It is about time I updated one of my more popular posts, The Incomplete List of Ham Radio iPhone Apps from 2011. This was a challenging task back then and has gotten more difficult as the number of ham radio apps for the iPhone has greatly expanded. Still, I will give it a shot and appreciate your feedback to make the list better. I am only evaluating iPhone apps, not iPad apps, since I don’t use an iPad.
In general, I will focus on free or low cost (less than $5) apps that I am actively using.
From the Simple Utility Category:
Maidenhead Converter (Author: Donald Hays, Cost: Free) Handy app that displays your grid locator, uses maps and does lat/lon to grid locator conversions.
Ham Radio Handbook (Author: Antonis Miliarakis Cost: Free) This app provides some basic ham radio info: Q Signals, Country Prefixes, Band Plans and RST signal reporting.
UTC Time (Author: Michael Wells, Cost: Free) A simple app that displays UTC time and local time.
Ham I Am (Author: Storke Brothers, Cost: Free) A handy app that covers some basic amateur radio reference material (Phonetic alphabet, Q Signals, Ham Jargon, Morse Code, RST System, etc.) Although I find the name to be silly, I like the app!
There are quite a few good apps for looking up amateur radio callsigns.
CallBook (Author: Dog Park Software, Cost: $1.99) Simple ham radio callbook lookup with map display.
Call Sign Lookup (Author: Technivations, Cost: $0.99) Another simple ham radio callsign lookup with map display.
CallSigns (Author: David Fleming W4SMT, Cost: $1.99) This is my favorite ham radio callsign lookup. The features are not much different than the others I have listed but the graphics are nicer and the user interface a little cleaner. I am sure this is mostly personal preference.
There are a few repeater directory apps out there:
iHAM Repeater Database (Author: Garry Gerossie, Cost: $4.99) Geolocation repeater directory. This seems to work well.
RepeaterBook (Author: ZBM2 Software, Cost: Free) I’ve only used this one a bit but it seems to work well and its free.
If you are an EchoLink user, then you’ll want this app:
EchoLink (Author: Synergenics, Cost: Free) The EchoLink app for the iPhone.
There are quite a few APRS apps out there. I tend to use these as my needs are pretty simple….just track me, baby!
iBCNU (Author: Luceon, Cost: $1.99) The first APRS app I was able to get running. It just turned on and worked. It integrates the aprs.fi mapping into the app, so it is easy to use. I recommend this one for most casual APRS users.
Ham Tracker (Author: Kram, Cost: $2.99) APRS app, works OK, uses external maps such as Google and aprs.fi. “Share” feature allows you to send an SMS or email with your location information.
Satellite tracking is another useful app for a smartphone:
ISS Lite (Author: Craig Vosburgh, Cost: Free) A free satellite tracking app for just the International Space Station. It has annoying ads but its free.
ProSat Satellite Tracker (Author: Craig Vosburgh, Cost: $9.99) This app is by the same author as ISS Lite, but is the full-featured “pro” version. Although it is a pricey compared to other apps, I recommend it.
For Summits On The Air (SOTA) activity, there are a few apps:
Pocket SOTA (Author: Pignology, Cost: Free) A free app for finding SOTA summits, checking spots and accessing other information.
SOTA Goat (Author: Rockwell Schrock, Cost: $4.99) This is a great app for SOTA activity. It works better when offline than Pocket SOTA (which often happens when you are activating a summit).
For Technician License training, I like the HamRadioSchool.com app. (OK, I am biased here as I contribute to that web site.)
HamRadioSchool (Author: Peak Programming, Cost: $2.99) There are a lot of Technician practice exams out there but this is the best one, especially if you use the HamRadioSchool license book. They also just released the General practice exam, too.
For a mobile logbook:
HamLog (Author: Pignology, Cost: $0.99) I am not too keen on the idea of keeping a log on an iPhone, but it does come in handy once in a while. More importantly, HamLog includes a bunch of handy tools including UTC Clock, Callsign Lookup, Prefix list, Band Plans, Grid Calculator, Solar Data, SOTA Watch, Q Signals and much more.
Well, that’s my list. Any other suggestions?
This list is out of date – see my updated list of iPhone apps here
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I added HamLog to the list (thanks for the tip, Benjamin KC9UNS).
– Bob K0NR
I’d like to recommend RFinder, a repeater directory that has some crowd-sourced elements so it always seems to be up-to-date – covers multiple frequencies, can display in list format or on a map surrounding your location. Works on iPhone, and is especially nice on iPad as well as a web app.
$10 for a year subscription. Not a stakeholder, just a very satisfied customer. http://www.rfinder.net
Randy,
First, thanks for letting me know that you were having trouble submitting a comment.
RFinder.net does look interesting. For this list of apps, I focused mostly on apps less than $5 so the $10 price tag is on the high side of that criterion. Actually, it is $10 per year which makes it even higher, over time.
Thanks for mentioning it since some people may find it useful.
73, Bob K0NR
D’oh! I read right past that $5 limit – so sorry!