hide Worked Parks quick toggle on the quick-access settings menu.

Filters

• Uncheck bands you don’t want in the Band filter dropdown (for example, to drop 2m/70cm spots).
• The Mode filter’s Radio option is distinct from picking a fixed mode like SSB — selecting SSB shows only spots whose listed mode is SSB.
• Spots with no mode listed get their own filter category, so mode filters don’t silently hide them.
• Spots can also be limited to your license-class privileges.

Tracking new parks

Download your hunted-parks CSV from pota.app → My Stats and import it in Settings. POTACAT then flags parks you haven’t worked with a NEW badge, and the Hide Worked Parks filter turns the table into a new-parks-only view.

You only need to import the CSV once: on startup it’s merged with POTACAT’s local worked-parks list, and every QSO you log appends its park reference(s) — POTA and WWFF — automatically. POTACAT Cloud subscribers also get automatic parks-worked sync. The stats overlay’s “Unique Parks” and “Park QSOs” figures come from this parks-worked list, not from your lifetime QSO count.

Note: The NEW badge reflects POTACAT’s local worked-parks list, not your live pota.app account. POTACAT counts a park the moment you log it, while pota.app only credits a hunt after the activator uploads their log — so the two can disagree for a while.

Note: Some users report that multi-state parks in the pota.app CSV appear only under the state where the park was first activated.

Logging from the spot table

Ctrl-click (Cmd-click on Mac) selects multiple spots so you can log several operators in one pass — perfect for multi-op activations sharing one frequency. Hover the LOG button for a reminder of this.

Tip: For a pass-the-mic pileup on a single spot, you can also comma-separate callsigns in the call field — POTACAT writes one log entry per operator. Comma-separating park references logs an n-fer hunt the same way.

Logging a POTA QSO automatically re-spots the activator unless you’ve turned re-spotting off.

Special events and contests

POTACAT tracks special events and contests such as 13 Colonies, ARRL WAS 250, and CQ WW 160, with a “What’s Next” view of upcoming events. Event definitions are delivered server-side — POTACAT checks for active events at startup and every four hours — so new events show up without an app update.

For 13 Colonies, a progress checklist tracks which special-event stations you’ve worked, and the JTCAT/FT8 views flag 13 Colonies calls you’ve already worked. In the mobile app, the progress chart shows the last known spot of each station you’re still missing.

Note: Event progress comes from QSOs logged in POTACAT — some users report that importing an ADIF does not update 13 Colonies progress.