Quest: Ham geography

About

One of the great joys of ham radio is communicating with people in different places. There are multiple ways to divide up the globe into smaller chunks. In this quest, we’ll explore some of the ways hams have sliced up the global pie, geographically speaking. Each slice has its use in ham radio.

See https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/maps.php

ITU Regions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITU_Region

Figure 1: ITU region map from https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/regions.php
Your quest
  1. What’s your IT Region?

ITU Zones

Your quest
  1. What’s your IT Zone?

In some DX contests, hams exchange their ITU zone along with their callsigns and a signal report.

DX Entities

ARRL: http://www.arrl.org/country-lists-prefixes

https://www.ng3k.com/Dxcc/dxcc.html

CQ Zones

CQ Magazine zones map from https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/cqzone.php

Callsign areas

USA callsign areas from https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/usa_call_areas.php

ARRL divisions

ARRL divisions map from https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/arrl_divisions.php

ARRL/RAC sections

ARRL/RAC sections map from https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/sections_2.php

Summits on the Air

Some hams like to climb to the top of mountains and make contacts. The Summits on the Air (SOTA) program gives these adventurers a chance to get some exercise, enjoy some fantastic views, and make some QSOs.

Here is a link to the SOTAWatch3 spotting page:

https://sotawatch.sota.org.uk/en/

It shows the hams who have announced that they are active on a summit somewhere in the world.

Here is some information about the most popular summits (to hams): https://www.sotadata.org.uk/en/summits/top

Your quest
  1. Open a WebSDR, say the K3FEF system at http://websdr.k3fef.com.
  2. Open the SOTAWatch3 spotting page at https://sotawatch.sota.org.uk/en/.
  3. Tune the WebSDR to the frequency of one of the hams on the SOTAWatch3 page.
  4. Can you hear the station? They might be sending Morse code. But chances are if you hear dits and dahs you’re either hearing the station on the summit or someone trying to contact them.
  5. If you’re not having much success, check propagation from the location of your chosen SDR to the summit. Maybe the band isn’t open to that location.

Parks on the Air

Parks on the Air (POTA is similar to SOTA. According to the official website, there are more than 500,000 unique ham callsigns who have either activated a park or made contact with someone in a park.

Here is the POTA spotting page: https://pota.app/#/

And here is the POTA map page: https://pota.app/#/map

Your quest
  1. Open the POTA map page: https://pota.app/#/map
  2. What’s the closest POTA park to your location?
  3. Click on that park for more information. For example, the closest official park entity to me is US-9022. My friend Dean K3IWI was the first to activate it back in 2021, and it’s been activated 36 times.
  4. What are the comparable stats for the park closest to you?
  5. Look at the statistics for the activations. Which mode or modes are used most often?

Maidenhead Locator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System#:~:text=The%20Maidenhead%20Locator%20System%20(a.k.a.,was%20limited%20to%20European%20contacts

Maidenhead Locator Map.png
By User:Denelson83 - <a rel=“nofollow” class=“external free” href=“http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2433”>http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2433</a>, Public Domain, Link

https://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php?Call=K3CR

Latitude/Longitude

Warning

Under construction

Great Circle maps

Great circle map centered on Washington, DC from https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/great_circle/capital_cities/washington_usa_great_circle_map.php