Next up will be the LA QSO Party March 22 with K1DW and NO5W operating as NO5W/m - details.

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 county overlays, or the Crossings Locator wherein CQ/X analyzes a file of lat/lon values downloaded from a Google Map of the route to determine the county line crossing points.  The latter method is definitely the least tedious of the three and has the advantage that the driving distance across each county can be included on the map as can the drive path.

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: