Support
Something on the map is not behaving
This page covers what dalMap itself says when something is wrong, and what its shorter messages actually mean. The rest of the route — how to narrow a message that covers several situations, the four kinds a problem turns out to be, and what to do about each — is shared with dalDesk and dalSDR, and lives on one page rather than three.
Nothing to prepare before you open it. The one thing worth doing is copying a message as it is written, if there is one, so you have it ready.
That page also carries the option of having an AI assistant ask you the questions instead of reading them, and what to expect from one — some follow the instructions published for them, and some will not say plainly that they are not going to, which is why it is offered rather than promised. It is also where the rules an assistant works under live: what it may and may not do with what you tell it, including what never to paste and what it is not allowed to guess about.
Where dalMap says something is wrong
Under a layer name
In Map tools, a layer reports its own state where its description usually sits, and the wording names which state that is — waiting, not answering, not carried here, or delivering without one of its sources. A propagation layer reports what it is drawing on instead, and two of the three things it can say are working states rather than faults. Read a layer status explains each.
In My station
Callsign lookup, device location, and grid override each say what happened and what to do next — allow location, enter a grid instead, try again later.
In a marker's details
A single field can read Unavailable, Date unavailable, Time unavailable, or Frequency unavailable. The report arrived; that field was not in it.
Messages that look like faults and are not
Each of these is dalMap stating where it stands rather than failing at something. Recognizing one saves you looking for a cause that is not there.
Not offered on this dalMap under a layer means this copy does not carry that source at all. It is not late, not broken, and not something waiting or retrying will change. Source not answering on the next row is the one that means what it sounds like.
Unavailable in a marker’s details is about that report, not about dalMap. Reports arrive with the fields their source chose to send; a missing time or frequency is the source being incomplete, and retrying will not add it.
No longer recent and This activity is no longer live are not failures at all. They are the map keeping its promise about freshness: what you are looking at was true when it was reported and is now old enough that dalMap will not present it as current.
A grayline layer with no blackout shading means dalMap could not reach NOAA for the current radio-blackout scale. The grayline geometry is calculated here and stays correct without it, so the layer keeps working and simply carries less context than usual.
The fuller space-weather picture — NOAA scales, indices, X-ray flux, solar wind, the Kp forecast, both outlooks, recent bulletins, and the daily Solar Region Summary, each with its own current, stale, or unavailable state named beside it — is on dalMap’s own Space weather page .
What dalMap cannot tell you, however it is behaving
These are not faults, and an assistant that offers you an answer to one of them is guessing. dalMap reports what sources sent and what it calculated from stated inputs. It does not establish that a station can hear you, that a band is open for you specifically, that an operator is at their radio, that a repeater is working, or that a path will carry a contact. Sources and limits says which kind of context each layer is, which is usually the difference between a quiet map and a broken one.
An empty map is often a correct map. If no layer is switched on, nothing is drawn; if the sources you chose have nothing recent near your grid, that is the honest answer rather than a failure to report.
If it turns out to be ours
Open Map tools, scroll to the end of the panel, and use Share feedback. What makes a report worth reading is the exact message, what you were doing immediately before, what you expected instead, and roughly when. A theory about the cause is welcome beside that rather than in place of it, because what you saw is the part nobody else can supply. Leave out anything the instructions tell you to keep: your exact position and another operator’s details.
Ask an AI assistant to help
If you already use a chat assistant — in your phone, browser, search engine, or office software — and would rather be asked the questions than read them, it can work through this with you. The instructions it follows are published, and nothing on them is kept from you.
Give it that address and ask it to read and follow it, rather than pasting the link on its own. Not every assistant will, and one that will not may not say so plainly — one that has read the instructions asks you what happened before it answers anything. If yours does not, this page is still here and you have lost a minute.