ChronAlert User Manual

What ChronAlert Is

ChronAlert is a situational awareness dashboard you run on your own computer. It shows live radio, space weather, and emergency data on a big map with side cards and a scrolling ticker along the bottom. It is built to be watched from across the room, so once it is set up you do not need to click anything. Think of it as a newsroom wall or an operations center display, tuned for ham radio operators and anyone who likes to keep an eye on what is happening.

It runs on Windows (an installer) or Linux (an x86-64 AppImage, nothing to install); the Install Guide covers both. It is local-first: the app runs entirely on your own PC, with no cloud account and no ChronAlert servers hosting it. It does need internet to pull the live feeds, since that is the whole point, but the base map and the most recent data keep showing even if a single feed or your connection briefly drops.

First Launch

The first time you open ChronAlert it asks you to pick your country (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, or Australia). This tailors the app to where you are: it sets the national map, the weather-alert authority, the radar source, and sensible defaults for airports and news. You can change it later in App Settings.

After that it loads a ready-made World Overview panel: a world map with weather alerts, tropical storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, cloud cover, and the ISS already on. You get a useful screen straight away, with nothing else to configure first.

When you are ready to make it your own, click the gear icon in the top right to open the Config Console. The first thing worth doing there is setting your location.

The tray icon. On Windows, while ChronAlert is running its icon sits in the system tray (bottom right of the taskbar, next to the clock; if you do not see it, click the small up arrow there). Hover over it to see the version and the address other devices use. Click it to open ChronAlert in your browser, or right-click it for a menu: Open ChronAlert, Open Command Center, Copy address (for typing into a TV or another computer) and Quit ChronAlert. Closing the browser does not stop ChronAlert, it keeps running for your other screens; use Quit ChronAlert in the tray menu to shut it down fully, which also stops any receiver software it started for you.

Only one copy runs. If ChronAlert is already running and you start it again (from the Start menu, the desktop shortcut or the installer), it does not start a second copy: it opens the running one in your browser instead, or tells you its address if it cannot open a browser.

The Config Console

Almost all setup lives in one place. The gear icon in the top right (or Alt+S) opens the Config Console, a full-screen control panel with a menu down the left:

• Overview. How this installation is set up, at a glance: the three setup steps, your station (callsign, QTH and Home Watch Zone), the address to connect a screen, and your Panels and Screens.
• App Settings. Start here. Your callsign and QTH first, then map style, sizes, map tier zoom, the crawl and alert rules, panel rotation, and the Pro features.
• Panels. The saved map and card views ChronAlert can show.
• Screens. Assign Panels to each physical display. Pro
• Watch Zones. The locations you care about.
• News Feeds. Choose which public news, sports, and market sources scroll in the bottom ticker, and switch severe weather on or off.
• Webcams. IP cameras shown as cards. Pro
• Alert Sounds. Choose a sound for each type of alert, and the master mute.
• Command Center. Use what you built: search everything, switch Screens with Modes or Put on Screen, watch things for a while, send messages, and set reminders (see Command Center). Pro
• User Manual. This guide.
• Manage License. Enter or view your Pro license.

The rest of the top bar is deliberately minimal, so the wall stays clean: a play / stop button for the panel rotation, a Next button to jump to the next panel, a mute button, and the gear.

Your QTH

Your QTH is your station location. ChronAlert uses it to center the Regional and Local views, to decide which weather alerts are near you, and to seed your first Watch Zone. To set it, open the Config Console and go to App Settings, then either type a city into the Locate by City box and press Find, or enter your latitude and longitude directly. Enter your callsign in the same place: it shows in the top left corner, and it fills in every other box that needs a callsign (such as the APRS-IS login) as long as that box is still empty. A callsign you typed into one of those boxes yourself, such as a different SSID, is never overwritten. Setting your QTH also creates a Home Watch Zone there with a 20 mile radius (see Watch Zones). If you move your QTH later, the Home zone moves with it, unless you have placed it somewhere else yourself. There is also a Center the World map on my QTH at startup checkbox: when on, the World view opens centered on your location instead of the default global view.

Tip. Getting your QTH right early makes everything downstream more useful, because proximity, direction, and the local views all key off it.

Map Views

ChronAlert frames the map at one of four zoom tiers, and each Panel picks the tier it uses. There is no separate view switcher: you change what is on screen by switching Panels (the Next button, or Alt+→) or by editing a Panel.

• World. The full globe. Good for global events like space weather, big earthquakes, and hurricanes far out at sea.
• National. Framed on your country and labeled for it (USA, Canada, UK, or Australia, following your country setting). Good for national weather and alerts.
• Regional. A radius around your QTH, about 100 miles by default. The weather headed your way.
• Local. A tight radius around your QTH, about 10 miles by default. Street-level context for what is right on top of you.

Each tier's zoom is configurable in App Settings under Map Tier Zoom: World and National are a zoom level (National can auto-fit or use a set zoom), while Regional and Local are a radius in miles around your QTH. Press Alt+N at any time to snap back to the World view. The flat views share one map and just move the camera, so switching between them glides instead of reloading.

Map Layers

Everything drawn on the map is a layer you can turn on or off, chosen per Panel. Open the Config Console (gear), go to Panels, edit a panel, and use the MAP switches to choose what that panel shows. A few common layers also have keyboard shortcuts, listed later.

Here is what each layer shows:

