Plan from My station
Plan with live evidence and explicit assumptions
Open Map tools after setting a grid and choose Station path tools, Solar & geomagnetic, Regional propagation, or Satellites & sky. Planning layers explain a current geometric, observed, or modeled condition; none promises a workable path or permission to operate.
Path Planner
Set My station, then choose a target from a map point, Find on map, or a map click. Drag the target pin to correct where it sits, or focus it and use the arrow keys; a moved target becomes a chosen map point and stops carrying the station it came from. Path Planner keeps the target only for the current browser session and compares useful context without publishing your station.
Planning a trip, or comparing two or three candidate activation sites? Set a planning origin as well: pick a map point, or type the grid square you are heading for, and Path Planner, terrain clearance, and band reach calculate from there instead. It is kept for the current browser session only. Your saved station does not move with it, so APRS, target watches, beam headings, and everything else keyed to your grid stay where they are — and Use My station puts the planner back.
It can show current short- and long-path geometry, solar context, target-grid PSK Reporter/WSPR evidence, IARU/ITU region context, browser-local Moon/EME geometry, and active meteor-shower radiant elevation. Treat each part separately:
- Geometry is a calculation, not a usable-path claim.
- Radio reports are recent observations, not a forecast.
- IARU/ITU labels link advisory context; national and local rules control what is permitted.
- Moon and meteor information are planning context; a window two stations share is geometry, not an opening or a contact prediction.
Weak-signal sked
With a target set, Path Planner also works out what an EME or meteor-scatter sked with that station would involve: the upcoming stretches when the Moon is above both horizons at once, the best moment inside each one and how high the Moon sits for each station at that moment, a band-appropriate mode and sequence length, which station takes even periods, and — for an agreed dial frequency you type in — the reciprocal Doppler across the two-station path.
Every part of it is arithmetic done in your browser from two grid squares and a clock, worked out by scanning a lightweight lunar model every five minutes — so read the edges of a window as approximate rather than to the minute. It does not message the other station, reserve a frequency, or confirm anyone is listening, and a shared window above the horizon is geometry rather than a workable path: antennas, obstructions, power, polarization, and conditions all still decide whether the contact happens. Agree the schedule with the other operator, check both clocks, confirm the current band plan and what your license permits, and listen before transmitting.
More planning tools
Terrain Clearance
Select a ground point and set explicit antenna-height assumptions for supported 6 m, 2 m, or 70 cm work. It is a surface-model estimate, not coverage, equipment modeling, or access confirmation.
It works on paths from 0.5 km to 300 km; a point outside that reads Too far or Too close and nothing is calculated until you choose another. Not calculated means the elevation data did not come back for that path; Try again beside the path asks once more. Not offered on this dalMap means this copy does not calculate terrain at all.
Satellites & sky
Open Map tools → Satellites & sky for current calculated positions, tracks, footprints, and passes. Choose filters and review approximate AOS, peak, LOS, and Doppler guidance. A geometric position, pass, or footprint is not guaranteed access, audibility, or current transmitter status.
The pass list says when it was calculated and recalculates on its own before it stops covering the window you chose, so an empty list means no pass matched rather than that the calculation ran out. If orbital data has not arrived yet the planner says so and calculates as soon as it does; if a calculation fails, Recalculate asks again.
Moon & EME
Use approximate pointing, elevation, and orientation from your grid center. It describes your own sky, not a viable path; for the windows two stations share, set a target in Path Planner and read Weak-signal sked.
Beam headings and references
Use grid-center bearings, range rings, CQ/ITU/DXCC references, and Maidenhead boundaries as map context, not transmission authorization.
Azimuthal map
Open Map tools → Station path tools → Azimuthal map for the whole world drawn from your own square. Every bearing is a direction on screen and every distance is radial at one scale, so a beam heading is read straight off the page and the far side of the world is as true as the near side — which is what the main map, being Mercator, cannot show. It opens on your saved grid, and you can type a different square to see the world from somewhere you are not. The observed-reach wedges mark directions recent reports were actually heard in on the chosen band; they are evidence of paths that happened, not a forecast and not a claim that one is open now.
Time zones
Read the current offset and clock where a station is before you call. A boundary marks where civil time changes; it is not a claim about anyone's operating hours or willingness to be called.
Frequency Privileges
See where each United States amateur license class may transmit, drawn from eCFR 47 CFR 97.301 and 97.305. With a callsign in My station, your own row is marked. It is not a band plan, and it draws nothing for a non-US callsign — see its own references there instead.
Propagation context
Grayline and blackout, D-layer absorption, F-layer indicators, auroral context, NVIS, and tropo potential provide broad current or modeled context. Compare them with current activity, their source timestamps, and any caveat shown in the tool. They are not station-specific propagation forecasts, coverage claims, or a declaration that a frequency will or will not work.
A switched-on layer says under its name what evidence it is drawing on and how current that is; Read a layer status explains those wordings. Two of the three states are working ones — a layer reporting Older … is drawing on the most recent evidence it holds, not failing — and the Propagation panel on the map says what a fallback leaves out.