Copasetic Flow

Ever tune across the HF bands and wonder just how many Morse code operators are on the air at that moment? Thanks to WW5TH’s ingenious setup that reads directly from the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN), you can see it in near real time. The RBN ’s worldwide network of “skimmers” automatically decodes CW signals, giving a fascinating snapshot of CW activity across the globe.  Pat wrote the code up here and you can find the latest data here . Here's an example from this morning. This quick visualization from W5WTH shows how data from the Reverse Beacon Network can reveal real-time CW activity. It’s a great way to see where the bands are hopping and how propagation changes minute by minute. Check out Pat’s GitHub for code details, and watch the data to spot when Morse action is hopping. Want to dive deeper? Try building your own CW dashboard from RBN data using Chat GPT , or explore similar projects in ReverseBeacon.net and Parks on the Air to see who...

  Do LLMs always generate the correct set of code given their inputs? Nope. You can use the same LLM to verifiy its own outputs if we're clever about it though. Here's an example from a recent HF interference model I asked GPT-5 to build for me after a Parks on the Air (POTA) ham radio outing in downtown San Francisco.  My first QSO perched on the edge of One Maritime Plaza was with AL7KC. That's not too surprising, I pretty regularly communicate with AL7KC. Except. It was kinda surprising because there was a skyscraper—Gateway Vista West—directly across the street between me and Alaska and about twenty-three meters away. View from the QTH That one little skyscraper led to a lot of fun HF propagation analysis using GPT-5. I described the area around my transmit site at One Maritime Plaza to GPT-5. I got some really interesting interference patterns based on the surrou...

 This week I spent some time tightening up the workflow for comparing F2 ionospheric data across different POTA outings. It turns out documentation really does matter. By writing things down, I’ve not only made the manual process clearer but also pushed the automated flow forward. With GPT-5’s help on documenting proton and electron flux plots, and my own notes on numeric F2 graphs along QSO paths, the project is steadily becoming easier to repeat and share. I put in a little bit of time working on being able to easily compare F2 data for different POTA outings this morning. It turns out documentation really does matter, so I've been focusing a bit more on it. I have a number of tools that allowed me to pull in F2 data quickly. This week I've been trying to spend time pulling them into an automated flow. As I've implemented this flow, I've discovered that I haven't taken the time to document the tools I've already built.  I asked GPT5 to document the solar prot...