[IRCA] Google Earth as a DX Aid
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[IRCA] Google Earth as a DX Aid



I've enjoyed the notes about Google Earth as a DX Aid. When I was planning my trip to Easter Island 18 months ago, they upgraded that photo from useless/fuzzy to high resolution about 3 weeks before I left. I was able to follow some of the rock/dirt roads around to the prime DX spots and select two potential sites as the best on a 35 square mile island. As it turned out on the actual ground, one was considerably better and that is what I used for two weeks. I have no idea how many hours of jostling on awful jeep trails that Google saved me, but it was a bunch. I even knew exactly where to put out my two antennas... and where to park so that the westerly one terminated exactly at the cliff edge.

I just finished planning the radio portion of our upcoming trip to Peru. In Lima, the streets are in Google Earth's database and I found our hotel (about 1.5 miles from the beach.) Draconian in-country luggage restrictions mean that I'll be leaving my Easter Island veteran Eton E1 at home. I'll have to restrict myself to a couple of Ultralights (mainly, a hotrodded E1) and one 400 foot antenna. I plan to hire a taxi from about 3 to 7 AM at least one morning for some beach-front DXing. I was able to spot two potential parking lots off the ocean front boulevard and plot out the antennas.

We'll also spend two nights each in Chiclayo and Trujillo on the north coast of Peru. There, in those smaller cities, Google doesn't have the streets and addresses yet, so I can't spot the hotel.... but no matter, the beach is 4 or 5 km away and I was able to spot just where on the road to park, in each case, so that road-side BOGs point right out at the central Pacific. I'll be printing those shots off to show the hotel desk when hiring a car and to show the driver as we head out. Google Earth is saving me huge amounts of time/trouble planning these mini-DXpeditions... and having the hotel (and maybe the Federales) know exactly where I am gives a measure of security that I would otherwise not have.

My first choice would have been to take my E1, but since that isn't possible, I guess that I'll be doing the first Ultralighting from South America....

In any case, I've found Google Earth a wonderful aid to planning all sorts of DXpeditions... here and abroad. I also enjoy flying around areas that I will be visiting.... or areas that I'm reading about in a book.... even in fiction. It is fun to know a good bit about the context.



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