Cookies are not used on this site but local storage is and is essential for so many features the site won't work without it.
Local storage does not track you, read about it here web storage
If Preferences and callsigns fail to save, turn on local storage for your specific browser, eg. how do I turn on web storage in Firefox?
Note: local storage is subdomain and HTTP or HTTPS specific, so www.wspr.rocks and wspr.rocks do not share your saved searches, SQL queries, Preference settings, etc.

Security:
- https was only recently implemented (Friday 7th June 2024) and there may be outstanding bugs as a consequence.
- http is still available.
- try Brave browser. Really good security, speed, compatibility and layout. It uses the Google Chrome public domain engine but has none of Google's tracking, Firefox is clunky by comparison. Check it out and note who created it and why.

Brave and Chrome on Mac, Linux and Windows is my primary development environment.
Microsoft Edge: has been rebuilt by Microsoft based on Chromium open source code and now delivers good performance and compatibility.
Firefox: occasionally breaks some features as it has compatibility quirks. Unfortunately it heavily caches old code which only a hard refresh can fix.
Safari: usually works ok but like Firefox it hangs on to cached data.

The others: there is no browser detection so it will try to run in anything but will fail in old browsers. Internet Explorer is not supported.
Mobile devices: tests OK in Brave/Chrome/Safari/Firefox on iPhone 13 and iPad Air, your mileage will vary. Some features are not available on touch screens.

If the map loads with an error its probably because Google has updated the map API. A couple of refreshes usually fixes that.

Bug reports are welcome. Most problems occur after updates because browsers hang on to old code.
That is especially the case with wspr.rocks which is designed to load entirely into browser memory and then no longer access the web server.
- a special browser refresh called a hard refresh fixes the outdated cache problem,
- try clearing the browser cache
- bug reports to vk7jj at me dot com along with any questions or suggestions.

Searching:
- callsign drop down menus: customise the order by dragging callsigns up or down.
- click on the map to bring up the Map Tool menu. The Geo Ruler provides searching by user definable areas attached to draggable markers.
- Control (Mac Option) click the map to place locator squares anywhere you want to search.
- when in Table view right click any row for a pop down search menu. Launch fresh searches based on the row's spot values.
- Shift click the Search button to generate a link to wspr.rocks with your search parameters. Copy and paste it into an email or a forum and click on it to launch this app and automatically carry out your search.

Table view:
- click any table cell for extra information. Info includes UTC/Local conversion, kilometres to miles, Az to reverse Az, country of callsign and more.
- click any column heading to sort the column up and down.
- Control (Mac Option) click any row to build a list of spots. That creates an email link of a search for them.

Map Legends:
The default legend is Band Count. Click the heading to cycle through the others.
- click a band to show that bands paths, click a dash (-) returns to the default path view.

Map paths: click a Path to view its spot data. Click a dashed Long Path to see distance and dB free space path loss.
- paths start out grey because the path between two stations with just a 1 hour search could hide 30 spots on various bands.
- clicking a band in the map Band Legend or moving the hours slider changes the path band colours and shows and hides them as appropriate.
- click a dash (-) in the map Band Legend to restore the original path display.

Map 'hours' slider:
- do a 24 hour search and then click the 'hours' slider label to see an automated passage of the Night shadow.

Map Markers:
- represent locators instead of callsigns because it's quite common for multiple WSPR users or callsigns to share the same locator.

The Map:
Click on the map to open the Map Tools window to draw a Geo Ruler. See the Geo Ruler entry below.
• search for spots between any two user defined points on the map. See the Geo Ruler entry below.
• continuous 6 figure Maidenhead locators are displayed to the left of the Night button as the mouse moves over the Map.

Chart: the dots are band colour coded. Mouse over them for their spot details. Click a dot to highlight its path on the map.

Arne created the wspr.live database. It contains every spot ever reported going back to 2008. Historic data is readily accessible using your own queries.
- the database vendor is ClickHouse. It is unbelievably fast and has an easy to understand SQL dialect.
- see Arne's diagram and summary of the spot data flow from WSPRnet to ClickHouse db diagram
Check out Arne's website and comprehensive Grafana WSPR charts and maps at wspr.live

The wsprdaemon_spots table contains just the spots uploaded using WsprDaemon software so it is a subset of the wspr.live database.
- select the wspr daemon spots table in the Preferences menu.
- substitute wsprdaemon_spots instead of wspr.rx in your queries. It also uses ClickHouse so the same sql queries work in both BUT the column names are different.
- use the rocks starter query to see the table column names.

Try some of the demo queries. Queries are sent diretly to Arne's db at wspr.live

- the [run query here] button displays the results in the sortable table below the query panel. All test and general queries need to be directed there.
- the [run query in wspr.rocks] button displays the query results within wspr.rocks *only* if the results are suitable for display.

wspr.rocks *cannot* display results unless they contain all the following columns in the correct order
id, time, band, rx_sign, rx_lat, rx_lon, rx_loc, tx_sign, tx_lat, tx_lon, tx_loc, distance, azimuth, rx_azimuth, frequency, power, snr, drift, version, code
The 'rocks' query demos do that, have a look at their results using the [run query here] button. The other demos don't.

- 5,000 spots is a hard limit for wspr.rocks, larger spot counts bring the map to a grinding halt in most browsers.
- the blue [db essentials] reveals a listing of db column numbers and values and links to wspr.live and ClickHouse db help.
- the db is fast and forgiving. Play with your queries and the demos. Creating and saving custom searches is easier than you might think.
- holding down the shift key or alt key and clicking the [run query here] button places an emailable link to that search on your clipboard.
A display limit of 2,000 spots applies to general queries beyond which 'save to disk' applies, anyone chasing more data can get it direct from Arne's wspr.live facilities.

Note: local storage is subdomain specific, so www.wspr.rocks and wspr.rocks do not share your saved SQL queries, saved searches, pref settings, etc.
- use the backup and restore buttons to save your qeries to disk. You can restore them to any browser.

Wildcards are special characters inserted in searches to help find partly unknown call signs or to widen the scope of a query.
The underscore _ represents one single character
The percent sign % represents zero or more characters
You can combine multiple wild cards in a single query

Examples:
VK_PD would find VK0PD and VK3PD and VK7PD etc
VK7JJ% would find VK7JJ and VK7JJ1 and VK7JJ/19 etc
VK%M would find VK4EMM and VK2IJM and VK7AM and VK3KZM etc
0_4% is used for balloon telemetry to find callsigns with zero as the 1st char, anything as the 2nd char, 4 as the 3rd char, and zero or more following chars

The unique checkbox applies only to callsigns.
The choices of time, band, mode provide the normal filtering of spots as you would expect.
Consider three stations Bill, Annie and 'anyone':

1. unique with Rx='Bill' and Tx='Bill'
This search is really useful if Bill's station receives AND transmits.
- it returns one single spot from every station heard by Bill AND one spot from every station who Bill heard.
- those spots are the first spots found in the database and are not sorted for best SNR or distance.
- if 'all bands' is selected you get one spot from each band found.
The WSPRnet.org unique behaves differently, you only get the first spot found regardless of whether there were other spots on other bands.

2. unique with Rx='Bill' and Tx='Annie'
- if 'all bands' is selected you get one spot for every band spotted between Bill and Annie.
The WSPRnet.org unique search behaves differently, you only get the first spot found regardless of whether there were other spots on other bands.

3. unique with Rx='Annie' and Tx='anyone'
- returns one single spot from every station who Annie heard.
- again, those spots are the first spots found in the database but if 'all bands' is selected you get one spot from each band found.
The WSPRnet.org unique search behaves differently, you only get the first spot found regardless of whether there were other spots on other bands.

4. unique with Rx='anyone' and Tx='Annie'
- similar to (3) above

5. unique with Rx='anyone' and Tx='anyone'
- returns the first spot on all bands found for all stations.
The WSPRnet.org unique search behaves differently, you only get the first spot found regardless of whether there were other spots on other bands.

Unique is great for reducing the number of spots returned to stay under the spot count limit when searching over long time periods.
Its good for tracking balloons, only one spot is needed to show each location on the track thus enabling tracking over longer periods of time.

The [saved searches] facility is available in most views and is definitely worth checking out.
- click [saved searches],   select [Add a new search...]   then click [save the search].

