DX Reminder Alarm Settings: Stop, Snooze, Interval, Sound

An alarm that rings at the wrong moment is as bad as one that does not ring at all. If it fires again and again for the same station while you are working it, you will switch it off and miss the next one. If it is too quiet or too easy to dismiss by accident, you will sleep through the rare callsign you have waited months for. The DX Reminder alarm settings give you control of exactly these things: how the alarm is stopped or postponed, how often the same station may ring again, what the alarm sounds like and what the app tells you when the phone itself holds the alarm back. This guide walks through the controls one by one, explains the thinking behind the defaults, and suggests combinations for three typical situations: a quiet night, a busy DXpedition weekend and a day at work.

One Alarm per Callsign, Band and Mode

The first thing to understand is how the app decides that an alarm is needed. When a rare station is on the air, dozens of spotters may report it within minutes. An app that rang for every report would be unusable. DX Reminder gives one alarm per callsign, band and mode, and it is the newest spot that is shown. So when 3Y0J appears on 20 metres FT8 and thirty people spot it, you get one alarm, with the latest frequency and spotter, and not thirty.

The unit of this rule is the combination. A callsign on 20 metres CW and the same callsign on 17 metres FT8 are two different combinations, and each can ring on its own. The band and the mode are kept apart throughout the app, and CW means real CW only, so a digital signal near the CW part of the band does not trigger a CW reminder. The table of reminders where you tick the combinations you want is explained in the article on automating DX spot alerts. The smarter the table, the fewer alarms you need to manage.

The Repeat Interval

After the first alarm for a combination, you decide how soon the same combination may ring again. The choices are on every new spot, or every 1, 5, 10, 30 or 60 minutes. The setting applies to that one callsign, band and mode: any other combination still rings at once. This is a design choice with a purpose. A station that stays on one frequency for an hour will be spotted again and again, and you do not need to be told each time, while a station that moves to a new band is a new event and deserves a new alarm at once.

A practical way to choose is to think about what you will do after the first alarm. If you will walk to the radio and work the station, you will not need another alarm for it; a long interval of 30 or 60 minutes keeps the phone quiet. If you chase a mobile or portable station that moves often, a short interval of 1 to 5 minutes tells you when it has reappeared. If you set “on every new spot”, you will hear every report, which suits a very rare DXCC entity on the first day, when each spot may tell you something new, such as a change of frequency.

Stop and Snooze Without Opening the App

When the alarm rings, you often want to deal with it in a second. The notification carries Stop and Snooze as buttons, visible without expanding it, so you can silence the alarm at once from the lock screen or the notification shade. You can also stop, snooze or delete straight from the notification. Closing the full-screen alarm with the Back button stops it too, which is what most people do by instinct. Snooze postpones the alarm for a while, which is useful when you hear it but cannot reach the radio for a few minutes, for example on a bus or in a meeting.

The alarm screen itself is built to be usable in a hurry. In an early version a long callsign could push the Stop button out of sight just when the alarm was ringing, and the fix was to make the screen scroll and lay the button out so that it is always reachable. The title screen also scrolls when the phone is turned sideways, so that “Enter the app” is never hidden below the edge. These details matter at three in the morning, when you open one eye and need a button you can find.

Your Own Alarm Sound

Since version 4.2 of the Android app you are no longer limited to the default alarm tone of the phone. In the settings you can choose one of the system alarm sounds, or any music file on the phone. Many operators pick something distinctive, a short clip of a CW call or a tone that they never hear from other apps, so that they recognise the DX alarm instantly and do not confuse it with the morning clock. If the file you choose is later deleted, the system sound comes back instead of the alarm falling silent, so a tidy-up of the music folder cannot silence a DX alarm.

The alarm uses the alarm channel of the phone and wakes a locked screen, and on the desktop it keeps running from the tray. That is why it can sound even when the ringer is set to silent. The article on ham radio apps for your phone mentions the alerting apps among the useful ones, and the volume of the alarm channel is a separate setting from the media volume, so check it once.

What the Warnings Mean

The app also checks the things that can silently disable it. If notifications are turned off for the app, it warns you: before this warning existed, the app kept watching and alarming with nothing to show for it. Android 14 and later give full-screen alarms only to apps that they treat as alarm clocks, and battery saving can pause the watching; neither of them says so by itself. Settings now check both and lead straight to the correct system screen, so you do not have to hunt through the menus. If the app asks for Alarms and reminders, allow it, because otherwise the checks can be delayed by the system.

