BROADCASTS.com

b"What use is an F-call?\\n\\nEvery day Amateur Radio adds a little something to my life in fun and unexpected ways. I know that's a big call, but it's true.\\n\\nThis morning whilst preparing to participate in a contest I was looking for a map that shows which direction to point an antenna in order to have the best chance of your signal ending up where you intend.\\n\\nOver the past few years I've seen lots of maps around, but none of them really did what I wanted from them, namely be readable, helpful and contain specific Amateur Radio information.\\n\\nI've got a wonderful Ham Radio Map on my wall [hamradiomap.com] and it contains many useful bits of Amateur Radio Information. Soon it will have pins on it for every country I've contacted, but it doesn't contain things like beam headings, or ITU zones.\\n\\nSo, I googled my way around the 'net and found a great circle mapper. It is intended for flying, that is, you want to fly from this airport to that one, what heading and distance is that?\\n\\nFunnily enough, those two numbers are pretty useful for Amateur Radio too.\\n\\nNow I have a much better understanding on which way Europe is, what direction Dallas Texas is and on what heading I'll mange to contact Cape Town and why when I did, I made a QRP contact with Marion Island on the way.\\n\\nAmateur Radio, blows me away, every day.\\n\\nI'm Onno VK6FLAB"