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eHam Forums => Contesting => Topic started by: NR5P on December 12, 2022, 08:35:35 AM

Title: wall plaque showing dx clusters from my location
Post by: NR5P on December 12, 2022, 08:35:35 AM
I hope this is the right place for this, I know the contesters would have the best advice.

I'm building what is basically a wall mounted map of the world that will grab data for dx cluster data. Then will light up an led for the part of the world where dx is happening based on this information. Sort of like a wall mounted version of dxmaps.

I'm going back and forth on where i should put the leds. At first I was going to do every dx square but that's A LOT of leds (it could be done with led matrixing but still). Then I was thinking for every major city place one. But this would rule out many parts of the world. I was also thinking maybe every 4 dx squares would be a good in between. There's also the possibility of sort of general placement throughout each land mass (for instance maybe 3 for the united states, west coast, central, and east coast).

I'm curious what others would prefer for something like this? Because I was thinking of making a few more if others would be interested. I'm not a huge contester but I do like to monitor dx and I hate having a monitor on in the shack. This would give the ability to quickly glance and have something that could be left on all the time without having a monitor on.
Title: Re: wall plaque showing dx clusters from my location
Post by: K1VSK on December 12, 2022, 09:30:04 AM
Might consider countries/entities which minimizes the light clutter while also being informative in some fashion. A counter and some sequencing to make it timely would help too.

The cluster network itself denotes only a fraction of what stations are actually on.
Title: Re: wall plaque showing dx clusters from my location
Post by: KH6AQ on December 12, 2022, 03:16:19 PM
Your invention sounds like it's along the lines of Geochron 4k Digital. I've personally seen the digital and the old mechanical Geochron and they are nice.
Title: Re: wall plaque showing dx clusters from my location
Post by: W9IQ on December 12, 2022, 03:31:54 PM
Now  a days, an LCD or OLED monitor driven by a Raspberry PI or similar would probably be more practical, flexible and informative.

- Glenn W9IQ
Title: Re: wall plaque showing dx clusters from my location
Post by: K3TN on December 13, 2022, 03:47:40 AM
If you have a beam, you could put an LED every 30 degrees or so as an aid to pointing and only need 12 LEDs.

One per time zone would get you up to 24 LEDs.

One per CQ zone would be a good compromise, 40 LEDs.

One per IARU zone would be 85 LEDs (I think, never remember the total)

One per DXCC country would be less than one per grid, get you up to 350 or so LEDs!

Since CQ zones are used in a lot of contests, that'd be my choice.

73 John K3TN