Simon's World Map

  • Country Prefixes

    Write your caption here
    Button

  • Night Map

    Write your caption here
    Button

  • Maidenhead Squares

    Write your caption here
    Button

  • Shadow

    Write your caption here
    Button


Now that I'm playing with DX on 80m I need a simple display which shows me at the very least:

 

  • Current Time
  • Sunrise / Sunset
  • Greyline map
  • DX stations

 

There are commercial geo clock solutions such as Geochron , but as a programmer with spare 4k monitors and computers I decided to write my own, that way I have exactly what I want.


Software

This is a rewrite of a previous project, this program:

 

  • Uses DirectX / Direct2D graphics
  • Requires minimal CPU power, will run on any Windows 7 / 8 / 10 system
  • Written to learn some new areas of Direct2D graphics
  • Written with Visual Studio 2017 (normally VS2013 is used) to learn the new features of VS2017

 

As time permits the program will be updated, I have a few interesting ideas in the pipeline.


Display

 

  • Sunrise/sunset
  • Current time (local/UTC)
  • Timezones
  • Country borders
  • Station list

 

Time Offset

With the time offset you easily select any time in the past or future, the greyline / sunrise / sunset honour this offset. A simple way to see what the greyline will be like for DX planning.


Rotator

Full support for the ERC Mini, ERC V4 and all Yaesu GS232A/GS232B rotators.


Other

 

  • Full screen
  • Disable screensaver
  • Disable sleep
  • Screenshots

 

Downloads

  • Kits are signed,
  • There is NO need to uninstall old kits.

1.2.3
March 15th, 2022

  • Added 7 and 14 segment font option to clock display.
  • Increased scaling quality when zooming.

Download from Dropbox or OneDrive

1.2.2
January 18th, 2022

  • Rotator GS232A protocol fixed.

Download from Dropbox or OneDrive

1.2.1
December 17th, 2021

  • Rotator status saved between sessions.
  • Rotator presets added.

Download from Dropbox or OneDrive

1.2
October 12th, 2021

  • Fixes winter greyline bug
  • Rotator support is now: ERC Mini, ERC V4, Yaesu GS232A/GS232B, Hy-Gain DCU-1.
Dropbox

Maps

Format

The only format supported is Equirectangular projection .


NASA Visible Earth

The program uses the Explorer Base Map, higher resolution downloads are available here. If the link is broken just search for 'NASA Visible Earth, Explorer base Map'. The highest resolution TIFF format (0.1 degree) can be opened with this program, great for zooming!


Natural Earth

The program includes three resized Natural Earth maps which have been resized to 4k or slightly less.  Higher-resolution files scale better when a Zoom is applied, but you may have problems loading them, especially on older computers running 32-bit versions of Windows (see Errors below).


Click on a link below to download the image to your computer, then select the image (Ribbon bar, Map, Select). Only jpg and tiff format images are supported.

Cross-blended Hypsometric Tints

Medium 8,100 x 4,050

Large 16,200 x 8,100

Visit Natural Earth

Shaded Relief, Water, and Drainages

Medium 8,100 x 4,050

Large 16,200 x 8,100

Visit Natural Earth

No Ice, No Clouds

Medium 8,192 x 4,096

Large 16,284 x 8,192

Space Weather

The optional space weather overlay uses data from the US Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center, this is accessed via ftp.

Solar Flux
The source of solar flux data is DSD (ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/latest/DSD.txt).

Geomagnetic (A, K)
The most commonly used source of data is WWV (ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/latest/wwv.txt) however data for additional sites is available in DGD (ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/latest/DGD.txt). The sites supported by DGD are:

  • Fredericksburg (middle latitude),
  • Fairbanks Alaska (high latitude), and
  • Planetary where the A value is estimated.

Errors
If the displayed values are shown as - as below then either:
  • No data is currently available, or
  • A firewall is blocking access to the data source.New Paragraph

CHECK DATA
To check that data is available select an entry in the Data section of the Space Weather menu. The text (human readable) files used by this program are shown in your default web browser, the WWV text for Sept. 26, 2018 is shown below.

FIREWALL
Your firewall must be open, an example of the Windows Defender Firewall entries is shown below (click for a full size image).

Rotators

Rotator support was added to initially support just the ERC-Mini DX which is used at World Map HQ to interface with Yaesu G-1000 DXC rotators. World Map users then requested extended support, so now the list is:

  • ERC-MINI DX
  • ERC Version 4

Serial port:

  • GS-232A
  • GS-232B
  • DCU-1


The implementation is basic, once connected the map is updated with the rotator's current azimuth position. To change the bearing press the keyboard Shift button and click on the map.


Presets

With version 1.2.1 you can add an unlimited number of preset definitions, these are added as buttons on the ribbon bar.