This dashboard answers a practical question for your station: which HF bands are likely usable right now, and to where. It shows that two ways side by side, a physics forecast and what stations are actually being heard from your area this hour. It never blends the two into a single guess; it shows you both and tells you whether they agree.
Everything is computed for your location, so the first thing the site asks for is where you are. Tap the 📍 location chip in the header and either:
Your choice is stored in your browser only (nothing is sent to an account) and remembered next time. You can change it whenever you travel. The forecast refreshes automatically every few minutes; the header shows a countdown and a Refresh button for an immediate update.
Once set, the location chip also names the country your point falls in, for example "IO91wm · England". This is worked out on the server from a public-domain map of borders; your coordinates are not sent to any outside service. A point right on a coastline or border can occasionally come out blank or just the wrong side of a line, which does not affect the forecast itself.
The footer shows a small "online now" figure. That is how many people currently have the site open, not how many stations are on the air (the Activity and Map pages show real on-air stations). It is a live count that resets over time and stores nothing about you.
Every band, for every distance range, shows two independent numbers on a 0–10 scale:
A band is rarely "open" or "closed" everywhere at once; it depends how far you're trying to reach. The forecast is broken into four ranges (great-circle distance from you), plus an Overall summary that picks the best of them:
| Range | Distance | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Local | 0–500 km | Near neighbours, NVIS, groundwave |
| Regional | 500–1500 km | Across a country, into neighbouring nations |
| Continental | 1500–3000 km | Continent-wide, one long hop |
| DX | 3000 km + | Intercontinental, long-haul |
The same band can be Closed locally but Open for DX (a "skip zone"), or the reverse. Use the Target control to focus on the range you care about.
In Detail view each band card shows, for the chosen Target range:
When the Target is set to Overall, each Detail and Summary card also carries a small strip of four bars along the bottom, one per distance range (Local, Regional, Continental, DX). Each bar is coloured by the Predicted verdict for that range, so you can see the whole distance gradient at a glance without changing the Target: a band that reads Fair overall might in fact be closed locally and only open for DX. A small caret marks the range that is driving the Overall headline. Hover or tap a bar for its Predicted and Observed numbers.
Summary view distils that to a headline; hover (or tap) any Summary card to pop up the same full Detail breakdown for that band. Matrix view compresses it to a single coloured cell per band × range. In every view the rule is the same: cell/pill colour = Predicted, the mark = Observed.
The small mark beside each band tells you how the live evidence compares to the forecast:
When a short-range opening is better explained by a special mode, the indicator is replaced by a named badge:
The row of tiles at the top is the space-weather and ionospheric picture for your location. Their colour shows how favourable each is for the higher bands and DX (green good → red poor). Tap the ⓘ on any tile for a plain-English explanation.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Location (header chip) | Sets the QTH everything is computed for. Geolocate, grid, or lat/lon. Remembered in your browser. |
| View | Switches between Detail, Summary and Matrix layouts (below). Your choice is remembered. |
| Target | Which distance range to headline (Overall / Local / Regional / Continental / DX). Hidden in Matrix, which shows all ranges at once. |
| Modes | Which kind of operating to reflect: Any, Weak-signal (WSPR/FT8/FT4), or CW/SSB (traditional, human-operated). It sets the observed side and, on the low bands, the predicted side too. See the note below. |
| Show | Show all bands, or hide the ones predicted Closed to reduce clutter. |
| Band | Focus on a single band; the card area then breaks that band out across all four ranges. |
| Theme | Dark, Light, or Auto (follows your device). |
The Observations chip summarises the live evidence behind the current view: which networks contributed, the mode filter in force, the catchment radius being used, and whether there was enough data to be confident.
The site picks a sensible default for your screen width, but once you choose a view it remembers it.
The Activity page answers a different question from the forecast: not "is the band open for me?" but "what's on the air right now?" It's a live, browsable picture of worldwide (or local) band activity, drawn from the same spot networks.
Stations are grouped into country cards, sorted into three intensity tiers by how many bands that country is active on:
Each card shows the country, how many distinct callsigns, and a band chip for every band it's active on (with the call count). Tap a band chip to see just that band's recent spots; tap the country to see all bands. The card border colour matches the tier.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Area | Global (worldwide), or My area (activity within ~1000 km of your location). Defaults to My area once a location is set. |
| View | Stations heard (the active transmitters) or Who's hearing (the receivers). |
| Modes | The same Any / Weak-signal / CW-SSB filter as the forecast, so CW/SSB here shows genuine human voice/CW activity. |
| Window | How far back to look (5–60 minutes). |
It refreshes every few minutes. Think of it as the live companion to the forecast: the forecast says what should be open for you; Activity shows what's actually happening out there.
Where the voice activity comes from. SSB and CW spots are posted by real operators via the worldwide DX cluster network; we connect through several nodes for reliability (primarily GB7MBC in Morecambe, with a few fallbacks). It's the only source that hears voice, so it's genuinely valuable, but bear in mind operators tend to spot DX and rarer stations rather than everyday local contacts, so it leans toward the interesting end and isn't a full census of the band. That's why it appears here on Activity as a sign of what's about, rather than feeding the forecast's scores.
The Map page shows the same live activity as a picture, on a great-circle map centred on your location. It's the spatial companion to Activity: where Activity lists who's on the air, the Map shows where they are relative to you.
The projection (azimuthal-equidistant) is the classic ham "beam-heading" map: a straight line from the centre to any point is the true bearing to aim an antenna, and distance from the centre is true ground distance. North is up; the rings are great-circle distance every 2,500 km, and the edge of the disc is the antipode (~20,000 km away).
Two real things are drawn on it, and nothing is predicted here.
Pick a band to cut through the clutter, choose View (Both / Stations heard / Who's hearing), Modes and the time Window. Scroll or the + / − buttons zoom (toward the cursor), drag to pan, and ⤢ resets the view. The map refreshes itself every few minutes, so it's happy left running on a screen.
The Status page is a live, read-only view of the data feeding the site: the latest space-weather figures, the ionosonde stations in use, and how many spots each network is contributing. If a forecast looks off, the Status page shows whether a data source has gone quiet.
For the physics and algorithms behind every number, see How it works.