• Weather Alerts. Live warning, watch, and advisory polygons colored by severity, from your country's authority: the National Weather Service (USA), Environment Canada, the UK Met Office via MeteoAlarm, or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
• IPAWS / EAS Alerts. FEMA civil and national emergency alerts (AMBER, civil emergency, evacuation, national activations) shown as a detail card and as labeled state pins on the map - click a pin for the state's active alerts. Open the card for each alert's full message: what happened, what to do, who issued it, the areas, and when it was issued and expires. Alerts that are cancelled or updated drop off right away, and routine required tests are hidden. Location is state-level: the public feed provides state codes, not precise areas (weather warnings map precisely under Weather Alerts). US only.
• Weather Radar. Animated precipitation radar looping through recent frames. The source follows your country: NEXRAD (USA), Environment Canada's 1 km national radar (Canada), the EUMETNET OPERA 1 km European radar composite updated every 5 minutes (UK), and a global radar service (Australia).
• Global Precip. Worldwide precipitation-rate imagery (NASA GPM IMERG), for rain anywhere on the globe.
• Clouds. Global satellite cloud cover. Radar and clouds can be on at the same time.
• Lightning. Real lightning flashes, fading as they age.
• Earthquakes. Recent quakes, sized and colored by magnitude, with a pulsing ring.
• Tropical Storms. Active hurricanes and tropical systems with a cyclone icon and wind ring.
• Volcanoes. Currently reported volcanic activity, shown with a volcano icon colored by alert level.
• Radiation (RadNet) (Pro). Latest hourly gamma dose rate (nSv/h) from EPA RadNet monitors in major US cities, colored by level. Normal US outdoor background is roughly 30 to 150 nSv/h. The card and dots are view scoped, so National and Local zoom in to the monitors near you.
• Electric Grid (EIA) (Pro). US electricity grid from the EIA (Form 930, updated daily): hourly demand, net generation and interchange for the major balancing authorities. Dots are sized by demand and colored by whether a region is a net exporter (green) or importer (orange). No setup or account needed.
• Nuclear Reactors (NRC) (Pro). Every US power reactor on the map, colored by its latest daily status from the NRC - green at full power, amber reduced, red offline. The card lists reactor power (view scoped) plus recent NRC event notifications. No setup or account needed.
• Wildfires (NIFC) (Pro). Active US wildland fires from the National Interagency Fire Center, sized by acres and colored by containment - red spreading, orange partly contained, yellow nearly contained. The card lists the largest fires (view scoped) with acres and containment. No setup or account needed.
• Waffle House Index (Pro). Which Waffle House restaurants are closed right now, from Waffle House's own store locator - not a guess from weather warnings. Closed stores show as red dots over every open store in grey, and the card counts closures by state (for example 47 closed of 201 in Florida) and lists each closed restaurant. It counts every store Waffle House lists as temporarily closed, for any reason, and checks every 15 minutes. No setup or account needed.
• Respiratory Illness (CDC) (Pro). CDC weekly acute respiratory illness activity for every US state - green very low to red very high - so you can see where flu, COVID and RSV pressure is rising. A dot per state plus a view scoped card. No setup or account needed.
• GDACS Global Hazards. Worldwide disaster events, each with its own hazard icon.
• Aurora Oval. The modeled auroral oval, which grows during geomagnetic storms.
• Day and Night Terminator. The line between daylight and darkness, with a soft night shade.
• Satellites. Live positions and ground tracks for the ISS and Hubble. Orbits come from CelesTrak; if CelesTrak is unreachable the ISS falls back to AMSAT's orbital data, and Hubble keeps using its last known orbit until CelesTrak is back.
• Sea Surface Temp and SST Anomaly. Ocean temperature and how far it is from normal.
• METAR Stations. Airport weather reports shown as windsocks colored by flight category.
• PSK Reporter. Where your signal is being heard, drawn as spokes from your station to a receiver icon at each station that decoded you. Spokes and icons are colored by the signal report: green is strong (-5 dB or better), yellow is -5 to -15 dB, orange is weak (below -15 dB). Click a receiver icon to see that station's callsign, your signal report, the frequency and mode, its grid square and country, how far away it is, and how long ago it heard you. New reports take a few minutes to appear: PSK Reporter publishes them with a delay, and ChronAlert checks every 5 minutes, as PSK Reporter asks.
• POTA, WWFF, WWBOTA. Parks, flora and fauna, and bunkers on the air, each with its own icon.
• NCDXF Beacons. The international beacon network, with the currently transmitting beacons highlighted.
• DXpeditions. The rarest DX operations on the air right now, shown as orange towers on the map and a ranked card.
• Shortwave On Now (Pro). International shortwave broadcasts that are on the air right now and scheduled toward your QTH, from the HFCC public schedule with EiBi filling in stations HFCC does not cover. The card lists frequency, station, language, time left and the transmitter site, plus broadcasts starting within the next hour. On the map, each transmitter site is shown as an orange tower (bigger for higher power) with its frequency, and a dashed line to your QTH. Click a site for its broadcasts, distance, bearing and scheduled beam heading. Your area is worked out from your QTH as an ITU CIRAF zone. "Scheduled toward your area" is what the published schedule says - it does not mean you will hear the station, since reception depends on propagation, your antenna and local noise. Times are UTC. Schedules change twice a year (late March and late October). If the new season's schedule has not been released yet, the card and map continue to show the previous season's schedule until the new one is released, with a note on the card saying so. No setup or account needed.
• AMSAT Passes. Amateur satellite positions with live orbital ground tracks showing each bird's path for the next 90 minutes, split cleanly at the antimeridian. Orbits come from CelesTrak, with AMSAT's own orbital data as a backup if CelesTrak is unreachable (a few birds, such as IO-117 and CAS-4A/4B, are only in CelesTrak and keep their last known orbit in the meantime).
• Maidenhead Grid. The grid square locator overlay, with the square under your cursor shown on hover.
• Time Zones. Real timezone boundary lines with the live local time labeled across the top.
• Watch Zones. Rings for the locations you care about. Covered in its own section.

Note. A few feeds are card-only and have no map layer, including the MUF Matrix, D-RAP Absorption, Space Weather, X-ray Flux, Dst Index, Moon Phase, and Planets.

Side Cards

The cards down the left side are compact readouts for each feed: space weather numbers, X-ray flare class, the MUF matrix, D-RAP absorption, earthquake counts, the moon phase, and more. Like map layers, cards are chosen per Panel. Open the Config Console, go to Panels, edit a panel, and use the CARD switches to pick which cards appear.

Click a card to open a larger detail view with charts and more context. It closes by itself after 30 seconds; press Pin to keep it open until you close it. While a detail view is open the Panel rotation waits, so the card is not swapped out while you read it, and it picks up again when you close it. A Situation Room alert still takes over.

If a panel has more cards than fit on screen, the column scrolls itself slowly - creeping down through the cards, then easing back to the top - so an unattended display cycles through everything without anyone touching it.

The Crawl

The ticker along the bottom scrolls severe weather, emergency alerts, and news headlines. It has a fixed scope so it does not change as your panels rotate. Set the scope in App Settings under Bottom Crawl and Alert Rules:

• World. Global hazards (GDACS, big quakes, geomagnetic storms).
• National. Nationwide weather and emergency alerts for your country.
• Local (QTH). Only weather and alerts near your station.

Your chosen news, sports, and market headlines scroll in every scope, so they are always visible no matter which scope you pick. What the scope changes is the geographic weather and emergency items around them. Breaking headlines lead the crawl; a severe-weather or emergency alert always takes priority over the news.

Severe weather is deliberately narrow. To keep the ticker readable, only hurricane and tornado watches and warnings appear; routine wind, heat, and flood advisories are left off. Emergency (FEMA IPAWS / EAS) items are filtered to genuine active alerts, so the constant stream of required weekly and monthly tests never reaches the crawl. You can turn severe weather off on the News Feeds page, and turn EAS off under App Settings.

A Screen can override the crawl scope for one display, which is handy when the shack TV should show local weather while the office monitor shows global.