The Master checkbox in wspr.rocks Prefs turns inter-window communication on and off.
- the external window asks for permission to communicate with wspr.rocks to pass queries and display results.
- Advanced search is more versatile than wspr.rocks search but not as complex as straight SQL.
- your "where" conditions as sent to wspr.rocks are displayed as editable SQL and can be sent as a new query.
- the Adv Search window is experimental and intended for desktop displays. I've tested it on iPhone and iPad but is unfriendly to say the least.

The map can display two draggable markers with editable footprints.
Click anywhere on the map to bring up the map tools info box and then select the Geo Ruler.
You can search at either marker location or along the path between them.

A collection of searchable locator squares is easy to create from the map view.
- open the Map by clicking on the map tab.
- zoom into the area you want to search.
- hold down the Control key or the Alt/Option key (depends on your operating system) and click the mouse to place locator squares on your target search area.
- all the normal menu search options of time, band and spot limit also apply.

- click an existing square to remove it or Shift click any of them to remove them all.
- squares don't have to sit side by side, you could place squares over each capital city in Europe.

Right click any row in the Table to open a Search menu.
- launch a fresh search for spot values of interest in any row.
- any fresh search overwrites all previous searches.

The auto-search facility in the previous version has been discontinued owing to user abuse such as running it 24/7 in multiple browsers.

Create the link
1) set the search values to whatever you want, 2) hold down the alt/option key and click the [Search now...] button.
- the link is placed on your clipboard, copy and paste it into your email or document.
eg. https://wspr.rocks/?action=fetch&unique=false&limit=1&time=1&band=0&mode=0&tx=&rx=WA2TP&paths=fixed&tele=hide&view=map

You could shorten the link using free online shorteners like   https://bitly.com  or  https://tinyurl.com/app

Tell wspr.rocks to go to a tab of your choice and do other things:
- include (or leave out) any of the name=value pairs anywhere in the URL.
- the time, band and other menus use the menu name and the zero based count of the menuitem, eg. band=0 selects "all bands", time=0 selects "10 minutes"
- unique=true selects the unique checkbox. tele=hide drops balloon telemetry spots from the search. Leaving out any menu uses its default setting.
- view=map opens the map, view=table opens the table and so on for the other tabs
- paths=fixed draws normal wspr paths, paths=moving draws balloon paths, paths=zach draws zachtek balloon paths

Create a link to a query in the SQL panel
1) open the SQL panel and create and test your query.
2) hold down the alt/option key or the shift key and click the [ run query here ] button.
- a url is placed on your clipboard, copy and paste it into your email or document.
- when the url is received by a browser it boots wspr.rocks with your query in the opened SQL panel and (optionally) executes it.

A SQL panel url looks like this: https://wspr.rocks?action=embed&query=%20your query data%20
action=embed&query= places the query into the SQL tab's edit box without executing the query.
action=embed&runquery causes the [run query here] button to be pushed.
action=embed&run_sql= executes the query in wspr.rocks. Note: Queries must return all columns in the db to run in wspr.rocks.

Spot Q is a measure of the quality of a spot and is a useful metric for comparing and ranking spots.
The best spot is the spot that was received over the GREATEST distance at the LOWEST power and with the BEST signal to noise ratio.

The formula for calculating SpotQ is simple and generates absolute values.
• SpotQ allows comparisons between different users, previous spots, or with different antennas and receivers

The Q formula is (Kilometres ÷ Watts x normalised SNR) where normalised SNR = (wsprSNR + 35) / 35
• because -35 is the lowest SNR value for type 2 spots that value ensures normalised SNR is the smallest +ve number that's useful as a multiplier.
• FST4W spots can go lower than -35 but that's OK, it helps identify their best spots.
• changing 35 to accomodate new modes would destroy the applicability of Q for comparing with older Q spots.

Q has sufficient resolution to separate stations by a single dB or kilometre and is a nice short fit in a Table column.

The old statistics page is gone. The SQL page's direct db access means it's not hard to generate your own stats going back to 2008.

In March 2022 wsprnet.org stopped accepting duplicate spots. Their test for duplicates is equality of time, rx, tx and band.
That means the facility described below is now almost redundant.
To find duplicates in your search results click the [highlight duplicates] button in the table menu.
The first in every set of duplicates will be highlighted. There may be multiple sets.
Click on a coloured line to show frequency and SNR differences between spots in the set.
A list of the spots in a dup set is available from your browser console.

