Generate a personalised AZ_PROJ map

Joe last wasted time on this file on 08-Feb-2015. Last Server Code upgrade: 29-Oct-2017

There must be an entry in each field. The defaults will give a GIF of the local continent, projected from the server. Maps will take from 30sec-5mins on an unloaded server, depending on the amount of information plotted. Microsoft IE will time out after 3mins.

Title of Map

Decorative Title across top of Map (e.g. 2m Contest).

Location of center of azimuthal equidistant projection Help - don't know lat/lon (USA only)

(Some combinations of lat/lon will hang the server - I'd guess <1% of inputs. Running the same lat/lon on another machine with the same OS and the same version of ghostscript will give a valid map. I assume ghostscript has trouble with one of the plotted points from that lat/lon. If you do not get a simple map back in 1min, hit the "Stop" botton on your browser and re-run the form after moving your lat or lon by 0.001degree. )

Name of QTH - eg WA3ZZZ, or Mt. Monadnoc (will be small label at bottom left of map).
location accepted formats gridlocator (eg FM05lw) or latitude (-89.9<lat<89.9, in decimal degrees, N is +, S is -)
longitude (-180.0<lon =<180.0, in decimal degrees, E is +, W is -) (entry ignored if gridlocator used in previous field)

Note: the USA has positive latitude and negative longitude. This is the most common mistake made in drawing maps and leads to maps centered in central asia by hams with US call signs. The next most common mistake is exchanging lat/lon leading to maps centered near the north pole.

cross-hair marker at QTH

Location for Center of Page Help

Center is offset (i.e. center of page is not at QTH).

If you've chosen to offset the center of the map then you must enter the lat/lon for the new center.
The coords here put North America in the center of the page.
latitude/gridlocator of center of page
longitude of center of page (ignored if gridlocator used above)

Continents to include in map Help
africa ( 988,429 bytes )
antarctica ( 130,390 bytes )
eurasia ( 2,744,950 bytes )
north america ( 1,691,869 bytes ) default
oceania ( 426,120 bytes )
south america ( 702,007 bytes )
whole world ( 6,683,765 bytes )

Map Scale

The display thinks it is A4 or about 8.5x11" i.e. about 10cm from center to edge. The whole world require a map of radius 20,000km (thanks to Napoleon).

Output Format (and approx size of printfile for US letter) help

Paper (Page) Size for output help

Drawing Resolution

Map Orientation

Antipodes Mode Help

Lat/Lon lines or Grid Squares Help

none
Lat/Lon lines at 30° spacing
Grid Squares, options

field borders
field labels
grid square borders
grid square labels

Geographical Features Help

grid squares to be filled with elevation data (blank separated list of 2char grids eg FM FN EM EN case insensitive, takes about 2mins/grid, elevation maps will be run at a lower priority than regular line maps)
Lakes fill lake (else border only - usefull if plotting filled grid squares)
Rivers

Political Features Help

Country Borders
States/Provinces: (Australia, Canada, USA)
call areas (incl. label and border): Australia Canada New Zealand USA

City Names: Help
World City Names: Major (130 cities) Major and Minor (650 cities)
USA City Names: 6500 cities (very crowded, best for local maps only)

Population Centers: World Population Centers to 100,000 people (3400 entries) and USA population (all towns to 1000, 6000 entries) Help
population lower threshhold (int), if not using default.

Counties: US counties (3324 entries, 7,866,889bytes). Help

Greyline by time/date (UTC not local time) help

None
Sunrise Greylines at your QTH throughout the year
Sunset Greylines at your QTH thoughout the year
sunrise line and sunset line at QTH, for date below (time ignored). Lines will be close at equinoxes, separated at solstice.
Draw Greyline, date and time below
month, 1..12 day, 1..31 hour, 0..2359 (default == current time)

Analemma Help

Compass/Distance Circles Help

none
Compass directions

draw compass circumference (compass rose)
draw compass spokes (if compass circumference is off, spokes will go to antipodes).

Draw distance circles (has compass directions too).

VHF: 100 200 300 400 500km
6m: 500km closest Es, 1100km max distance to Es scatterer, 2300km end single hop Es, 3100km first F2.
HF: 4000 8000 12000 16000 20000km, max for F2 hops

DXCC

Dec 2011: fixed thanks to bug fixes from G8SQH. Original code had the label at the negative of the bearing.

DXCC Country Call Signs from Bill K2DI

label at Capital of country
on circumference of world along bearing line (use scale=2000km/cm) (suggested by UA9CDC)

Islands on the Air, the RSGB IOTA Help

Mountain Top Lists and Rovers

(currently NE USA only. Try scale = 50km/cm, QTH = FN42mm. Note distance bearing lines from QTH to selected mountains)
NE USA. A mixture of mountaintops, beacon sites and rover locations mostly in N.E. USA by N2MH. The most recent version of this file is at The N2MH RoveSite
NE USA. mountaintops by N1BWT and KH6CP/1
Put in a few demonstration rovers too.

USA Ham Density - for planning VHF rover and DX-peditions help and example maps

(22 Mar 00, looks like this had stopped working for a while, sorry about this)
low resolution (by 4char grid squares), example
high resolution (by 6char grid squares), example. This map takes several minutes to draw. Watch out if you have a link that times out, eg a proxy server or are using IE.

Transmitters Help

Beacons: LF/MF North America

LF 160-190kHz
MF 1600-1700kHz, from the Longwave beacon list that was on http://www.lwca.org/sitepage/part15/lfmfbcns.htm (now QRT).

Beacons: 10m

International 10m beacons from KC4DPC stanley (at) wilmington (dot) net. This list is from Jul 96 and the original URL is invalid.

6m: beacons, QRA, TV stations as Propagation Markers help

International 6m Beacon list from G3USF and GJ4ICD
6m QRA density by gridsquares, list from Aug 98, 1057 grids, 8069 calls, by DL4MQD Max (dot) Wild (at) t-online (dot) de help and examples
International 6m QRA list . For plotting call signs of 6m ops at their QTH. QTH's are listed using 4 char gridsquares - I suggest you don't use this one (see help) but use the density list above until the 6m ops send in their 6char gridlocators.
Australian TV: 46-64MHz (155,753bytes)
European TV: 46-62MHz (16,063bytes)
North American TV: Channel 2, 55.25Mhz (27,350bytes)

Beacons: VHF/UHF - North America, from W3EP

All 2m 220 Mhz 432 MHz 902 MHz 1296 MHz 2GHz 3GHz 5GHz 10GHz 24GHz

Repeaters:

2m, Northern California from Mike KF6NCY (Try with lat/lon/scale==39,-120,25)

Other Commercial Transmitters

TV Stations 46-900MHz (1,010,531bytes) Europe, Ireland, Australia, North America
FM transmitters 88-108MHz (1,085,632bytes) Australia, North America, some Carribean and some Pacific Ocean

Frequency Mask

If this is empty, the whole transmitter file will be plotted. You select transmitters by the MHz of their frequency.
Freq plotted, MHz: list of comma separated integers, or range (int1..int2) pairs, eg 100,125..130,180,190..200

Submit Data for map

If you're happy with the parameters, a map will be generated. To make modifications to a calculated map, return ("back" on your browser) to this page and change the appropriate entries. Do not "Reload" - you will erase your entries.

Go to top of the form to review selections.

Other AZ_PROJ Features

The downloadable version of AZ_PROJ allows you to plot locations of other hams, enter your location from NMEA devices (such as a GPS receiver), color grids and dxcc countries worked by band, mode (CW.SSB) and propagation mode (MS, EME, F2, Es).

PROBLEMS?

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