The crawl is on by default, and optional per panel. To hide it on a specific panel for a cleaner look, edit that panel in Panels and turn off News ticker along the bottom under Display Overlays, the same way the world-clock bar is switched on per panel.

News, Sports & Market Feeds

The News Feeds page in the Config Console decides what scrolls in the bottom ticker. It has one control at the top for severe weather, then several groups of public news sources you can switch on and off:

• Severe weather. On by default, free for everyone, and separate from the source limit below. Uncheck it to keep all weather out of the ticker.
• News. A wide range of US and international outlets: NPR (default), BBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, France 24, Sky News, Fox News, New York Post, Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, National Review, WSJ Opinion, The Daily Wire, The Federalist, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, The Blaze, Newsmax, and the Washington Free Beacon.
• Ham Radio. Amateur-radio news from the ARRL and DX-World.
• Sports. Headlines from ESPN (top, NFL, NBA, MLB), CBS Sports, BBC Sport, and Yahoo Sports.
• Markets & Business. Headlines from CNBC, MarketWatch, Yahoo Finance, WSJ Markets, Nasdaq, and BBC Business.

Every source is a free, public RSS feed and every one is available on every plan. Only the latest five headlines from each selected feed reach the ticker, so no single outlet floods it, and each headline is tagged with its source.

Free vs Pro. The plan controls how many sources can run at once, not which ones. Free is limited to 2 sources; Pro is unlimited. Severe weather does not count toward the limit. On Free, once two are selected the others are held until you uncheck one, and the Upgrade to Pro link removes the cap.

Changes save automatically - there is no Save button, and the ticker switches to your new sources within a few seconds. Sports and market feeds carry headlines, not live scores or stock quotes; live scores and prices are not published as public feeds.

Webcams Pro

Experimental feature. Webcams are still in development and may change or be removed in a future update.

Put an IP camera on the wall beside your data - a front-door cam, a shack cam, a public beach or traffic cam. Open the Config Console and go to Webcams to add cameras, then turn each one on per panel in Panels (under WEBCAMS), so a camera shows only where you want it, not on every screen.

• Snapshot. A still-image (JPEG) URL the camera serves, re-fetched every few seconds.
• MJPEG. A continuous motion-JPEG stream URL.
• HLS. An .m3u8 live-video stream URL, as used by many public beach and traffic cams.
• RTSP. An rtsp:// stream URL, as most security/IP cameras provide. Browsers can't play RTSP directly, so ChronAlert converts it to web video for you (needs ffmpeg - see below).
• ONVIF. The easiest option for most IP cameras: enter the camera's IP address and ONVIF port (plus its username and password) and ChronAlert auto-discovers the RTSP stream and snapshot for you - no stream URL to look up. Pick Main (HD) or Sub (low-res), and use the Test ONVIF button to confirm it connects. Also uses ffmpeg.

ChronAlert fetches the camera on the server and relays it to every screen, so a camera that is only reachable from the ChronAlert PC still shows on your other displays, and any camera password stays on the server rather than in each browser.

RTSP and ONVIF need ffmpeg. These two types use ffmpeg to convert the camera stream into web video. Install ffmpeg (on Windows, a Windows ffmpeg build; on Linux, from your package manager, for example sudo apt install ffmpeg), then set its location in App Settings → FFMPEG (or have ffmpeg on your system PATH). Snapshot, MJPEG, and HLS cameras don't need it.

Requires Pro. Webcam cards are a Pro feature.

Clock and Time Zone

The top bar shows a UTC clock and a local clock side by side. To set which local zone the second clock uses, open App Settings and pick a Local Clock Timezone. Leave it on Auto to follow the browser, which is usually what you want.

World clock bar Pro

An optional strip of up to six world clocks across the top of the screen, each showing a city name above its local time - handy for knowing the time in a part of the world you want to work. Turn it on per panel in Panels (under Display Overlays), or globally from the Map Layers picker. Choose the six cities - a wide list including many South Pacific and DX locations - and the bar's size in App Settings → World Clock Bar.

Card and Font Size

Two independent sliders in App Settings control how the display reads at a distance:

• Card Size scales the whole side card column up or down.
• Font Size scales just the text, so you can enlarge labels without growing the cards.

Both are per device, so the same server can drive a desk monitor at one size and a wall TV at another. If a Screen is assigned to the display, the Screen's own card size and font size sliders take over instead.

Watch Zones

A Watch Zone is a place you care about, like Home, a repeater site, family in another state, a hunting property, or an event location. Each zone is a center point plus a radius in miles. The Situation Room uses your zones to decide when to interrupt, and it always tells you how far an event is and which direction it lies.

Creating a zone

Open the Config Console (gear) and go to Watch Zones, then Add Zone. Give it a name, choose a type (which sets its icon and color), set the location by city or by latitude and longitude, and drag the radius slider. You do not have to add Home yourself: setting your QTH in App Settings creates a Home zone there with a 20 mile radius, which you can edit or delete like any other zone (deleting it is remembered). If it is missing, the + Home button on the Watch Zones page creates one from your QTH.

How zones drive alerts

A weather warning triggers the Situation Room when its polygon reaches one of your zones, meaning the warning either covers the zone or comes within its radius. The banner then names the zone and the distance, for example HOME, 7 miles NW. Zones are drawn on the map as dashed rings so you can see your coverage at a glance.

Limits. Free one Watch Zone. Pro up to ten.

The Situation Room Pro

Free shows what is happening. Pro reacts to it. On every tier, alerts appear on the crawl and are drawn on the map, and you can navigate to them yourself. The automatic Situation Room, which reacts on its own, is a Pro feature.

This is the feature that sets ChronAlert apart. Instead of just displaying feeds, it watches them and takes over the screen when something genuinely important happens. Normally your panels rotate in the background. When a serious event arrives, a bold banner drops in, the map zooms to the event, the right layers switch on, and the countdown starts. When the event clears or you dismiss it, the normal rotation resumes on its own.

What can trigger it

• Tornado and other severe weather warnings that reach a Watch Zone
• A major earthquake, or one flagged as tsunami capable
• A hurricane threatening one of your zones
• A significant geomagnetic storm
• A severe high frequency radio blackout
• An X class solar flare
• A FEMA national alert

Acknowledging an event

Press the Dismiss button on the banner or use Alt+E to acknowledge the current event. If several events are active, dismissing one moves on to the next.

Turning it on and off

On Pro, the Situation Room is on by default. Find it in App Settings, in the highlighted Pro Features section at the bottom, under Situation Room. That same section has Preview buttons for Tornado, Hurricane, and Solar.

Try it on Free. The Preview buttons fire a clearly labeled demo takeover on any tier, so you can see exactly what the Situation Room does before deciding to upgrade. A preview fires on every connected screen at once, just like a real alert would.

