Groups And Clubs

Groups And Clubs

A group on QSL Shack is a club, a net, or any other standing gathering of operators. The directory is at Community, then Groups & Clubs, and nets have their own entrance at Nets Board, which is the same directory filtered to on-air nets.

Every group is one of five kinds: Ham Radio Club, On-Air Net, Special Interest Group, Online Group or Other.

Every group is also either Public, which anybody may join on the spot, or Private, which means the owner approves each member.

Many club pages exist before anybody from the club has arrived. Those pages are unclaimed, and claiming one is covered on Claiming A Club Page.

How To Find A Group

1. Go to Community, then Groups & Clubs.
2. Use All Groups to browse everything, My Groups for the ones you belong to, or Local to put the nearest groups first. Local sorts, it does not filter: groups in your own city lead, then your state or region, then your country and online groups, then everywhere else.
3. Search by name or callsign, filter by kind or by state, or jump by first letter.

The directory lists 50 groups to a page.

How To Join A Group

1. Open the group.
2. Press Join Group on a public group. You are a member immediately.
3. Press Request to Join on a private group. The owner is notified and the button then reads Request Pending until they answer.

An unclaimed club is a third case. Joining one approves you provisionally and tells you so. When somebody claims that club, your membership goes back to pending and the new owner approves it, so a provisional membership is a place in the queue rather than a settled one.

Press Leave on a group you no longer want to be part of. The owner is the one member who cannot leave: transfer the club to somebody else first, or delete it.

A Club's Tabs

Every club page has up to three tabs.

Info holds the club's details, and its map when it has a grid square.

Feed is the club's own conversation. Only approved members can open it; anybody else sees the tab locked until they join. A member who opens the club lands on Feed.

Members lists everyone in the club: the owner first, then the Managers, then the members, each group A to Z.

An unclaimed club has no Feed tab. Its feed opens once the club is claimed, so that somebody is there to look after it.

The Club Feed

A club's feed works like the main feed, with four differences.

What is posted in a club stays in that club. A club post never appears on the main feed, on a member's profile, or in another club.

There is no audience to choose. A post in the club feed is seen by the club's approved members and nobody else.

Tags reach club members only. Tagging a member of the club tells them, as it does on the main feed. Tagging anybody else tells them nothing and does not let them see the post.

The owner and Managers moderate. They can delete any post, comment or reply in their own club's feed. That reaches no further than their club.

Sharing A Post With Your Clubs

When you post on the main feed and you belong to a club with a feed, QSL Shack asks Also share this post with your clubs?

1. Tick the clubs you want.
2. Press Share, or press No thanks to leave the post on the main feed only.

Each club gets its own copy, with its own comments. Comments on one copy never appear on another copy or on the main feed, and deleting one copy leaves the others in place.

A post written inside a club's feed is not offered for sharing. It stays in that club.

How To Create A Group

1. Go to Community, then Groups & Clubs, and press the button to add one.
2. This club or group has a callsign is ticked when the form opens. Leave it ticked if the group holds one, enter the club callsign and press the search button beside it: QSL Shack reads the FCC record and fills in the name, address, city, state, ZIP and grid square for you. Clear the tick if the group has no callsign and the callsign field goes away.
3. Check the name and choose the kind.
4. Choose Public or Private.
5. Fill in what applies: description, country, city, state or region, website, address, ZIP, grid square, meeting schedule and meeting location. Every one of these is yours to type whether the lookup filled it or not, so a group with no callsign says where it is the same way.
6. A net or a repeater club can carry its frequency, tone and offset.
7. Add a picture if you have one. JPG or PNG, under 5 MB.
8. Create it.

You are the owner, and the group is claimed from the moment you create it.

The grid square is what places the map pin. A group with no grid square has no map on its page, whatever else it carries.

A callsign may belong to one group on QSL Shack. If the one you enter already belongs to another group, the form says which group holds it and nothing is saved until you change it.

How To Run A Group You Own

Open the group and go to the Members tab. Every member can see the list there; only the owner and Managers see the waiting requests and the buttons.

Approve or decline a request. Waiting requests are listed above the members, with Approve and Decline beside each one. The owner and Managers can both answer them.

Give somebody manager access. Press Make manager beside an approved member, and Revoke manager to take it back. Only the owner can do this, and you cannot change your own access.

Remove a member. Press Remove. The owner and Managers can remove members, but only the owner can remove a Manager, and the owner cannot be removed. To leave yourself, use Leave.

Transfer ownership. Press Make owner beside an approved member. You stay in the group as an ordinary member, and you cannot undo the transfer yourself.

Moderate the feed. The owner and Managers can delete any post, comment or reply in the club's feed from that item's own menu.

If your club has a callsign on file, the edit page can pull the club's details from the FCC record. The lookup refuses an individual license, so it cannot quietly overwrite a club page with one operator's details.

What To Watch For

A club callsign is unique across QSL Shack. If the callsign you are entering is already on another page, that page is probably the club you are looking for.

Local sorts rather than filters. The tab lists every group, nearest first, reading the city, state and country on your account. Filling those in sharpens the order; leaving them blank costs you the order, not the listing.

A group's kind decides where it is listed. A net posted as a Special Interest Group does not appear on the Nets Board.