Duplicates are caused by:
• multiple receivers uploading spots under one callsign.
• mains hum: look for frequency differences that are multiples of 50 or 60 Hz, they can be caused by the sending or receiving station.
• spurious / distorted transmitter output: look for multiple signals of a similar strength that are not harmonically related but are within a few Hz of the main signal frequency.
• "normal" transmitter harmonics when within range of a strong signal: usually you see the main signal at something like +10dB with symmetrical harmonics down around -20dB

Search on one band only, drift differs from band to band.
• click the Search button and wait until the spot table appears.
• choose [WSPR audio passband] from the Charts menu to show spot distribution within the 200Hz wide WSPR passband.
• mouse over the chart to see the number of spots and their frequency.
Search for a tx station that uses a GPS disciplined oscillator and check your receiver frequency accuracy within 1Hz.

Select the TX or RX heat map view from the [Switch maps...] menu on the Map page.
• the TX blobs are generated by transmitting stations (aka beacons) and the weight of each beacon spot is calculated as (beacon TX power in dBm + 10) / 2
to transform TX dBm weighting from 0...60 to 5...35.
• the RX blobs are generated by receiving stations (aka reporters) and the weight of each reported spot is calculated as (reporter distance / 1000)
to balance distant reporters against the many extra spots of reporters in heavily ham populated areas.
• Search with the Unique check box ticked if you wish to prevent extra weighting to the pairs of stations sharing multiple spots.
• Closely spaced blobs merge depending on the zoom level. The weighting may change without notice as I adjust the balancing act.

The Map's watts slider shows and hides spot paths based on the transmit power of the spot.
• search for your chosen set of spots.
• move the slider. It starts showing all spots then hides them incrementally down to 1 milliwatt.

Note re. grey map paths. Move the watts slider right, then back to the left. It will display in colour all paths capable of being drawn between all markers on the map within the period of a search.

The Map's hours slider shows and hides spot paths based on the hour-of-day of the spot.
• search for 24 hours or more for your chosen set of spots.
• the [night] button is activated when you move the slider. Turn Night on and off to suit.
• move the slider. It starts at 00 hours and increments hourly to 24 hours.

Overlooked feature: click the [auto] button for an automated passage of Night eg. (old) video.
- hold down the shift key while you click the [auto] button for 2 minute slot path display instead of the default 1 hour.
- because the 2 minute slot path display is fleeting it helps to set the path width to 3 or 4px selected via a map mouse-click.

The Map's distance slider shows and hides spot paths based on the distance of the spot.
• the slider starts at zero kilometers with a max of 20,000k which is the approximate circumference of the earth.
• limit your search to a single band if you want the distance slider to apply to just one band.
• long paths can be displayed only one-at-a-time (ref. below) and are not subject to the distance slider.

Click anywhere on the map to open the map tools and select the Geo Ruler.
• zoom and pan before opening the ruler, it checks the view before being displayed.

Reposition the ruler info window with a shift-click on the map.

Drag the markers to any two points of interest on the map.
• right clicking a marker is a close ruler shortcut.
• toggle between a geodesic or straight path for better visibility, it has no effect on the measurements.

The ruler is accurate to a meter and can measure the length of wire antennas in satellite view. It let me hang my 160m wire loops in the right trees.
If the path length exceeds the diameter of the earth it flips to the other side of the planet.

Show propagation along the path.
• clicking [fetch A⇢B or B⇢A propagation] searches the database for spots between the A and B marker locations.
• the Band Count legend automatically opens to show the band count.
• click a band in the legend to display that bands paths. Click a dash (-) to return to the default paths.

Show propagation at a marker location.
• click A or B to search for spots at either location.

Marker footprint size.
• click [edit marker footprint] for A or B. Resize the rectangle to cover the area required.
• footprints align themselves with 4 character Maidenhead squares.

Normal hour, mode and band selections are applied to Ruler searches.

WSPRnet.org's map page draws only short paths regardless of whether a spot is long or short path.
The short path is known as the Great Circle path and is the shortest path between two points on the surface of a sphere.