Incident Fusion

Rather than throwing six separate alerts at you, ChronAlert connects related feeds into a single Incident. When a hurricane is approaching, for example, you get one Hurricane Incident that reads like a briefing:

• The category and wind speed
• How far it is and in which direction from your nearest zone
• Which tropical warnings are active at your zone
• The local wind right now from the nearest airport report
• The projected closest approach and roughly when

Solar activity is fused the same way. An X class flare, the radio blackout it causes, the absorption footprint, and the geomagnetic response are shown as one Solar Storm Incident that reads as a chain of effects rather than four disconnected numbers.

Escalation Levels

Not everything deserves to hijack the screen, so every event is graded automatically based on context, not just on a raw threshold. The grade decides how loudly ChronAlert reacts:

• INFO Stays on the crawl only. No banner.
• ATTENTION Shows a banner, but your panels keep rotating underneath.
• CRITICAL Takes over the screen. The rotation pauses, the map zooms in, and the relevant layers switch on.

The grade comes from real context. A hurricane far out at sea might be INFO, the same storm nearing the coast becomes ATTENTION, and a major storm threatening one of your Watch Zones becomes CRITICAL.

Incident Timeline

When the Situation Room takes over, it shows a short timeline titled How This Developed, so you see the sequence of events, not just the latest snapshot. When the event ends, a brief stand down summary shows how long it lasted.

Alert Sounds

ChronAlert can play a distinct tone for each kind of alert. Open the Config Console and go to Alert Sounds to choose a sound per alert type, test each one, and set the master mute. The alert types are:

• Weather warnings from your country's weather service (NWS, Environment Canada, MeteoAlarm, or the Bureau of Meteorology)
• FEMA IPAWS / EAS national alerts
• GDACS global disaster alerts
• Space weather (geomagnetic) storms
• Solar flares / X-ray events
• Breaking news
• Situation Room takeover

By design. ChronAlert only sounds for real hazard alerts. A feed going offline is silent, and new alerts only start sounding a few seconds after launch, so the batch of alerts already active when you open the app does not all fire at once. Mute everything with the speaker button in the top bar or Alt+M.

Mesh Radios Pro

ChronAlert Pro can bring your local mesh network onto the wall. Plug a Meshtastic or MeshCore radio into the ChronAlert PC over USB, then open the Config Console, go to App Settings, and find Mesh Radios in the Pro Features section.

Connecting a radio

Enable the radio, then pick its COM port on Windows, or its device such as /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyACM0 on Linux (or leave it on Auto-detect) and set the channel. Use Rescan Ports if you plug the radio in after opening the console. Once connected, the card shows how many nodes it has heard and the latest messages.

MeshCore needs a Companion node. ChronAlert talks to a MeshCore radio running Companion (USB serial) firmware. A node flashed as a Repeater or Room Server will not connect; reflash it with the Companion USB firmware first.

On the map and cards

Heard nodes appear on the map around you, and each radio's card shows its most recent messages right beside your weather. Enabling a radio turns its card on automatically.

Situation Room alerts over mesh

Each radio can also broadcast Situation Room alerts. When the Situation Room takes over the screen for a CRITICAL event, ChronAlert sends a short summary of that alert out over the radio, so people off-screen or off-grid still get the warning. Turn on Send Situation Room alerts for a radio in App Settings and set its announce channel (a channel slot number). Meshtastic uses channel slots 0 - 7; for MeshCore, set up the channel (including a #hashtag public channel) on the device first, then enter that slot number here. The summary leads with the most important details and is trimmed to fit the radio (about 195 characters on Meshtastic, 127 on MeshCore).

Requires Pro. Mesh integration is a Pro feature, so the mesh controls and cards are hidden on the free tier.

Windows drivers. Most Meshtastic and MeshCore boards use a USB-serial chip (often a Silicon Labs CP210x). If Windows does not show a COM port for the radio, install the manufacturer's USB-serial (VCP) driver and reconnect.

Linux. No driver is needed, but your user must be in the dialout group to open the radio: sudo usermod -aG dialout $USER, then log out and back in.

QSO Map Pro

ChronAlert can listen to your ham-radio logging software and draw the classic great-circle arc from your station to everyone you work or hear. It reads the UDP broadcasts sent by WSJT-X, JTDX, JS8Call, N1MM+ and Log4OM, locates the other station by its Maidenhead grid (or a rough callsign-prefix fallback), and maps it. Arcs are colored by band and the QSO Map card lists recent contacts. History rolls over the last 24 hours.

Turning it on

Open the Config Console, go to App Settings, and find QSO Map in the Pro Features section. Check Enable, choose what to show - Worked (stations you log), Heard (stations your radio decodes), or Both - then turn on the QSO Map arcs and card per panel in Panels (under Ham Radio).

Pointing your logger at ChronAlert

Every logger works the same way: you tell it to send its UDP output to ChronAlert's address and port.

• Address. Use 127.0.0.1 if the logger and ChronAlert run on the same PC (the default; usually no change needed). If they run on different PCs, use the ChronAlert PC's IP address - the QSO Map panel shows it for you - and set ChronAlert's Listen On to 0.0.0.0 (all interfaces).
• Port. ChronAlert listens on 2237 (WSJT-X / JTDX / JS8Call) and 12060 (N1MM+) by default. The port in your logger must match one of these exactly.

Setting up your logging software

Labels vary a little by version, but these steps cover the common loggers. After you set them, log or decode a contact and an arc should sweep from your QTH.

WSJT-X

1. Open File → Settings and click the Reporting tab.
2. Under UDP Server, set UDP Server to ChronAlert's address and UDP Server port number to 2237.
3. Click OK. WSJT-X now sends its decodes and logged QSOs to ChronAlert.

JTDX

1. Open Settings and go to the Reporting tab.
2. Under UDP server, set the address to ChronAlert and the UDP server port number to 2237.
3. Double-check the port is exactly 2237 - a mismatched port is the most common reason nothing appears.

JS8Call

1. Open File → Settings and go to the Reporting tab.
2. In the UDP Server section, set the server to ChronAlert's address and the port to 2237, and make sure it is enabled.

N1MM Logger+

1. Open Config → Configure Ports, Mode Control, Audio, Other... and select the Broadcast Data tab.
2. Tick Contacts and set its destination to ChronAlert's address followed by :12060 - for example 127.0.0.1:12060 on the same PC, or 192.168.1.50:12060 across the network.
3. Click OK. N1MM+ broadcasts each logged contact to ChronAlert.

Log4OM

1. In Log4OM's outbound / third-party UDP settings, add the ChronAlert PC's address and one of the QSO Map ports above, and enable sending when a QSO is logged.
2. The exact menu path changes between Log4OM versions, so check its documentation if you cannot find the UDP option.

