Next Planned Trips by NO5W/M
Probably the Louisiana
and Mississippi QSO Parties in February 2012.
Route Plans
CQ/X provides a means of developing the files needed to post
your
route as a Google Map for distribution on the
Internet either as a simple sequence of counties or as a sequence of
counties along with the sequence of county line crossing points. In
both cases the county boundaries will be shown and in the latter case a
marker will be shown at each county line crossing point. Both of these
methods are explained in the documentation referenced below.
Developing the file for posting as a simple sequence of counties is
quick and can be performed using the QP Tools | Plan Route menu item.
However,
including the county line crossing points, of course, requires the user
to define the latitude and longitude of the crossing points.
This
information is useful in order for CQ/X to show the distance and
estimated time to
the next county.
If this functionality is desired, part of the trip planning process
will include the development of a file containing
each
planned
crossing point. The crossing point information may be prepared using a
mapping program like Streets and Trips, using the Google maps
tool
found on the Tools page,
or the recently introduced County Line Locator (CLL) tool wherein CQ/X
analyzes a Google Map of the route to determine the county line
crossing points. The last method is definitely the least tedious of the three.
Once this crossing point data has been
prepared the program has the capability of converting
this
file into a KML file
that can be placed on a web-server for processing by Google Maps
providing a cool way of distributing your trip plan to other
participants. The CQXClient
Help File explains how to do this. Post a Route
Using Google Maps
is a separate document that collects the various steps in one place
with detailed instructions. In order to carry out these steps using
CQ/X you'll need the following:
- Version 1.7.4 of CQ/X patched through Patch 174-04 or later
available from the Downloads
page
- A web server to store the KML file on
Here are links to a number of example maps.
Note: The
addition of county boundaries slows down the presentation of these
maps, especially those involving a large number of counties and/or
counties with a lot of coast line and most noticeably when changing
zoom levels. If you receive a message that a
script is busy, just click continue. Not recommended for older machines
and/or dial-up connections.
County Line
Locator Tool Demos
In case you are wondering how well the County Line Locator tool
performs here are links to several demo routes which have been analyzed
using the tool. These maps show the planned route, the counties
involved and the entry/exit points for each county.
NO5W 2009 FQP Route
-- Route used by NO5W in the 2009 Florida QSO Party.
N5NA 2011 NMQP Route
-- Route used by N5NA in the 2011 New Mexico QSO Party.
Orlando to
Clarksville -- Demo multi-state route from Orlando, FL to
Clarksville, TN.
Ham-Com-2011 Demo
-- Demo route Plano-Austin-The Woodlands-Plano for Ham-Com 2011.
Copyright: C.W. Sanders, NO5W
Last Updated: 01-October-2011