Log check-ins¶
Log stations as they call in, and capture the full record for each one. The quick-add row is built for the hot path — keeping up with a pileup while you're also working a radio.
Prerequisites¶
- A live session.
- The NCS or logger role on that session. Relays can log check-ins too; see grant roles and relays.
Steps¶
Step 1: Use the quick-add row¶
The quick-add row is pinned at the top of the roster — never behind a button — and the callsign field holds focus when the console opens.
Tab order is Callsign › Name › Location › Grid › Report › Staying › Save.
Press n from anywhere on the page to jump focus back to the callsign field.
If the callsign you enter is already on tonight's roster, NetRoll tells you — both when you leave the field and when you commit with Enter, so the fast path below gets the warning too. It names the station and reads differently depending on the situation: whether the station is still waiting to be worked, or whether you already worked them earlier in the net. After a commit the warning stays up, naming the station you just logged, until you start typing the next callsign. Either way it never stops you — the check-in goes in as its own entry, with its own report, traffic and notes, which is exactly what a deliberate re-check should be.
Step 2: Commit with Enter¶
Press Enter from any field to commit the entry. The fields clear and focus returns to callsign, ready for the next station. Use Save & close when you're logging one station and want to stop.
Your own entry shows as pending immediately and settles once the server confirms it. Other viewers only ever see confirmed entries, never your pending ones.
Step 3: Let the lookup fill the details¶
When you enter a callsign, NetRoll runs a best-effort callbook lookup and autofills name and location. Everything it fills stays editable.
The lookup never blocks logging. If it fails, returns nothing, or times out, you type the details yourself and carry on. If the station has a NetRoll profile, their profile values win over the looked-up values. See connect QRZ to use your own QRZ credentials for lookups.
A returning station is faster still: the net remembers callsigns that have checked in before and prefills their remembered name and location, which you can accept or edit.
Step 4: Record the signal report¶
The report input is shaped by the session's mode, and it's always optional:
| Mode | Report format |
|---|---|
| Phone | RS |
| CW | RST |
| Digital | dB SNR |
| FM / repeater | Qualitative, or none |
Signal reports are staff-only. A participant attempting to set one is refused by the server.
Step 5: Set the staying status¶
Mark each station as staying for comments or in and out.
| Status | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Staying for comments | The station is worked again in the rounds. This is what tells you who's still waiting when you come back around. |
| In and out | The station is logged and done. It won't come up again in rounds. |
The roster shows the status with a colour, an icon, and a label together — never colour alone. Both values reach the CSV export; it's part of the record of how the net ran, not just a live-view convenience.
A participant can set this on their own entry. Everything else on a check-in is staff-only.
Step 6: Record which way in the station arrived on¶
A net can be reachable several ways at once — an HF frequency, a repeater, an EchoLink node, a DMR talkgroup. NetRoll records which one each station actually came in on, and it does it without a dropdown per station.
Set the stamp once per block. The toolbar carries a Taking check-ins on control. Pick the connection you're working, and every check-in you commit after that records it. The control always states what's in force, so you never have to remember what you set.
Override for one station with one tap. The quick-add row shows the same choice, preselected to the stamp. When a station arrives on a different connection, tap that connection before you commit. It applies to that check-in only — the next station is back on the block's connection with no second action.
Type a way in the net doesn't list. Choose Other… and type it — "Bob's hotspot", "phone patch". Up to 64 characters, one line. It's recorded against that check-in and nothing else: it does not add a connection to the net, and the owner's connection list stays theirs.
Nothing is recorded until you say so. Before you set a stamp, check-ins carry no way in at all, and every surface says so rather than guessing. NetRoll never fills this in for you, not even on a net with a single connection — "came in on HF" and "not recorded, on a net that only has HF" are different facts, and only the second stays true if the owner later adds another way in. In a CSV export the way-in cell stays empty for those check-ins; an ADIF export is the one place NetRoll fills the gap, describing the QSO with the net's own connection because the format has nowhere to say "unrecorded".
The stamp is yours alone and lives only in this browser tab: a second operator logging the same net sets their own, and reloading the page clears yours back to nothing recorded. That is deliberate — a restored stamp whose age you can't see is how a whole block of check-ins ends up claiming the wrong band.
You can also set or correct the way in later, from the detail modal below.
Step 6a: Record who relayed the station¶
When a station checks in through a relay — another operator hears them, you don't, and that operator passes their traffic along — put the relaying station's callsign in Relayed by, below the Save buttons in the quick-add row.
It is a different question from the way in, and NetRoll keeps them apart on purpose. The way in records how the traffic travelled; Relayed by records who passed it. A station can have both ("came in on the repeater, relayed by W1ABC"), either, or neither, and correcting one never disturbs the other.
The relaying station does not need a NetRoll account. It is a callsign you type, not a person you pick from a list — usually someone who is simply on the air. NetRoll normalises what you type the same way it normalises a check-in callsign.
It is also not the Relay role. Granting someone the Relay role lets them log check-ins on this session. This field records which station passed one entry's traffic. You can record it whatever your own role, as long as you can log or edit the check-in; and an operator holding the Relay role logs plenty of check-ins that nobody relayed.
Nothing sticks between stations. Unlike the way-in stamp, this box clears after every save. Each relayed station was relayed by whoever happened to hear it, so carrying the last callsign forward would put a confidently wrong one on the next entry — worse than leaving it blank.
The relaying station is not shown on the public page. It names a third party who never checked in, so it stays on the operator console, the CSV export and the on-close webhook.
You can set or correct it later from the detail modal, in the Relayed by field.
Step 7: Open the detail modal for the full record¶
Open an entry to view and edit everything NetRoll captures: callsign, name, location and grid, role, source, entering operator, signal report, staying status, precedence and traffic, the way in, the relaying station, timestamps, and the two per-station notes. Press Esc to cancel.
The notes are two separate fields. Staff note (operators only) is private to your logging team. Public note (everyone watching) appears on the roster row for every viewer of the live page, including someone with no account. Notes written before the split are all staff notes — nothing you had already written became public. See Capture notes.
Changing a field annotates the prior value, so a correction reads as "Correcting grid: FN25 (was FN35)" rather than silently overwriting history.
Step 8: Set precedence when it matters¶
On a traffic or emergency net, set each check-in's precedence, with an optional traffic indicator.
| Precedence | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Emergency | Red chip. Sorts to the top when you order the roster by precedence. |
| Priority | Amber chip. Sorts above Routine, below Emergency. |
| Routine | Neutral chip. The default; sorts last. |
Setting precedence does not reorder the roster on its own — it labels the entry. You choose when to apply that order, from work the roster. Within a tier, check-in order is preserved, so nobody loses their place.
Precedence and the traffic indicator are staff-only, and both land in the export. On a routine net you can ignore this entirely.
Verify¶
Each entry you logged shows a Staff-entered source badge and records which operator entered it. Stations that checked themselves in show a Self badge instead.
Open the session in a second window. Every entry appears there in the same order, within about two seconds of you committing it.
Logging stations without accounts¶
Log any callsign, whether or not it belongs to a NetRoll account. The entry is created and sits in the roster alongside registered users.
Troubleshooting¶
A row is read-only and says someone is editing. Another operator holds the soft lock on that entry. Locks run on a roughly 15-second sliding lease renewed by activity, and release immediately if the holder's connection drops.
Your edit was rejected with a conflict. Two operators committed against the same version. NetRoll rejects the stale write rather than losing an edit; re-open the entry to see the current server state and re-apply your change.