Tip. A logger's live-decode stream and its logged-QSO stream can be separate UDP outputs. WSJT-X, JTDX, and JS8Call send both on the one UDP Server you set above; with N1MM+ you are sending logged contacts. Choose Worked, Heard, or Both in ChronAlert to decide which of those it maps.

Checking it works

Put the QSO Map card on a panel and turn on the QSO Map arcs layer, then log or decode a station whose report includes a grid square. Within a moment an arc should draw from your QTH to that station and the contact should appear in the card. The card also shows which ports ChronAlert is listening on and whether the listener is bound, so you can confirm it is up.

Requires Pro. The QSO Map listener is a Pro feature.

Network configuration is not supported. Getting UDP from your logger to ChronAlert across a network is standard IP networking, and it depends entirely on your own setup - computer IP addresses, the Windows Firewall (or other security software) on the ChronAlert PC, your router, VLANs, and your logger's UDP settings. ChronAlert does not provide support for configuring your network, firewall, router, or logging software. If packets are not arriving, that is a local network/firewall/logger configuration matter for you (or your network administrator) to resolve. The ChronAlert installer opens the default QSO ports on Windows Firewall for private networks; anything beyond that is outside the scope of ChronAlert support.

Live Aircraft, Ships & APRS Pro

ChronAlert Pro can put live aircraft, ships, and APRS ham stations on your map. Aircraft and ships come from your own RTL-SDR radio receiver on your network - nothing leaves your network. APRS can come from the internet (APRS-IS, no radio needed) or from your own local radio decoder (APRS RF, via KISS TCP). Each contact appears pointed the way it is moving, with optional trails. The four sources are independent; set up only the ones you want.

What you need

• For aircraft and ships (not APRS): an RTL-SDR dongle (the RTL-SDR Blog V3 or V4 is the common choice) plus an antenna for the band you want: 1090 MHz for aircraft, or marine VHF (about 162 MHz) for ships. A good outside antenna makes a big difference, and one dongle can only listen to one band at a time. APRS needs none of this - it works over the internet (see below).
• The matching decoder software running on a PC on your network - the ChronAlert PC itself or a separate machine (a Raspberry Pi is popular).
• The web address (URL) that the decoder publishes its live data at. You paste that address into ChronAlert - that is the whole connection.

One-time: install the dongle driver (Windows)

Before any SDR software can use an RTL-SDR dongle on Windows, you install its WinUSB driver with a small free tool called Zadig: plug in the dongle, run Zadig, select the RTL-SDR device (its "Bulk-In, Interface"), choose WinUSB, and click Install / Replace Driver. This is the standard RTL-SDR first step and the "RTL-SDR Blog Quick Start Guide" walks through it with pictures. You only do it once per dongle.

On Linux there is usually no driver to install. Add yourself to the plugdev group once (sudo usermod -aG plugdev $USER, then log out and back in). If a decoder reports the dongle is busy, the kernel's TV-tuner driver has grabbed it: run echo 'blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu' | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl.conf and replug the dongle.

Aircraft (ADS-B)

1. Install and run an ADS-B decoder against your dongle - dump1090, tar1090, or readsb are the usual ones. It publishes a live aircraft list at a web address ending in aircraft.json. Open the decoder's own map page in a browser to find the exact address; common forms are http://<PC-IP>:8080/data/aircraft.json, …/tar1090/data/aircraft.json, …/dump1090-fa/data/aircraft.json, or, for the Linux dump1090-mutability package (served on port 80), http://<PC-IP>/dump1090/data/aircraft.json.
2. In ChronAlert, open the Config Console → App Settings and find Local ADS-B (RTL-SDR). Check Enable local ADS-B, paste the aircraft.json address into Receiver URL, and Save.
3. Put the Local ADS-B card and layer on a panel (open Panels, find them under Ham Radio).

Aircraft appear pointed the way they are flying, with planes and helicopters shown differently, and are colored by type: military green, airline yellow, and private/general-aviation white.

Ships (AIS)

1. Install and run an AIS decoder against your dongle - AIS-catcher is the common one. It publishes a live ship list on its web address; open AIS-catcher's own web page to find the exact address (it usually ends in /ships.json).
2. In ChronAlert, open App Settings → Local AIS (RTL-SDR), check Enable, paste the ships address into Receiver URL, and Save.
3. Add the Local AIS card and layer to a panel (under Ham Radio).

Ships appear pointed the way they are heading, and the card lists the most recently heard vessels with a rough count of how many are under way versus at anchor.

APRS (ham stations) - over the internet, no radio

APRS uses the worldwide APRS-IS network instead of a radio, so there is no dongle, antenna, or decoder to set up - just your amateur callsign.

1. In ChronAlert, open App Settings → APRS (APRS-IS) and check Enable APRS-IS.
2. Enter your callsign (it defaults to your station callsign). Without a passcode it connects receive-only. The optional Passcode is only needed to send APRS messages from Command Center. It is hidden as dots (press Show to see it) and ChronAlert tells you whether it matches your callsign. Every licensed amateur has one - the standard APRS-IS passcode for your callsign, the same one APRS apps such as APRSdroid, YAAC or PinPoint ask for (most of them, and several ham websites, can generate it for you). It is the same for every SSID of your callsign. If you already have another station on APRS under your plain callsign - an iGate, a radio or a phone app - give ChronAlert its own SSID here (for example KD5W-5), or messages will not reach the right station. Set the Range - how far around your location to pull stations, which covers your National, Regional, and Local views.
3. Add the APRS card and layer to a panel (open Panels, under Ham Radio). Click Save.

Stations appear with their real APRS symbols - the standard, recognizable APRS icons (weather stations, digipeaters, homes, cars, gateways, and so on). The card lists the most recently heard, and the count narrows to whatever view you are in. Moving stations show their speed in your local units (mph in the USA, km/h elsewhere). The APRS symbols are from the APRS symbol set by Heikki Hannikainen (OH7LZB), github.com/hessu/aprs-symbols, used under CC BY-SA 2.0.

You can choose which kinds of stations to show under App Settings → APRS (APRS-IS) → Station Types. Uncheck any of Vehicles, Weather, Digipeaters, Home, Boats, Aircraft, Balloons, People, or Other to hide that type from both the map and the card.

APRS RF (ham stations) - over the air, your own decoder

APRS RF receives live APRS packets from your own radio setup - an RTL-SDR dongle, a sound card modem, or a hardware TNC. ChronAlert does not include any decoder software; you install and configure your own, then point ChronAlert at its network port.

The easiest choice is direwolf (free, open-source, runs on Windows and Linux). Configure it to decode 144.390 MHz (US/Canada) or whichever APRS frequency is used in your country, then enable its KISS TCP interface. By default direwolf listens on port 8001. Any KISS-TCP-capable decoder or hardware TNC works the same way.

