Support & FAQ

Just two things: your region (which part of the world you operate from) and optionally your Maidenhead grid square. PropNow fetches all data directly from NOAA and PSKReporter — no account, no login, no API key required.

You can find your grid square from your radio's GPS, from the ARRL website, or by searching "Maidenhead grid square" along with your location.

No, but it's strongly recommended. Without a grid square:

• PSKReporter spot data covers your entire region (e.g., all of North America) rather than receivers near you — which is much less accurate for predicting what you can hear.
• The Path Planner will not work — it requires your grid square to calculate great-circle paths.
• Your QTH dot won't appear on the Gray Line map.

A 4-character grid (e.g., EM64) is sufficient for most purposes. 6-character is more precise.

Several easy options:

• Most modern HF radios with GPS display your grid square directly.
• Search "Maidenhead grid locator" and enter your address on any of several free web tools.
• The ARRL website has a grid square lookup tool.
• Apps like HamSphere or QRZ show your grid automatically.

Yes — tap the gear icon in the top-right corner of the Bands tab to open Settings. Both region and grid square can be changed at any time. The app re-fetches data immediately after you save changes.

This usually means a network issue. PropNow fetches data directly from NOAA and PSKReporter — it requires an active internet connection.

Things to try:
• Check that you have cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity.
• Pull down on the Bands list to manually refresh.
• If you're in a location with poor signal, wait until you have a better connection — PropNow will show the last-fetched data until it can refresh.

Ratings combine two inputs: a solar propagation model (using SFI, K-index, time of day, and season) cross-checked against real PSKReporter spot activity from your area. A band with modest solar model predictions but high spot activity can be rated higher than the model alone would suggest.

The 🔥 icon appears on a band when PSKReporter is showing unusually high spot activity for that band — significantly above the typical level for the current time of day and solar conditions. It's a signal that something special is happening: a strong propagation opening, high contest activity, or an event that's drawing operators to that band.

A Hot Band doesn't necessarily mean the solar model agrees — it means real-world operators in your area are hearing lots of signals on that band right now.

Sporadic-E (Es) is a type of ionospheric propagation driven by patches of dense ionization in the E-layer rather than the F-layer. It can produce strong, unexpected openings on 6m through 15m, often when solar conditions wouldn't otherwise predict them.

PropNow detects Sporadic-E by comparing PSKReporter spot activity on the high bands against the solar model. When the spots show a band active that the model rates as closed, PropNow flags it as Sporadic-E with the ⚡ banner — rather than silently rating the band higher without explanation.

Alert banners appear when NOAA has issued a space weather alert that affects HF propagation:

• Yellow banner — Geomagnetic disturbance or storm warning. K-index is elevated and HF may be degraded, especially at high latitudes.
• Orange banner — Minor solar flare detected. Some short-wave fadeout possible on the sunlit side of Earth.
• Red banner — Significant solar flare (R1 or higher). Shows the flare class, NOAA R-scale rating, impact summary, and the bands most affected.

PropNow fetches fresh data automatically when you open the app. You can also manually refresh at any time by pulling down on the band list. The timestamp at the bottom of the screen shows when data was last successfully fetched.

If you have a grid square set, PropNow maintains a live MQTT connection to the PSKReporter broker and updates spot counts in near-real-time between refreshes. If no grid square is set, spot data is polled each time you manually refresh.

Tapping a band opens the Band Detail sheet, which gives you a deeper view of that specific band:

• A large condition badge and a plain-English summary of conditions.
• The live PSKReporter spot count for the last 15 minutes in your area.
• Whether the estimated MUF likely exceeds that band's frequency.
• Typical skip distance (how far signals are expected to travel).
• A "Good For" checklist showing what types of contacts the band is suited to right now (DX, regional, NVIS, etc.).

The Path Planner requires your Maidenhead grid square to calculate great-circle paths. Go to Settings → Grid Square and enter your 4- or 6-character grid. The tab will unlock immediately after you save a valid grid.

