Getting Help¶
The Tab5 carries its own help. There is no app to install, no QR code to scan and no network needed: this entire manual is built into the firmware, so it works on the very first boot, in a field with no signal, with no microSD card fitted.
There are three ways in, and they are all one tap from wherever you are.
| Way in | Where | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| User Manual | Settings drawer, top button | You want to read about what you are looking at |
| Need guidance? | Settings drawer, directly below it | Something is wrong and you do not know what it is called |
| Tap the warning | On the warning itself | The Tab5 has just told you something is wrong |
To reach the drawer, swipe in from the right edge of the screen.
And from a browser. If the Tab5 is on WiFi, the web page's Help ? button opens the same symptom list and the same manual, served by the Tab5 itself - so it needs no internet either, and it cannot show you a different version than the one your radio is running. See Web UI.
The manual opens where you are¶
The User Manual button does not drop you at a contents page to hunt through. It looks at what is on screen and opens the chapter that covers it:
| You are on | It opens |
|---|---|
| Panadapter | The panadapter chapter, at the screen layout |
| FT8 or FT4, receiving | The FT8 receive chapter, at the decode list |
| FT8 or FT4, with a transmission armed or running | The FT8 transmit chapter |
The transmit case is deliberate: someone mid-transmission is asking a different question from someone watching the decode list, and the device already knows which of the two you are.
Once you are in the manual you can go anywhere:
- Contents lists every chapter in two columns. Press and slide your finger down the list — a highlight bar follows your finger, and lifting opens the highlighted chapter.
- Back returns to the previous page you were reading. It only appears when there is somewhere to go back to.
- Exit leaves the manual and returns you to the panadapter or FT8 screen you came from.
While the manual is open, the edge swipes and top-bar taps are stood down, so a stray touch cannot navigate the radio out from under you. Exit puts them back.
If a newer firmware version is available, a banner appears at the top of the manual. It is informational only — flashing is always your choice.
"Need guidance?" — describe the symptom, not the cause¶
The second drawer button opens a short list headed "What do you need help with?". Every row is written the way you would say it out loud:
My radio is not showing up
Nothing appears in the decode list
It never transmits
Decodes look late, or the timer is off
The spectrum is flat - no signals
Where are my contacts logged?
Pick the one that fits and it opens the manual at the section that answers it. You never have to know that "my radio is not showing up" is a CAT link problem, or which chapter the CAT link lives in.
The list holds questions as well as faults — how to change what your CQ says, how to zoom the spectrum, what the coloured callsigns on the trace are, where your contacts are logged. It scrolls, so keep going past the first few rows.
Rows that are happening right now are highlighted and moved to the top, with a warning triangle. The Tab5 can see four things for itself:
| Highlighted row | What the device checked |
|---|---|
| My radio is not showing up | No CAT link to the QMX |
| The spectrum looks mirrored or shifted | The QMX never confirmed IQ mode |
| Nothing appears in the decode list | FT8/FT4 running, radio present, nothing decoded |
| I cannot reach the web page | WiFi is switched on but not connected |
WiFi deliberately switched off — for POTA, or to save battery — is not reported as a fault. The row stays in the list as a normal question; it just is not flagged.
It ranks, you choose. A highlighted row is a suggestion, never an instruction, and the Tab5 will never jump you into a chapter because it thinks it knows what you meant. If the highlighted row is not your problem, ignore it and pick another.
The rows offered depend on the screen you opened the panel from. In FT8 you will not be asked about the spectrum, because there is no spectrum drawn there.
At the bottom, Open the manual takes you to the manual itself if none of the rows fit, and Close (or a tap outside the panel) puts you back exactly where you were.
Look it up: the A-Z index¶
If you already know the word you want, the contents list is the wrong shape for the question. The button at the bottom of the Need guidance? panel reads Look it up (A-Z), and the A-Z button in the manual's own header does the same thing.
It opens a grid of letters; tap one and you get that letter's terms. Drag your finger down the list and lift on the one you want, the same gesture the contents list uses. Terms are filed under the word you would look for rather than any numbering in the chapter, so "6. Tap to Reply" is under T.
Only letters that actually have entries are offered - a dead letter is a promise the index cannot keep.
Warnings you can tap¶
A warning you cannot act on is only half a warning, so the two that matter are buttons:
- The red IQ-mode banner across the top of the screen — "QMX IQ mode not confirmed - spectrum may be mirrored/shifted". Tap it and the manual opens at the section on exactly that. (It only spans the top of the screen while the warning is up, so it cannot swallow taps the rest of the time.)
- "Waiting for QMX" — the message shown before the radio is found carries a small Need help? button under it. It says help rather than what is wrong on purpose: a QMX that is switched off is often switched off deliberately, and you may simply be reading the manual while you set up.
If the help itself misbehaves¶
Hold the drawer's User Manual button for 3 seconds. That resets the reader. The manual itself is untouched — it is part of the firmware and cannot be deleted, corrupted or left out of date, because it ships inside the same binary as the code it describes. It also cannot describe a different version than the one you are running.
If a chapter does not answer your question, the fault is ours. Say so on the QRPLabs Groups.io thread or GitHub Issues — the wording of these rows and chapters is written from what operators actually report, so a "this made no sense to me" is genuinely useful.
For a fault that needs looking into, the diagnostic log is always on — see Collecting Diagnostics.
Next: Quick Start if you are setting up, or Troubleshooting for the full symptom list.