1. Install and configure your decoder (direwolf, Soundmodem, or hardware TNC) and confirm it is receiving packets.
2. In ChronAlert, open App Settings → APRS RF (KISS TCP) and check Enable APRS RF.
3. Set Host (default localhost if the decoder is on the same PC) and KISS TCP Port (direwolf default: 8001).
4. Optional: check Start receiver software when ChronAlert launches and give the Launch command - for an RTL-SDR, a start script that tunes it to 144.390 MHz with rtl_fm and pipes it into direwolf (rtl_fm -f 144.390M -M fm -s 24000 - | direwolf -c aprs.conf -r 24000 -, with KISSPORT 8001 in aprs.conf). ChronAlert starts it with the app and stops it on exit. One RTL-SDR can only do one job, so turn off Local ADS-B or AIS if they use the same dongle.
5. Add the APRS RF card and layer to a panel (open Panels, under Ham Radio) and click Save.

Stations appear with the same APRS symbols as the internet feed. The card shows a live count and connection status. If the card shows not connected, confirm your decoder is running and the KISS port matches.

Options for every receiver

• Draw trailing line. Leaves a fading trail showing where each contact has been.
• Dwell time. How long a contact stays on the map (dimmed) after its last signal, so it does not blink out between updates. Use a longer dwell for slower feeds like ships and APRS.
• Start receiver software when ChronAlert launches. Optional convenience: give ChronAlert the command that starts your decoder and it will start it with the app and stop it again on exit, so you do not have to launch it separately. The status line shows whether it is running.

Checking it works

With the decoder running and the address entered, the card shows a live count and the most recently heard contacts, and icons appear on the map. If the card says the receiver is not reachable, open that same address in a web browser on the ChronAlert PC - if the browser cannot load it either, the problem is your decoder or the address, not ChronAlert. If the card connects but stays empty, that is normal when nothing is in range: reception depends heavily on your antenna and location, and traffic comes and goes.

Requires Pro. The live SDR receivers are Pro features, so their settings, layers, and cards are hidden on the free tier.

You supply the receiver; ChronAlert reads it. The dongle, antenna, decoder software, and getting its data across your network are your own setup. ChronAlert does not provide the RTL-SDR hardware or decoder software, and does not provide support for configuring your dongle, driver, decoder, antenna, firewall, or network. ChronAlert's part is simple: point it at the address your own receiver publishes, and it maps what it finds there.

Panels

A Panel is a saved scene. It captures a map view, which layers are on, and which side cards show. The carousel cycles through your panels automatically so one screen can tell a rotating story: World, then Ham, then Weather, then Local, and around again.

Setting up panels

Open the Config Console (gear, or Alt+P) and go to Panels. Add a panel, choose its map view, then use the two switches next to each feed to decide what shows on the map and what shows as a side card. Rename or delete panels from the list.

The carousel

Set how many seconds each panel holds in App Settings under Panel Rotation. Start and stop the rotation with the play button in the top bar or Alt+C, and jump to the next panel any time with the Next button or Alt+→ (Alt+← goes back). Stepping to a panel while the rotation is stopped lets you flip through your views by hand.

Limits. Free two Panels. Pro up to ten.

Screens Pro

A Screen is a complete profile for one physical display. One ChronAlert install can drive several screens, each showing something different: the living room TV runs weather, the shack monitor runs propagation and spots, the office shows world and news. A Screen sets:

• Screen type. TV, Monitor, Tablet, or Browser. Choosing TV turns on reduce effects and keeps everything clear of the screen edges automatically.
• Panels. Which panels that screen rotates, and in what order.
• Card size and font size. Two sliders for that screen only: card size from 40% to 200% (smaller than Extra Small, for big TVs) and the card text from 50% to 160%. Auto goes back to the screen type's size (TV = 100%) and the device's own font size. Set them from any device and the screen updates right away.
• Crawl scope. The ticker scope for that screen.
• Map zoom. That screen's own World and National zoom and Regional and Local radius. Leave a box blank to use the App Settings value (shown in grey).
• World clock. That screen's clock bar size (Auto = App Settings) and, with Use different clocks on this screen, its own six cities. The bar is still switched on per Panel.
• Edge margin. For a TV that cuts off the edges of the picture: raise it until the cyan frame that appears is fully visible on that TV. The whole screen shrinks inward by that percent on every side (0 = full screen), and it applies only to that Screen. Set it from any device; the TV updates right away.

Creating and using a Screen

Open the Config Console and go to Screens. Add a screen, choose its panels and options, and copy its URL from the page (there is a Copy button). Open that URL on the TV, monitor, or tablet, for example http://your-server:8420/?display=living-room. Screens are a Pro feature.

Changes show up everywhere, live. When you change a Panel, a Screen or a Watch Zone in the Config Console on any device, every other screen picks it up within a couple of seconds - no refresh needed. Each screen keeps its own current map view, play/stop rotation and mute.

Command Center Pro

The Config Console is where you build things: Panels, Screens, Watch Zones, radios and feeds. Command Center is where you use them. It never changes a Panel or a Screen - it only points Screens at Panels for a while, watches things for a while, and sends messages. Open it from the Config Console (Command Center, just under Overview) or press Alt+K.

Search Everything

One search box for callsigns, DXpeditions, DX entities, frequencies, shortwave stations, mesh nodes, alert types, Panels, webcams and places. Results are grouped by type, and each result has actions next to it: Follow, Monitor, Put on Screen, View on Map, Copy a frequency, Message a mesh node, or Remind me when a shortwave broadcast starts. View on Map flies this screen's map to the result and marks it with a pulsing target and its name for 90 seconds, and holds the panel rotation for that long so the map stays put. A callsign placed only by its prefix is marked as approximate and shown zoomed out. Park, flora and bunker activators (POTA, WWFF, WWBOTA) stay findable for 6 hours after their last spot, at the real park location, marked "not spotted now" with how long ago they were last spotted (this covers what ChronAlert has seen since it last started). A few examples:

• 14.074 - the 20m FT8 frequency, current DX cluster spots near it, and your QSO Map activity there.
• KH1/KH7Z - the DXpedition if it is active, its latest cluster spots, and a prefix location with distance and bearing from your QTH.
• BBC or 9.915 - shortwave broadcasts on now or starting in the next day, marked with whether they are aimed at your area.
• Charleston, SC - the place, ready to watch for alerts, earthquakes and wildfires nearby.

DX cluster spots come from the public HamQTH cluster. ChronAlert only pulls them while Command Center needs them (after a search, or while a DX, callsign or frequency monitor is running).