These warnings are worth a minute of your attention on the day you install the app, and again after a major update of the operating system, which sometimes resets the permissions. A test alarm for a callsign that is active right now confirms that the whole chain works from the cluster to the loudspeaker. For the status of the sources that feed the alarms, see the article on PSK Reporter.

A Spot Is Shown With Its Spotter

The alarm notification shows the frequency and the mode of the station, and from version 4.2 also the spotter and the source, travelling with the notification itself. This is not a cosmetic detail. The spotter tells you how far away the report came from, which hints at whether the signal can reach you, and the source tells you whether it is a human report or an automatic one. On a paired watch, the buttons of the notification are drawn by the app, and a watch skips that drawing, which used to leave only the frequency and the mode; with the spotter and the source inside the notification, the watch shows them too.

Switching a Combination Off Without Losing It

A related setting concerns the table of bands and modes. In version 4.4 of the Android app, unticking a combination in the edit window no longer deletes it. Previously, it removed the frequency and the tolerance that you had set for it. Now it is only switched off, so turning it back on brings the frequency back. That helps with alarm management: if a combination rings too often, you can switch it off for the evening and switch it on tomorrow without entering the numbers again.

Testing and Living With the Alarm

The only way to trust an alarm is to hear it work. After you change the sound, the interval or the permissions, add a callsign that is certainly on the air right now, on a band and mode where it is being spotted, and wait for the alarm. Check four things: that the sound is the one you chose and loud enough, that Stop silences it at once, that Snooze brings it back after the delay and that the notification arrives on the lock screen. Then delete the test reminder. This takes a few minutes and spares you the disappointment of discovering a permission problem during the night when the station you want finally appears.

Living with an alarm means respecting the people around you. If you share a bedroom, consider a quieter sound and a vibrating watch for the night, or limit the tick marks to your single most wanted callsign. If you work in an office, switch off the sound and rely on a visible notification during meetings. The point of the tool is to free your attention, and a setup that wakes the household or annoys colleagues will not survive for long. Many operators keep two profiles in mind, a loud one for the evenings and weekends when they are at the radio, and a gentle one for the rest of the time, and change the interval and the sound accordingly.

Why the Defaults Err on the Side of Waking You

A reminder app that is too polite fails at its only job. The choices described above lean towards making sure that you notice a wanted station: the alarm uses a channel that sounds even on a silent phone, it wakes the locked screen, and the same combination is allowed to ring again after a limited time instead of never. It is better to receive one alarm too many for a station that you already have than to miss the single appearance of a new country, and the interval setting lets you tune the balance to your own taste.

Three Settings for Three Situations

For a quiet night, choose a long interval of 60 minutes for the ordinary reminders, keep only your most wanted callsign and the bands where it is likely, pick a clear alarm sound and check that the alarm volume is high. For a DXpedition weekend, set the interval to 5 or 10 minutes for the expedition’s callsign, tick every band and mode you still need, and expect several alarms, because the station will change bands. For a day at work, use Snooze when you cannot answer at once, and keep the phone on a table with the notification buttons visible. The planning side of a chase is covered in the article on how to work a DXpedition.

The Bottom Line

The DX Reminder alarm settings give one alarm per callsign, band and mode, with the newest spot shown, and let you choose how soon the same combination may ring again, from every new spot to every 60 minutes. Stop and Snooze are buttons on the notification, closing the alarm screen with Back stops it, and since version 4.2 you can use your own alarm sound, with a fall-back to the system sound if the file disappears. The app warns you when notifications are off or when the phone is holding the alarm back, and a combination can be switched off without losing its frequency.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I get only one alarm for a busy station?

The app gives one alarm per callsign, band and mode, for the newest spot, even if many spotters report the same appearance.

What are the repeat interval choices?

The same combination may ring again on every new spot, or every 1, 5, 10, 30 or 60 minutes. Other combinations still ring at once.

Can I stop the alarm without opening the app?

Yes. Stop and Snooze are buttons on the notification, and closing the full-screen alarm with Back also stops it.

Can I use my own sound as the alarm?

Yes, since version 4.2 on Android: choose a system alarm sound or any music file. If the file is deleted, the system sound is used.

What does the warning about notifications mean?

Notifications are switched off for the app, so alarms cannot appear. Turn them on in the system settings.

Does switching off a combination delete its frequency?

No. Since version 4.4 it is only switched off, and turning it back on restores the frequency and tolerance.