Activation Planner

The Activation Planner is a full-page planning map for portable, SOTA, WWFF and POTA operators. Type a Maidenhead gridsquare and the map zooms straight to it, draws a box around the exact grid cell, and shows you the surrounding squares, reference directories, zones and administrative regions — everything you need to pick a spot before you head out.

Opening the page

From the Wavelog menu, choose Activation Planner (the map-marked icon), found in the TOOLS menu group.

The toolbar

The toolbar at the top holds every control. On a phone the secondary controls are tucked behind a More options button; tap it to reveal the second gridsquare box and the overlay dropdowns.

Tip: the collapsible card header ("Plan your activity here") can be clicked to collapse the toolbar and give the map more room.

Single gridsquare lookup

1. Type a locator in the Gridsquare box (e.g. JN58qm).
2. Click Go.

The map zooms to that grid and:

• Draws a box around the exact cell.
• Drops a marker at the cell centre.
• Fills the info bar with the locator, the cell size label (Field / Grid square / Subsquare …), its coordinates, the CQ and ITU zones, and the state/province it falls in.
• Opens the surrounding-squares readout (see below).

Surrounding-squares readout

When a point is selected, the planner shows a 3×3 compass of the eight neighbouring grids (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) around the centre square. Each cell names the grid you'd step into and gives the distance and bearing to that edge of your square; the nearest border is highlighted. On the map itself, matching direction arrows point to each border with inline distance labels — so the information stays visible even on a phone, where the corner panel is hidden.

The red/green arrows and the square outline can be cleared independently: the panel's ✕ button hides the legend but keeps the on-map arrows until you press Clear.

Two-gridsquare QRB (distance & bearing)

1. Type the first gridsquare.
2. Type a second gridsquare in the to box.
3. Click Go.

The planner draws both squares (blue and orange), plots a dashed great-circle path between them, and reports:

• The distance between the two cell centres.
• The bearing from grid 1 → grid 2 (in degrees and as a compass point, e.g. 074° (ENE)).
• Each grid's CQ/ITU zones and state/province, appended as it resolves.

Distance follows your measurement base setting — kilometres (K), miles (M) or nautical miles (N).

The gridsquare popup

Clicking the map or looking up a grid drops a marker whose popup is built around the locator:

• a red left stripe with a Gridsquare header pill;
• the DXCC flag(s) for the 4-character grid (resolved from the VUCC grids table), shown just before the locator — a gridsquare that spans two or more countries, shows all flags;
• the coordinates;
• the Field / Square / Subsquare hierarchy of the locator;
• the resolved CQ Zone and ITU Zone on one line, with the state/province on the next;
• a Satellite passes link that opens the pass-prediction page with this grid pre-filled;
• quick actions: share the spot on X or bluesky, or create a station location here (gridsquare, DXCC (only if gridsquare exists in one DXCC), CQ zone, ITU zone and any SOTA/POTA/WWFF refs pre-filled);
• any WWFF / POTA / SOTA references that fall inside the grid.

Find my location (GPS)

Click Locate me to use your device's GPS:

• Your current position is converted to a gridsquare and dropped on the map exactly as if you'd typed it.
• The gridsquare is also filled into the Gridsquare box, so you can immediately type a second grid and hit Go for a QRB from your current location.
• The button switches to a green Tracking state and polls your position roughly every 60 seconds, so the marker follows you while you move. Map clicks are ignored while tracking, so your position stays centred; press Clear to stop tracking and re-enable click-selection.

Requirements & errors

• Geolocation requires a secure context: the page must be served over HTTPS, or from localhost. Over plain HTTP on a LAN IP the button is hidden automatically.
• The first time you use it, your browser will ask permission. If you deny it, a "Location access denied" toast is shown and tracking stops.
• Transient failures (position unavailable / timed out) show a warning toast and the poll continues.

Reference directories (WWFF / POTA / SOTA)

Open the Refs dropdown to plot the full reference directories on the map. Each menu item carries a coloured letter badge — W (blue) for WWFF, P (green) for POTA, S (orange) for SOTA — the same badge drawn on its markers.

Each reference is drawn as a small lettered circle in its directory colour and clustered when dense. There are no hover tooltips — click a marker for a rich popup:

• a coloured left stripe and a header with a type pill (WWFF / POTA / SOTA) beside the reference, which links to that reference's info page (gma.rocks for WWFF, pota.app for POTA, sotadata.org.uk for SOTA) and opens in a new tab;
• the summit / area name;
• the summit altitude (SOTA only), shown in your measurement unit — metres for Kilometres users, feet otherwise (the database stores metres);
• the gridsquare and coordinates.

The directories are large, so they load lazily on first toggle: a spinner covers the map while the data downloads and the markers are placed, then the directory is cached for instant re-toggle.

The Gridsquare checkbox in the same menu toggles the Maidenhead grid overlay drawn across the map (its badge is red, matching the grid lines).

Zone & region overlays (GeoJSON)

Open the Overlays dropdown to draw boundaries from GeoJSON files. Items are grouped:

• Zones — CQ Zones and ITU Zones (worldwide).
• States / Provinces — administrative subdivisions, one entry per supported country.

Each overlay is fetched once and cached. When you turn one on, the map zooms to fit it. Features carry permanent labels — the zone number for CQ/ITU zones, the state/province name for subdivisions — so you can read them at a glance. The overlays are non-interactive: they don't capture clicks or hovers, so you can still click straight through them to select a point on the map.

When you select a point or type a grid, the CQ zone, ITU zone and state/province it falls in are resolved and shown in the info bar — even if the corresponding overlay is not turned on.

Supported States / Provinces

Subdivision overlays are available for (among others): Argentina, Australia, Azores, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Canary Islands, Ceuta & Melilla, Chile, China, Corsica, France, Germany, Hawaii, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Madeira Islands, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Sardinia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Alaska. The list grows as more GeoJSON files are added.

The coordinate bar

As you move the mouse over the map, a bar below the map updates live with:

• Latitude / Longitude (in DMS),
• the Gridsquare under the cursor,
• the CQ Zone and ITU Zone under the cursor.

These are read-only live readouts; clicking the map selects a point and fills the info bar as described above.

Notes & tips

• Locator precision: the box is drawn for whatever precision you type — a 2-character Field (large), a 4-character Grid square, a 6-character Subsquare, right down to 8- and 10-character cells.
• Click instead of type: you can click anywhere on the map to drop a marker and get the same gridsquare, zone, region and surrounding-squares info.
• Dark themes: the selected square is drawn yellow on dark themes and red on light themes for best contrast.
• Fullscreen: use the fullscreen control on the map for an uncluttered planning view.
• Performance: zones and directories load on demand and are cached; a spinner covers the map while a reference directory downloads and its markers are placed, so the page stays light and responsive unless you actively turn overlays on.