Solar Data
Solar Data Legend
Measures solar radio noise. 70 is low, 150+ is excellent for HF propagation.
Geomagnetic activity. < 10 is quiet,> 30 is active/unstable.
Quasi-logarithmic measure of activity. 0-2 is quiet, 5+ is a storm.
Number of sunspots. Higher counts correlate with better ionization.
Solar Wind Speed
24h timeline of solar wind plasma speed from NOAA DSCOVR/ACE satellite. High-speed streams compress Earth's magnetosphere and drive geomagnetic storms.
Background bands show conditions:
Slow < 400 |
Nom 400–500 |
Elev 500–700 |
High > 700 km/s
Sustained speeds above 500 km/s often trigger G-scale geomagnetic storms, degrading HF propagation — especially at high latitudes.
Space Wx
NOAA Space Weather Scales
Caused by X-ray emissions. Affects HF radio propagation on sunlit side.
Caused by proton events. Affects HF radio in polar regions.
Caused by CME/Solar Wind. Affects HF globally, can cause aurora.
0: None, 1: Minor, 2: Moderate, 3: Strong, 4: Severe, 5: Extreme
GOES X-Ray Flux
24h timeline of solar X-ray flux from GOES satellite (0.1–0.8 nm long channel). Rising flux indicates a solar flare in progress.
Background bands show classification thresholds:
B < 10⁻⁶ |
C 10⁻⁶–10⁻⁵ |
M 10⁻⁵–10⁻⁴ |
X > 10⁻⁴ W/m²
Current classification and sub-level. M/X flares cause HF blackouts within minutes — watch for rapid rises.
Map Control
Map Overlay Guide
Real-time calculation of the highest frequency for a 3000km hop. Essential for identifying DX openings on 10m-20m bands.
The highest frequency at which a signal is reflected vertically. Key for NVIS and local regional communication on 40m-160m.
High-fidelity VOACAP model using your custom Power, Mode, and Antenna. Simulates real-world signal probability at your location.
D-Region Absorption Map. Visualizes HF signal attenuation caused by solar X-ray flares and proton events.
Real-time visualization of the Auroral Oval. Indicates where trans-polar paths may be blocked or enhanced by scatter. The Aurora pill shows the global peak probability; a trailing ↑ (amber G1–G2 / red G3+) warns a geomagnetic storm is forecast within 24h.
Magenta heat of where signals are actually being heard right now, from the live PSK Reporter firehose — brighter means busier. Real observed activity, separate from the predicted coverage maps. Use the 🌐/📍 scope toggle in the widget header (left of the collapse arrow) for worldwide vs your local footprint.
Tap any heading below to expand it. Everything is also tweakable in Settings (the ⚙️ icon top-right of the DE widget).
Welcome — what this is
This is a real-time HF propagation dashboard. The map shows where bands are open right now, with colored overlays for MUF, foF2, aurora, and DRAP, plus dots for stations being heard worldwide. Each widget below the map is one data domain — tap a heading here to see what it does.
Your station — the DE widget
Top widget. Set your callsign and grid square in Settings → Station.
- Callsign + grid — identity. Used for distance/bearing math when you drop a DX pin.
- UTC + local time — synced to the server clock.
- Weather — current conditions at your grid.
- Icons: ⚙️ Settings · ℹ️ About · ❓ Help (this) · ☕ Support hosting.
The map
- 2D ↔ 3D globe — toggle with the 🌐 button on the map. Globe view rotates and supports a "follow the Sun" auto-spin.
- Globe rotation — play/pause with ▶/⏸. Speed slider in Settings → Map & Overlays.
- Overlays — MUF, foF2, DRAP, aurora, VOACAP. Stack and toggle from the Map Control widget.
- DX Pin — right-click (desktop) or long-press (mobile) anywhere to drop a pin. The pin's grid, distance, and bearing show in the chrome bar, and a hot-pink great-circle line is drawn from your DE to the pin. Right-click the pin to clear.