Screens Now

A short list of every Screen: what it is showing now, and whether that is its normal rotation, a Mode, or a push (with the time left). Change puts a different Panel on it, Resume ends a push early, and Open Screen opens that Screen in a new tab.

Modes

A Mode is a saved, temporary reassignment of your existing Panels to your Screens. For example, Radio Night might put DX and Space Weather on the living room TV, QSO Map and DX on the shack monitor, and Shortwave on the office monitor, while leaving the bedroom TV alone. Click New Mode, name it, and for each Screen add one or more Panels (several Panels rotate just like a normal Screen), or leave it unchanged. Click a Mode to turn it on and the Screens switch right away. Return to Normal puts every Screen back on its normal Panels. Turning a Mode on never rewrites your Screen setup.

Put This on Screen

"I want that Panel on that TV right now." Pick an existing Panel (a read-only summary shows its map tier, layers, cards, ticker and overlays), pick one or more Screens, and pick how long: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours or until dismissed. You can also show a title on the Screen, such as "DX Map - KH1/KH7Z"; it appears in a large box across the top of the map, with the Panel name and the time left. When the time is up, each Screen goes back to what it was doing before - the active Mode if there is one, otherwise its normal rotation.

Put on Screen from a search result does more: besides putting the best matching Panel on the Screen, it shows a large details box across the top of the map, built like a warning banner, with the result's name, what it is, and the details under it (for example an alert's severity, issue and expiry times and areas; a station's frequency and when it was heard; a shortwave broadcast's times; the distance and bearing from your QTH). If the result has a location, the Screen's map also flies to it and marks it with a pulsing target and its name (an alert zooms to its warning area). In the Put Panel on Screen window, step 3 On the Screen previews the box and lets you turn off the details box or the map move. Anyone at the Screen can press Dismiss on the box to end the push on that Screen: it goes straight back to its Mode or normal rotation (other Screens in the same push keep it). A Situation Room takeover still comes first: the box steps aside while the warning shows, and the Screen goes back to the pushed spot when it clears.

What a Screen shows (priority)

Each Screen follows one simple order, and falls back one level when the one above ends:

1. Situation Room - an automatic critical-event takeover always comes first.
2. Put on Screen - a temporary push.
3. Mode - the active Mode's Panels for that Screen.
4. Normal - the Screen's own Panel rotation.

So if Radio Night is on, you push Shortwave for an hour, and a tornado warning takes over: when the warning clears, Shortwave comes back (if its hour is not up), then Radio Night, then the normal rotation.

Temporary Monitor and Follow This

A monitor tells ChronAlert to pay attention to something for a while. Choose what to watch - a DXpedition, Callsign, DX Entity, Frequency, Shortwave station, Mesh Node, Alert Type or Location - then what counts (for example new DX cluster spots, activity on a new band or mode, showing up on a map feed, or first activity after a quiet spell), how long (2 hours, 6 hours, tonight, until midnight, until the DXpedition ends, or until dismissed), and what to do on a hit: a notification on every Screen, a subtle sound, and optionally putting a Panel on a Screen. Hits are listed in the monitor table and in Activity. While a monitor or follow is running, ChronAlert switches on every feed its target could show up in, even if no Panel shows that feed, and lets them go idle again when it ends: a callsign uses the DX cluster, POTA, WWFF, WWBOTA, your QSO Map and APRS (and APRS-IS also follows that callsign anywhere in the world, not just around your QTH); a DXpedition adds the DXpedition list; a frequency uses the DX cluster and the shortwave schedule; a shortwave station uses the whole season's schedule, not only broadcasts aimed at you; an alert type checks weather alerts, IPAWS / EAS and GDACS; a location checks weather alerts, earthquakes, wildfires and GDACS. Feeds that need their own setup (an APRS-IS callsign, a radio, a decoder) still need to be set up first. The monitor table shows which feeds each one uses. When you start watching, ChronAlert first shows what is already happening: a callsign's activations and spots from the last hour, a shortwave station's broadcasts on the air right now (one line with every frequency, the ones aimed at your area marked), or a matching alert that is active now. After that you are told about new activity only.

Follow This is the fast version: pick a type, type the target, pick a duration, and press Follow - or press Follow on any search result. "Until inactive" stops following after two hours with no activity.

Messages

The Messages card has two tabs. Conversations is two-way chat: every station you message, or who messages you, over APRS, Meshtastic or MeshCore gets its own conversation, and each mesh channel is a group conversation. Pick a conversation on the left to see the back-and-forth as chat bubbles and reply at the bottom (Enter sends, Shift+Enter adds a line). Your APRS messages show their delivery status (waiting for ack, delivered, or no ack). New messages to you show an unread count on the conversation, on the tab and on Command Center in the menu, and pop a MESSAGE notice on your Screens. Press + New to start a conversation with an APRS callsign, a mesh node or a mesh channel, or press Message / APRS Message on a search result. Conversations are kept on the ChronAlert PC, so every browser sees the same history.

Broadcast sends one message to several places at once. Write it once and choose where it goes: Meshtastic, MeshCore, APRS, or any combination. Mesh messages go out as a broadcast on a channel slot, or as a direct message to one node (start typing to pick a heard node); Meshtastic direct messages can request an acknowledgement. Your mesh radios must be connected in App Settings. Save messages you use often as templates.

APRS messages go out over the internet APRS-IS network to the callsign you enter (APRS messages are limited to 67 characters). To send, add your APRS-IS passcode in App Settings under APRS (APRS-IS) - the same passcode other APRS apps ask for; ChronAlert tells you whether it matches your callsign. Without it, APRS stays receive-only. ChronAlert retries an unanswered message a few times and shows in Activity whether it was acknowledged. An acknowledgement that arrives late - up to 30 minutes after ChronAlert stopped retrying - still marks the message delivered, and so does an acknowledgement built into the other station's reply (the APRS reply-ack format some apps use). A message reaches the other station's radio when an internet gateway near them passes it to the air (usually when they were heard on the air recently); otherwise it reaches them only on APRS-IS apps. Messages sent to your callsign show on the APRS Messages card and are acknowledged for you. Licensed amateurs only - everything you send goes out under your callsign. Reply to a station exactly as it names itself (some equipment, like a CSN iGate, uses the "-0" form such as KD5W-0). If ChronAlert and another station of yours share one callsign, Command Center warns you and suggests giving ChronAlert its own SSID. To talk to an iGate of your own, that iGate must be logged in to APRS-IS with "Send Messages to APRS-IS" turned on; otherwise it only sends over the radio.

