Know your bands PropNow
Real-time HF propagation — built for the field
All 11 HF bands. Live NOAA solar data. PSKReporter spots from your region. Open it at the trailhead, see what's open, start operating.
iOS 17+ · iPhone & iPad · Coming soon
The problem
Too many tabs. Not enough signal.
HF propagation changes constantly — with solar flux, K-index, time of day, your location, and the season. Before operating, most hams are checking NOAA SWPC for solar indices, PSKReporter for live activity, and maybe a propagation chart — then mentally combining it all.
PropNow does that synthesis for you and puts the answer on one screen. You're at the park, you open the app, you operate.
Check NOAA SWPC for SFI and K-index
Open PSKReporter, filter to your region, scan by band
Cross-reference a propagation chart for time of day
Hope you synthesized it correctly. Start operating.
Open PropNow. See which bands are open. Operate.
Band conditions
All 11 HF bands at a glance
Every band rated Excellent to Dead, color-coded, and cross-checked against live spot data from your region. Hot bands flagged. Sporadic-E openings called out.
Which band for that specific contact?
Enter a callsign or Maidenhead grid square. PropNow scores every band for that exact path — accounting for MUF likelihood, solar flux, geomagnetic conditions, time of day, path length, and your antenna.
D-layer warnings flag the low bands when daytime absorption makes them impractical — with a plain-English explanation, not raw physics.
Catch the gray line window
The gray line — the terminator between day and night — produces brief propagation enhancements at sunrise and sunset. PropNow's live map shows you exactly where it sits right now, worldwide, so you can time your operating session.
Factor in what you're running
A vertical and a Yagi perform very differently on 10m. Add your antennas by name — dipole, end-fed, vertical, Yagi — rate their per-band performance, and PropNow folds that into Path Planner scores.
Especially useful for POTA activators running different portable setups at different parks.
My Antennas
Under the hood
Built on real physics, not guesswork
PropNow is opinionated about accuracy. Here's what makes the predictions trustworthy.
Local solar time MUF
The ionosphere peaks at local solar noon — not UTC noon. PropNow converts UTC to your local solar time using your grid square longitude, so predictions are correct wherever you are operating in the world.
Measured data, not forecasts
K-index and A-index are derived from measured NOAA data. Forecast values can diverge significantly from reality — PropNow uses what actually happened, not a prediction of what might.
PSK spot cross-check
If live PSKReporter spots show activity on a band the solar model rates as closed, PropNow flags it as Sporadic-E rather than silently disagreeing with the evidence.
D-layer physics
Low bands (160m–40m) receive realistic daytime absorption penalties. If 40m is impractical in daylight, PropNow says so plainly — rather than rating it "fair" and leaving you wondering why nobody's answering.
No backend server. All data fetched directly from NOAA and PSKReporter on-device.
Who it's for
Built for operators in the field
POTA Activators
Quick band check at the trailhead before you set up. Know what's open before you string the antenna.
DX Chasers
Know which bands are carrying traffic to your target region before you sit down at the radio.
Contest Operators
Monitor conditions across all bands during a contest without tabbing away from your logging software.
Digital Operators
FT8 and FT4 spot counts show where the action is right now — not where it was an hour ago.
New Hams
Learn which bands to try without needing to interpret raw solar indices. PropNow explains everything in plain English.
Ready to work the right band?
PropNow is coming soon to the App Store. Get in touch to be notified when it launches.
iOS 17+ · iPhone & iPad · Coming Soon · 73 de OpenSquelch