- Set DE Pin — right-click and choose "Set DE Pin" to move your station's grid to that location. Also editable in Settings → Station.
- Fullscreen — the ⤢ button bottom-corner of the map hides everything but the map. Tap again to restore.
Navigation:
- Drag — pan
- Scroll / pinch — zoom
- Dbl-click — zoom in · Shift+Dbl-click — zoom out
- ←↑↓→ — pan · +/− — zoom
- Globe only: Right-drag or Ctrl+drag — rotate & tilt · Shift+←↑↓→ — rotate / pitch
- Mercator only: Shift+Drag — box zoom to area
Map Control widget
The hub for everything that draws on the map: a header scope toggle, feature toggles, and propagation overlay pills.
Header — 🌐/📍 PSK Heat scope (left of the collapse arrow): switches the PSK Heat overlay between your local footprint (📍 pin, DE-centric) and worldwide activity (🌐 globe).
Feature toggles — tap an icon to show/hide:
- 🛰️ Satellites — ham satellites (ISS, AO-91, SO-50, etc.) with footprint circles and forward ground tracks. Direction-of-travel arrows along each track. Configure which sats are tracked, colors, opacity, and # of orbits in Settings → Satellites.
- 👥 Online User Spots — violet pins marking other operators currently using PropDeck, placed at their grid and labelled with callsign. Click a pin for callsign + grid. Off by default. You show as the cyan DE pin, so you're never duplicated. Heads-up: while you're online with a callsign + grid set, you appear on other users' maps too — live presence, PSK Reporter-style.
- 🔄 Single / Auto rotation — show one fixed overlay, or auto-cycle through the enabled overlays at a configurable interval (set in Settings → Map & Overlays). Useful for unattended monitoring.
Propagation overlay pills:
- Aurora — OVATION auroral oval forecast (NOAA). Bright zones predict polar HF absorption / VHF aurora propagation.
- DRAP — D-Region Absorption Prediction (NOAA). Solar X-ray flares attenuate HF on the sunlit side; this overlays the affected band.
- foF2 — F2-layer critical frequency. The highest frequency reflected vertically; rough proxy for "how high a band the ionosphere can support."
- MUF — Maximum Usable Frequency for ~3000 km hops. Color-coded by frequency.
- VCAP — Personalized VOACAP path coverage from your DE grid. Shows where you can work / be heard at a chosen band, time, and antenna setup. Configure ground type, antenna, noise, and reliability in Settings → VCAP. Reliability comes from PropDeck's refined-physics engine — probabilistic reliability + ITU-R P.372 noise.
- PSK Heat — live magenta heat of where signals are actually being heard right now, from the PSK Reporter firehose — brighter means busier. Real observed activity, separate from the predicted overlays. Use the 🌐/📍 toggle in the widget header for local-vs-worldwide scope.
- Band pills (10/12/15/17/20/30/40/60/80m) — only one is active at a time when VCAP / DRAP is on. Selecting a band re-renders the overlay for that frequency.
Aurora pill — forecast arrow: the Aurora pill shows the current global peak aurora probability (OVATION nowcast). A trailing ↑ means a geomagnetic storm is forecast within 24h and climbing — amber for G1–G2, red for G3+ (from the same NOAA G-scale that drives Space Wx). OVATION is a nowcast, so the arrow is your early warning before the % itself reacts.
Overlay opacity lives in Settings → Map & Overlays: a single Overlay (heatmap) + Contour (lines) opacity shared by the foF2 / MUF-RT / VCAP overlays, plus a combined Aurora/DRAP slider and a Satellite slider, and the overlay-rotation interval. VCAP's modelling params (ground / antenna / noise / reliability) are under Settings → VCAP.
Globe decorations (Settings → Map & Overlays): the day/night terminator line — a solid line on the sunrise/sunset boundary — and the Search Area ring around your DE. Both share one line color and opacity; each has its own on/off toggle. (The soft day/night shading on the globe is always on.)