Spot data can't tell if the path should be short or long, that's up to you to figure out based on your experience, your antenna, time of day, propagation etc.

Display the long path for a spot on the map:
• click a short path and then [toggle this path as long] in the popup info box.
• click the long path dashed line to see free space path loss and distance info.

Knowing a band's day/night characteristics and seeing the grey-night-grey shadow, the comparative path losses and the distance help make a long path assessment easy, especially on 30m and 40m.

The "hours" slider in Map view is a good tool to help identify long paths:
• drag the slider with the night overlay visible.
• 30m or 40m paths longer than 3,500km where the path centre is in daylight means the path has to be long.

Identifying long path spots on the map has been a personal holy grail. This is a 30m & 40m only feature.

What characterises a long path on 30m or 40m? Daylight propagation where the path is longer than 3,000k makes it more than likely. Google it.
The guessing algorithm is conservative and highlights 30m & 40m paths longer than 10,000km where the centre of the path is close to solar noon at the time of the spot.

Search for 24 hours of unique spots for a 30m or 40m station either Rx or Tx with known good DX capabilities then open the Map view.
• click any path and then click '[guess 30m & 40m long paths]' Guessed 30m long paths will turn white and 40m will turn black, a popup shows the count.

If long paths are found, move the hours slider with night turned on and observe the relationship between solar noon and the highlighted paths.
• long path is common between the northern and southern hemispheres, searching for ZL% or VK7% reporters on 40m will find you some.

Click a marker's locator to show it's Maidenhead square on the map. Click it again to zoom out.

Click the map anywhere to open the Map Tools and then the Maidenhead grid. It defaults to 4 char locators.
• click inside any 4 char square and it fills with 6 char squares.
• move the mouse around the map to give a continuous readout of the 6 figure locator value beneath the mouse pointer.
• on a touch device, touch in any square to view the 6 figure locator value.

Six figure locator square are roughly 9.2k wide and 4.6k high at the equator.
Because locator squares are bounded by longitudes they narrow as you move towards the poles, DP0GVN's locator IB59uh is 3k wide
Four figure locator squares are 2° wide and 1° high, equal in area to 576 (24*24) six figure squares. A 4 figure locator could position you up to 100k away from your real QTH.

Note: WSPR transmissions default to 4 char locators and WSPRnet.org automatically adds the last two by checking your callsign *if* you have previously received and uploaded spots in WSJT-X.
See also locator square searching above.

Some charts only make sense when searching for specific spot data:
Frequency vs time of day: search for a particular callsign or wildcard.
SNR vs Time: search for a particular reporter or reporter/transmitting station combination.
Rx Azimuth: search for a particular reporter.
Tx Azimuth: search for a particular transmitting station.
etc
Mouse over chart dots for spot information.
Click chart dots to open the map view and highlight their paths.

Conduct your search as normal
• select 'Export spots to Google Earth...' from the Table options menu and save the file on your computer desktop.
• if you have a copy of the Google Earth application on your computer, double-click the file to open it in Google Earth.
• Google Earth has limited ability to display data but clicking on a marker gives basic spot information.
• multiple spots show up as a bunch of satellites around a marker.

There are usually two separate, different, transmissions by balloons, their normal spots and their telemetry spots.
Normal ballon spots are indistinguishable from any normal spot though their locators and hence their positions can be anywhere.
Telemetry spots, if transmitted, are sent later at a pre-programmed time within the same UTC hour.
- telemetry spot callsigns by convention begin with the prefix Q, Zero or 1
- telemetry spot locators contain tele data, not valid Maidenhead values, so they show up anywhere on the map.
- usually the spot power and snr values are tele data so it's usually easy to identify them as telemetry spots.
- spots that start with 1, 0 or Q are by default not displayed on the map. Ref the Preferences panel.

