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NTMS Propagation What's new

What's new

Everything that has changed on this site, newest first. Last updated September 19, 2026.

Evening scores now follow the real sunset

The forecast outlook for the hours around sunset is now worked out from the actual sunset time for that spot on that date, rather than assuming the evening starts at 8pm everywhere. Through the winter this matters most: with the sun going down around 4:45pm, the late-afternoon and early-evening hours — usually the best window of the day for long-distance microwave contacts — were still being shown as if the air was fully mixed by daytime heating, which understated them badly. Those hours now show the cooling, inversion-reforming conditions they really have. Summer evenings behave the same way as before, just shifted later to match the longer day.

Behind-the-scenes software refresh

The software the site is built on has been updated to the newest releases, including the engine that runs the background chores — pulling forecast model data, collecting weather and radar layers, importing contact logs, and refreshing beacon measurements. Nothing new to click, but these releases bring the reliability and security fixes published since the last refresh, so those chores should stall and retry less often.

Blocked paths show the over-the-horizon geometry

When the path calculator says a path is blocked by terrain, the profile now draws the two horizon-skimming rays and marks the common volume where they meet above the midpoint, together with its Fresnel zone, alongside the buried line of sight. A note under the profile gives the height of that common volume and how deep the direct line of sight is buried, so a blocked verdict with a workable score is no longer a contradiction.

Maps recover more reliably from browser and network interruptions

Propagation, weather, beacon, contact, and rover maps now keep working when saved browser preferences are unavailable or map data arrives malformed. Page navigation also cleans up map loading work, and maps can retry loading their code after a temporary connection failure.

What's new page

This page. Every change to the site now gets written down here in plain English, so you can see what moved since the last time you were on. There's a "What's new" link in the footer of every page.

Searchable beacon picker on monitor nodes

Setting up a managed beacon monitor no longer means scrolling a very long list. The beacon picker now has a search box, so you can type a callsign or a grid square and jump straight to it.

Copy-paste install command for a new monitor node

When you add a managed monitor, the page now shows the exact command to run on the receiver hardware. Copy it, paste it on the node, and it registers itself.

Pick your SDR and beacon from dropdowns

Managed monitor nodes are configured from the website now. Choose the SDR driver and the beacon you're listening to from dropdowns, and the node picks up the settings on its own — no editing config files on the receiver.

Monitor upload tokens no longer disappear

The upload token for a beacon monitor used to be shown once and then hidden for good, so losing it meant creating a new monitor. You can now look it up again from the monitor's page any time.

Seventy accessibility and usability fixes

A full audit of the site turned up seventy issues — keyboard traps, targets too small to hit on a phone, contrast that failed on the darker panels, tables that pushed the page sideways, and missing labels for screen readers. All of them are fixed. The most noticeable difference: everything is now reachable and usable with a keyboard alone, and pages stop scrolling sideways on a phone.

New basemap

The maps now draw on OpenFreeMap vector tiles. They're sharper when you zoom in, they label more small towns, and they don't depend on a third-party account.

See where a contact came from

The contact detail page now tells you how that QSO got into the database — who uploaded it and from which import — so it's clear whether a contact came from your own log or from a bulk historical import.

Imports are credited to your account

CSV and ADIF uploads are now attributed to the account that uploaded them, and they show up on your profile alongside your other contributions.

Add a beacon monitor straight from your profile

Your profile's monitor section now has an "Add beacon monitor" button, instead of making you go find the page for it.

Search on the Skew-T page waits for you to finish typing

The location search on `/skewt` was firing a lookup on every keystroke and jumping to whatever half-typed text matched. It now waits until you've finished before it searches.