Solar data
Refreshed from NOAA every 10 minutes. Trend arrows (▲ ▼ ━) compare to 24h ago; arrow color shows whether the change helps or hurts propagation.
- SFI (Solar Flux Index) — overall activity. Higher is better. >100 good, 70–100 moderate, <70 poor.
- A-Index — geomagnetic activity over 24h. Lower is better. <10 quiet, >20 stormy.
- K-Index — short-term geomagnetic disturbance. <3 quiet, >5 active (polar paths affected first).
- Sunspots — daily count. Colored on the same scale as SFI: >50 good, >10 moderate, ≤10 low.
- Solar wind chart — speed and density from ACE/DSCOVR; advance warning of incoming geomagnetic activity.
Space weather (R / S / G)
NOAA's three-letter scales for current and forecast severity (0–5):
- R — Radio Blackouts caused by X-ray flares.
- S — Solar Radiation storms (energetic protons).
- G — Geomagnetic storms.
The X-Ray Flux chart tracks GOES-16 X-ray output in real time. Spikes into M-class or X-class signal a flare in progress — expect HF blackouts on the sunlit side of Earth.
Band conditions
For each amateur band, two independent signals:
- Pred — a model-based forecast of conditions at your location. Green = good, yellow = fair, red = poor. A small Es tag means the verdict was lifted by live Sporadic-E detected near you — the brief, hard-to-predict 6/10/12m openings a forecast can't anticipate.
- Active — live activity: a per-band count of recent local spots, using the same data as the PSK Local/DE slot (the ring on the map). The number tints brighter the busier the band is. It's observed reality, where Pred is the forecast — so they won't always agree.
Set the local radius and min-SNR under Settings → PSK Spots (Local/DE slot). Choose which bands appear under Settings → Conditions. The FT8 and FT4 columns count recent local spots per mode.
PSK Reporter spots
Real-time MQTT feed of stations being heard worldwide. Spots are drawn as paths on the map.
- Filter by mode (FT8, FT4, JT65, JT9, etc.) and minimum SNR.
- Slot 1 (Local/DE) filters around your station — by callsign, exact gridsquare, or a Search Area radius. Slots 2–4 watch custom calls/grids.
- Spot lifetime — how long each spot stays on the map (5–60 min).
- Configure all of these in Settings → PSK.
WSJT-X decodes
Live decodes streamed from your WSJT-X session.
- Local mode — this dashboard listens for WSJT-X UDP packets directly on your machine.
- Bridge mode — the standalone
wsjtx_bridgeapp forwards your decodes over WebSocket. Useful when the dashboard runs remotely (e.g. on a Raspberry Pi or VPS). - Click a callsign for QRZ info; double-click to set it as the DX target.
- Configure grid filters and modes in Settings → WSJT-X.
DXpeditions, On The Air, Contests, ADIF Log
- DXpeditions — upcoming and active rare-entity expeditions (NG3K feed).
- On The Air — POTA / SOTA / WWFF activations happening right now.
- Contests — calendar from contestcalendar.com.
- ADIF Log — drop an
.adior.adiffile to view your QSOs and worked entities on the map.
Customizing your layout
The widget order is yours.
- Long-press (500ms) any widget below the map → jiggle mode activates.
- Drag widgets to reorder. The Done pill exits jiggle mode — also Esc, also tapping outside any widget.
- DE widget, chrome bar, map, and legend are pinned — not draggable.
- Vertical (portrait) and horizontal (landscape) save independent orders.
- In horizontal mode the column divider is also draggable — pull left/right to balance the widget column vs the map.
Settings & backup
Open with the ⚙️ icon top-right of the DE widget.
- All preferences live in browser localStorage.
- Settings → Import / Export writes a JSON backup — layouts, layer visibility, filters, column split, widget order. (QRZ password is excluded from exports.)
- Reset Everything to Defaults wipes all settings, the loaded QSO log, and saved QRZ credentials, then reloads with factory defaults.