Here is a query that lists the last 48 hours of moving beacons of all kinds

ZachTek Pico balloons.
To search for ZachTek balloons all you need to know is the balloon's transmit callsign. Their only telemetry is altidtude which is encoded into the power field.
Make sure you select "ZachTek Pico" from the paths option in the Preferences panel
In their first transmission in any hour the approximate altitude is calculated as (spot.power in dBm x 300 meters)
If there is a second transmission in the same hour two minutes after the first transmission, the altidude as above is refined by adding the (spot.power in dBm x 30 meters)
Clicking on a ZachTek balloon track or marker returns
    "Alt 120m ±500m" if the only transmission in the hour is the first transmission, eg Approx altitude = (spot.power in dBm x 300 meters)
    "Alt 123m" if both transmissions are reported in the hour, eg Refined altitude = (spot.power in dBm x 300 meters) + (spot.power in dBm x 30 meters)
    "n/a" if the only transmission in the hour is the secondary transmission.

QRPLab balloons.
Make sure you select "Mobile WSPR" from the Map paths option in the Preferences panel.
Dave VE3KCL is a prolific balloonist and has done some great work, his pages are excellent to learn from.
Dave works with QRPLabs gear, click a flight name on their balloon page to find a balloon callsign to search for.
Each flight transmits normal WSPR spots and telemetry spots at different time slots.
Eg. Flight U4B-17: Callsign is VE3KCL, WSPR transmission minute :02 and telemetry in minute :04 and telemetry call 0x4xxx
- flight U4B-17 transmits a normal WSPR spot with correct locator information at 2 minutes past every hour, UTC time.
- flight U4B-17 transmits telemetry as the callsign prefixed by a Zero at 4 minutes past every hour, UTC time. Here is the protocol.
- the locator (and power values) are also used for telemetry which cause balloon tele spots to show up at random locations anywhere on the planet.
Normally your Preferences are set to ignore telemetry by hiding TX callsigns starting with 'Q', Zero and '1',

Note1: The wspr.rocks Balloons app has been retired becase the QRPLabs tele encoding has changed and the app only supported their old code.
Note2: https://go.wspr.rocks/Qq2682f668 is a search for currently moving WSPR beacon stations.
- a good example is DP0POL which is a German research vessel with a continuous WSPR beacon on board.

Other moving beacons such as ships.
Make sure you select "Mobile WSPR" from the paths option in the Preferences panel.
Search for the beconing object's callsign as per a normal spot search.
One common WSPR beaconing ship is the German Antarctic research vessel with the callsign "DP0POL"
Note that some beacons that appear to be moving by virtue of having a bunch of different loctators may not have valid paths and are probably people misusing WSPR for point to point data transmissions.

Example search for the balloon track for VE3OCL
(1) in the Preferences panel click the Map paths 'WSPR spots' radio button. Failure to do this will draw the balloon path as if it was normal spots.
(2) in the Preferences panel click 'hide' Telemetry spots.
(3) conduct a search for the balloon callsign VE3OCL for 3 weeks with the unique box checked.
Click the map tab to see the path; clicking a path segment shows the speed for that segment.
- balloon tracks show abrupt direction changes because each TX location is the centre of a 4 figure roughly 50km wide grid square.

Note1: The wspr.rocks Balloons app has been retired becase the QRPLabs tele encoding has changed and the app only supported their old code.
Note2: https://go.wspr.rocks/Qq2682f668 is a search for currently moving WSPR beacon stations.
- a good example is DP0POL, the German research vessel with a continuous WSPR beacon on board.

Search for a balloon as per the display a balloon track above.
When the Table is filled with Tx spots from the balloon:
- select 'Export balloons to Google Earth...' from the Table options menu and save the file on your computer desktop.
- your exported file will now contain the balloon's track in KML format, double click it to launch Google Earth.
- markers are centered in each WSPR locator square.
- the above procedure should work with any moving transmitter such as a boat, car or aircraft.

Click the [Backup...] button from the Preferences panel to backup or restore your saved data.
The backup includes all rx and tx callsigns, your Preferences, and any stored table data.
Restore works with any browser on any OS so it is an easy way of using a different browser.
The backup format is plain text in JSON format.

Select 'Export spots as .tsv to disk' from the Table options menu and save the file on your computer desktop.
.tsv is tab-separated-values for copy and paste or importing into any spreadsheet
The .json file is in JSON format to be saved or archived for reloading later.
Import previously saved .json files by selecting 'Import spots from disk...' from the Table options menu.

This feature is no longer viable owing in part to changes in mode (code) values.

This facility has become a new application, WSPRnet Server health checker