Two ways:

• Tap the map — tap any location on the map. PropNow reverse-geocodes the tap to the nearest Maidenhead grid square and populates the destination field automatically.
• Type a grid square — enter a 4- or 6-character Maidenhead grid square in the text field and tap GO. The map updates to show the destination marker and the great-circle path.

The Best Band shown in the path header is PropNow's top recommendation for the specific path right now. It's scored on five factors:

• MUF likelihood — whether the band frequency is likely below the path MUF
• Solar flux — current ionospheric support for this band
• Geomagnetic conditions — K-index effect on the path
• Time of day — whether the path midpoint is in daylight or darkness
• Path length — some bands are better suited to short vs. long paths

You can always override the recommendation by tapping a different band in the list — useful if, for example, you know the station you want to work is specifically on 40m.

The orange sun/haze icon (☀) next to a band in the Path Planner means that the path midpoint is in daylight and the band is subject to D-layer absorption. The band may technically be above the MUF, but in practice will be severely degraded.

F2 Hops is the estimated number of times the radio signal bounces between the ionosphere and the Earth's surface to reach the destination. A single-hop path (1 hop) covers roughly 2,500–4,000 km. Longer paths require multiple hops.

More hops generally means more signal loss and greater variability — but it also means the path is achievable. PropNow shows the estimated hop count to help you understand the geometry of the contact.

When you tap a band in the Path Planner, the Antenna Recommendation card appears and reads your saved antenna profiles to recommend the best option for that band and path.

Each antenna is rated Ideal / Good / Marginal / Unsuitable for the selected band and path distance, with a reason (e.g., "Good takeoff angle for DX paths over 3,000 km"). For directional antennas (Yagi, Hex Beam, LPDA), PropNow shows the exact azimuth heading to point toward the destination.

Add your antennas in Settings → Antenna Profiles. If no antennas are saved, the card will prompt you to add them.

The gray line is the transition zone between day and night on Earth's surface — also called the solar terminator. As it passes through a region, two things happen simultaneously:

• The D-layer (which absorbs HF signals during the day) rapidly dissipates.
• The F-layer (which supports long-distance propagation) remains charged from daytime ionization.

The result is a brief window of low-noise, long-distance propagation — often the best DX conditions of the day. Both stations in a QSO benefit if one or both are near their local sunrise or sunset.

• Dark blue overlay — the current night hemisphere.
• White/grey terminator line — the boundary between day and night; the gray line zone is centered on this line.
• ☀ Sun annotation — the current subsolar point (where the sun is directly overhead).
• White dot — your QTH, shown only when you have a grid square set.

The bottom card shows how far the terminator currently is from your location and whether it is approaching or departing, so you can plan when your gray line window will occur.

The map updates automatically every 60 seconds to track the terminator's movement across Earth's surface.

Tap the gear icon ⚙️ in the top-right corner of the Bands tab.

Grid Radius controls how large a geographic area PropNow uses when filtering PSKReporter spots to your location. A smaller radius gives you more localized data — useful if you want to know what receivers very close to you are hearing. A larger radius includes more spots but is less geographically specific.

For most operators, the default radius is a good starting point. If you're in a rural area with few nearby receivers, try a larger radius to get more data. Grid Radius is disabled when no grid square is set.

• Go to Settings → Antenna Profiles and tap the + button.
• Enter a name (e.g., "40m Dipole" or "3-el Yagi 20m").
• Choose the antenna type from the list.
• Select the bands it covers by toggling them on.
• Enter the height above ground in feet.
• For directional antennas (Yagi, LPDA, Hex Beam), enter the fixed azimuth or mark it as rotatable.
• Tap Save.

A live takeoff angle preview updates as you fill in the form, showing the calculated radiation profile for each band based on type and height.

The K-index measures geomagnetic disturbance over a 3-hour period, from 0 (quiet) to 9 (extreme storm). Lower is better for HF propagation. High K-index values suppress or destroy F-layer propagation.

