Troubleshooting

The download or installer is blocked

PSK Heard By is a small independent project and isn't signed with a paid certificate, so Microsoft's reputation checks haven't seen it enough times to trust it silently.

Browser: "isn't commonly downloaded" → Keep → Download anyway / Show more.
SmartScreen ("Windows protected your PC") → More info → Run anyway.
Downloading the zip rather than the bare .msi usually draws a milder warning. Extract PSKHeardBy.msi and run it.
Some anti-virus tools quarantine unknown installers. Restore the file from quarantine or add an exception if you trust the source.

"Enter a callsign first"

The callsign box is empty. Press Alt+C, type a callsign, and fetch again.

No reports came back

The fetch worked but PSK Reporter had nothing matching. Usually one of:

The station hasn't been active, or hasn't been spotted, in your time window. Widen How far back (Alt+B) to 6 or 24 hours.
Wrong Direction. "Who heard me" and "Who I heard" are different questions — try the other one.
Typo in the callsign, or a portable suffix (/P, /M) that PSK Reporter is filing separately.
The operator runs a mode or setup that doesn't upload to PSK Reporter.

Fetches are slow or time out

The status line shows "failed, timeout after N seconds." A 24-hour query for a very active callsign returns a lot of data. Raise Fetch timeout in Options (up to 90 seconds) and/or shorten the time window. PSK Reporter also rate-limits clients — if you've been fetching a lot, wait a minute.

Auto-refresh won't go below 5 minutes

That's deliberate. PSK Reporter asks clients not to poll more often than every 5 minutes. Check Now (Alt+K) is always available for a one-off fetch in between.

Locations look wrong or say "Unknown"

Country, state, and continent come from PSK Reporter's report first, then from a built-in prefix table, then from a local cache. Sparse reports — or unusual prefixes — can land in an "Unknown" group. Grouping by Grid or Distance instead still works, since those come straight from the grid squares in the report.

The update check

F4 opens the update page in your browser and compares your version against the latest GitHub release.
The startup check is silent when it can't reach GitHub — it never blocks startup. Turn it off in Options → Check for updates at startup.
If an in-app update download fails, you'll get a message; download manually from the releases page instead.
Close PSK Heard By before running an installer.

Log files

PSK Heard By writes plain-text logs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\PSKHeardBy\. Paste %LOCALAPPDATA%\PSKHeardBy into the File Explorer address bar or a Run box to open it.

File	Contains
`startup.log`	Version, OS, and start-up milestones from the last launch.
`fetch.log`	Each PSK Reporter request: URL, timing, and result or error.
`crash.log`	Written only if the app hit an unhandled error — type, message, and stack trace.
`PSKHeardBy.ini`	Your settings. Delete to reset to defaults.
`cache.json`	Cached location lookups. Safe to delete; it rebuilds.

Reporting a problem

Open an issue at github.com/Jimr9/PSKHeardBy/issues. Include your PSK Heard By version (the window title, or Alt+H), what you did, what happened, and the relevant lines from fetch.log or crash.log.