Timers and Reminders

Short-term operational reminders, not a calendar. A timer can be a plain Reminder (a notification on every Screen, with an optional sound), Show on Screen (put a Panel on chosen Screens for a set time), Run Mode, or Return to Normal. Timers can run once, every day, on weekdays, on weekends, or on chosen days of the week. For example: Radio Night every Friday at 20:00, and Return to Normal at midnight. Every reminder pops up on your Screens twice: a heads-up 15 minutes before ("Ham Church in 15 min") and again right on time. Change the heads-up per reminder with Warn me before (off, 5, 10, 15, 30 or 60 minutes). Times are the ChronAlert PC's local time.

Reminders card. Add the Reminders card to any Panel (Config Console, Panels, under Command Center) to show the active reminders on the wall: soonest first, with a live countdown and what each one will do. Open the card for the full list and the reminders that fired recently.

Watch on Another Screen

ChronAlert serves to your whole local network, so any TV, phone, tablet, or computer on the same Wi-Fi can open it in a browser. The address is shown at the top of the Config Console (with a Copy button), and on a small banner when the app starts. Type that address into the other device.

On a phone. A phone gets its own layout automatically, in either orientation: the map fills the screen, the news ticker is hidden, and the play, next, mute, and settings buttons sit behind the ☰ menu in the top corner (the feed health dot stays visible). Tap CARDS at the bottom to slide the cards up (from the side when the phone is turned sideways), and tap the map to put them away. Drag and pinch to move around the map. Your phone reaches ChronAlert whenever it is on your home network; to use it away from home, connect your phone to your home network with a VPN such as WireGuard or Tailscale (do not open ChronAlert's port to the internet).

Use the address shown by the app. Each computer has its own network address, so always read it off the screen you are serving from rather than guessing. On Windows, the installer opens the needed port through the firewall for you. On Linux, if a firewall is turned on, allow the port yourself, for example sudo ufw allow 8420/tcp.

Reduce Effects (TV mode)

Television browsers and streaming sticks often have weak graphics, and the blur and animation that look great on a computer can make them flicker. Reduce effects mode drops the blur and the continuous decorative animation so the display stays steady.

It turns on automatically for TV and streaming stick browsers. You can also toggle it yourself in App Settings under Reduce effects, force it on any device by adding ?lite=1 to the address, or let a TV type Screen switch it on. It also adds a safe margin around the edges so nothing gets cut off by a television that crops the picture.

Feed Health

Because this is a situational awareness tool, it matters that you can trust what is on screen. The FEEDS chip in the top bar shows the health of the important data sources at a glance. Green means the critical feeds are live, amber means one is stale, and red means one is offline. Click it, or open the Config Console and go to Feed Health, for a full list of every source with how long ago each one updated, marked LIVE, STALE, or OFFLINE.

The whole point is that stale data never gets dressed up as current. If a feed stops updating, you will know.

Config Reference

The Config Console menu, and what each page holds:

• Overview. A summary of your Panels and Screens, with quick links to manage them, plus a Connect a Screen QR code and address for opening ChronAlert on another device.
• Panels. Create and edit the saved map / card views, with the two MAP and CARD switches per feed.
• Screens. Pro Assign Panels to each physical display and get its URL.
• Watch Zones. Add and edit the locations the Situation Room alerts on.
• App Settings. Everything host-wide, described below.
• News Feeds. Pick the ticker's news, sports, and market sources and toggle severe weather. Saves automatically.
• Webcams. Pro Add IP cameras (experimental).
• Alert Sounds. A sound per alert type, plus the master mute.
• Feed Health. Not a menu item: open it from the FEEDS chip in the top bar. Live LIVE / STALE / OFFLINE status of every feed.
• User Manual. Opens this guide.
• Manage License. Enter a Pro key, view your tier, or clear the license.

Inside App Settings

• Station Name / Callsign. Shown in the top left corner.
• QTH. Your location, set by city search or by latitude and longitude.
• Country. United States, Canada, United Kingdom, or Australia. Sets the national map, weather-alert authority, radar source, and airport and news defaults.
• Map Style. How the satellite base map is tinted, from darkest to brightest: Dark Matter, Midnight Blue, Carbon, Twilight, or Daylight. The last two are brighter daytime looks.
• Card Size and Font Size. Two per-device sliders for the card column and the text.
• Local Clock Timezone. Which zone the second clock uses.
• Reduce effects. The TV mode described above. Per device.
• Host URL. The address to open ChronAlert from other devices.
• Map Tier Zoom. World and National zoom levels (National can auto-fit), and the Regional and Local radius in miles.
• Bottom Crawl and Alert Rules. The crawl scope, whether FEMA IPAWS / EAS national alerts appear (US only), and minimum severity filters for weather and GDACS.
• Panel Rotation. The auto-cycle interval in seconds.
• Pro Features. Pro A highlighted section with the Situation Room takeover (and its Preview demos), QSO Map (logger UDP), and Mesh Radios (COM port and channel).

Free and Pro

ChronAlert works fully on the free tier, forever. The line is simple: Free shows what is happening, Pro reacts to it. Free receives and displays every alert; Pro adds the automatic Situation Room, higher limits, custom Screens, and mesh radios.

Get a key on the ChronAlert Pro page, then enter it in the Config Console under Manage License.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Troubleshooting

Another screen is showing an old version

First, make sure you are viewing the correct ChronAlert computer. Each ChronAlert installation on your network has its own address. On the computer you want to view, open the Config Console and check the Host URL at the top, and use that exact address on your other device.

ChronAlert opened on a different port than expected

ChronAlert normally serves on port 8420. If that port is already in use, it automatically moves to the next free port and shows the real address on a banner at startup and at the top of the Config Console. Always use the address it shows, not a guessed one.

A feed says STALE or OFFLINE

Click the FEEDS indicator at the top of the screen to see which source is affected and when it last updated. Most feeds recover automatically when the data provider or your internet connection becomes available again. The base map and locally generated layers continue working independently.

The picture flickers on a TV

Open App Settings and enable Reduce Effects, or set the screen type to TV. You can also add ?lite=1 to the end of the ChronAlert address.

Content is cut off at the edges of a TV

Give the TV its own Screen and raise that Screen's Edge margin on the Screens page until the cyan frame is fully visible on the TV - the whole display shrinks inward so nothing is cut off, and you can set it from your phone while watching the TV. Selecting the TV screen type or Reduce Effects also adds a small safe margin.

A phone or TV cannot connect

Make sure both devices are on the same local network or Wi-Fi. On the ChronAlert computer, open the Config Console and use the exact Host URL shown. The Windows installer automatically configures the required firewall access for private networks. On Linux, allow port 8420 through your firewall if one is turned on.

A mesh radio is not connecting

Mesh radios require Pro. Confirm the radio shows a COM port in Windows (install its USB-serial driver if not), or on Linux that it appears as /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyACM0 and you are in the dialout group, then in App Settings pick the right port or use Auto-detect, set the channel, and use Rescan Ports after plugging it in.