Callsign groups

A callsign group is a named list of up to 1,000 callsigns, such as a club roster or the stations you need for an award. You use it in connections with a Callsign group is in rule, and you can see and share its statistics.

Why you’d use it

Your club has 140 members and you want a Discord post whenever any of them is spotted on POTA, SOTA or RBN. Put the roster in one group and use it in three connections. When someone joins, add them once and all three connections pick them up.

How it works

Members are base calls. Long Lines stores each member without portable prefixes or suffixes: W1AW/P, VP2V/W1AW and w1aw all become W1AW. A group member W1AW then matches spots of W1AW/P, W1AW/M, VP2V/W1AW and so on. Suffixes dropped are /P, /M, /MM, /AM, /QRP, /QRPP, /R and single digits; of what’s left, the longest part is kept.

Membership is live. A connection stores the group, not a copy of its calls, so editing the group changes every connection that uses it on the next spot.

An empty group matches nothing. A Callsign group is in rule whose groups are all empty passes no spots; it never falls back to “any station”.

A group counts as naming stations, so it satisfies the Reverse Beacon Network requirement for a Callsign or Callsign group rule.

Delete is blocked while a connection uses the group. Remove the rule from those connections first. Delete has no confirmation step once it’s allowed.

You can have up to 50 groups. Names are unique in your account, ignoring case.

Set it up

1. Open Groups and select New group.
2. Enter a Name, such as Club roster.
3. Enter Callsigns, separated by commas, spaces or new lines: KK4PWJ, W4DOG, N4XYZ/P.
4. Leave Public statistics page off unless you want to share the statistics now.
5. Select Create group. If any value isn’t a callsign, nothing is saved and you see “Not a callsign: {value}.” Fix it and try again.

To edit members later, open the group’s Settings tab. The Members card has three ways in:

• Type: enter a Callsign and press Enter or select Add. Spaces or commas add several.
• Paste: paste a list into Paste callsigns and select Add callsigns.
• Import CSV: select Choose file. Long Lines uses the column headed Call or Callsign (or Call sign, Call_sign), or the first column if there is none, and tells you how many calls it found and skipped. Select Add.

Values that aren’t callsigns are left out with a warning listing them. Remove a member with the x on its chip, or all of them with Remove all. Nothing is saved until you select Save changes at the top of the page.

To use the group, select Get alerts on its card or page, pick a source and Continue. A new connection opens with Callsign group is in your group, named “Club roster on the air”. If you already have a connection with that rule, Long Lines opens it instead.

Common setups

Club roster on POTA. Group Club roster imported from the club’s member CSV. Connection: Parks on the Air, Callsign group is in Club roster, repeat At most once per 30 minutes, to the club Discord.

Award chase list. Group DXCC needed with the calls of current DXpeditions you still need. Connection: DX Cluster, Callsign group is in DXCC needed, to push with Urgency High.

Friends on RBN. Group Friends with six calls. Connection: Reverse Beacon Network, Callsign group is in Friends And Band is 20m, 40m, to a Local DX cluster.

When it doesn’t work

“Not a callsign: W1AW/12345.” Long Lines accepts a call with at most one /suffix, and the base call must look like an amateur callsign. Remove or fix the value.

“A group can hold up to 1,000 callsigns.” Split the list into two groups and use both in the rule.

Delete group is greyed out. The tooltip says how many connections use it. Remove the group from each one under Used by, then delete.

A member’s spots don’t match. Check the spot’s callsign. A member W1AW matches W1AW/P, but a spot of W1AWX or a different base call doesn’t. Members are whole calls; there are no prefixes or wildcards.