K-index is a 3-hour snapshot of geomagnetic disturbance — it tells you what's happening right now. A-index is a daily average derived from K-index readings — it gives you a sense of the overall disturbed state of the geomagnetic field for the day.

• A < 7: Quiet
• A 7–29: Unsettled to active
• A 30–49: Minor to moderate storm
• A ≥ 50: Major storm

PropNow uses measured K and A values, not forecast values — forecasts can diverge significantly from what actually happens.

The Maximum Usable Frequency (MUF) is the highest frequency that will be refracted back to Earth by the F2 layer for a given path. Signals above the MUF pass through the ionosphere into space — the band is effectively closed for that path.

PropNow calculates a regional MUF estimate using your current SFI, time of day (solar elevation angle), season, and K-index. For specific paths in the Path Planner, a more precise path MUF is calculated using ionosonde data from the path midpoint.

PSKReporter is an automated reception-reporting network used by digital mode operators (primarily FT8 and FT4 via WSJT-X). When operators run this software, reception reports are automatically uploaded in real time.

PropNow uses this data as empirical evidence that a band is actually open — not just a model prediction. The spot count shown on each band is the number of unique reception reports heard by receivers near your location in the last 15 minutes.

When you have a grid square set, spots are received via a live MQTT connection to the PSKReporter broker, and signals are weighted by SNR — stronger signals count more in the band activity scoring.

PropNow maps X-class flares to NOAA's R-scale (R1–R5) for quick assessment. An R1 flare causes minor HF degradation; an R5 causes an extreme blackout affecting the entire sunlit hemisphere.

• Go to Settings → Alerts and Notifications in PropNow.
• If notifications haven't been granted, tap the Enable Notifications button.
• If iOS denied permission, tapping the button will open your iOS Settings app — go to PropNow's entry and enable notifications there.
• Confirm that Background App Refresh is enabled for PropNow in iOS Settings → General → Background App Refresh.

Band Opening alerts require a live PSKReporter data connection, which is only available when PropNow is actively running in the foreground. They cannot fire from the background.

K-Index and X-Class Flare alerts do work in the background — PropNow uses iOS Background App Refresh to check solar conditions approximately every 15 minutes when the app is not active. Note that iOS controls the exact timing based on your device's usage patterns and battery state.

Check PropNow before you leave home — not at the trailhead. This way you can make smart gear decisions while you still have time to act on them:

• If 10m is showing Good or better, consider bringing a portable Yagi.
• If 20m is the Hot Band and 40m is poor, you may not need the longer wire antenna.
• Use the Path Planner to see what band will give you the best signal into your target chasers' region (e.g., Europe or the Midwest).

If you expect chasers from a specific region, enter a grid square from that region as your Path Planner destination. PropNow will show you which band gives the best predicted signal path into that area right now.

This is especially useful when 20m is crowded — you might find that 17m or 15m gives a better signal into Europe even if it's showing slightly lower overall conditions, because the specific path geometry works in your favor.

For DX, the Path Planner is your main tool. Enter the destination station's grid square (from their QRZ page or callsign) to see the actual path MUF, the best band for that specific path, and the exact antenna heading for directional antennas.

A few things worth knowing:

• Trust D-layer warnings. If 80m shows a daytime warning, don't waste time calling on it — the condition rating already accounts for D-layer, but the warning explains why.
• Spot count matters. A Fair band with high PSKReporter activity beats a Good band with zero spots — real-world spots confirm real-world propagation.
• High K + high SFI can cancel out. During a geomagnetic storm at solar maximum, high bands may still be poor despite a strong SFI. Trust PropNow's combined rating.

Gray line enhancement happens in the 30–60 minutes around your local sunrise and sunset. Check the Gray Line tab — the bottom card tells you how far the terminator currently is from your location and whether it's approaching or departing, so you can time your operating session.

If your POTA activation runs across a sunrise or sunset, this is often the best DX window of the whole day. Watch for the normally-quiet high bands to briefly come alive.