This week, check out another wave of Amateur Radio applications that are flooding Google Earth.

View live DX paths courtesy of Dxers.Info's Google Earth application.

After a week hiatus from writing about Google Earth, I find a mailbox full of additional Amateur Radio news related to that application, so I guess it is time to get back to Earth.

Justin Kates, KB3JUV, let us know about some new weather and storm tracking tools for Google Earth. The July 3, 2006, installment of Google Earth Blog talks about the weather tool collection and how you can add them to your Google Earth installation. Currently, there are tools for global hurricane tracking, global cloud cover, NOAA severe weather warning data and radar data, WeatherBonk observations, real-time day/night viewing and NASA global annual lightning flash rate mapping.

From Tim Havens, W4TRH, comes word that his Dxers.Info Web site now provides near real-time plotted paths on Google Earth gleaned from packet cluster information. The Web site also provides hourly E-Layer and F-Layer TEC (total electron content) information.

Richie Shroff, W5OKL, informed me about this gem from Cesco, HB9TLK: Ham-Worldmap. This displays ham radio station locations with Google Earth. Meanwhile, Joze Kranjc, S52JK, has Ham UL, which is a Maidenhead grid square locator for Google Earth.

Kevin Beverage, AD5VG, wrote that the Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) now has support for Google Earth on their Web site. After installing the keyhole markup language (KML) file on his system, it now shows all IRLP nodes and reflectors. "Nice to be able to see where they are instead of doing the mapping in my head," Kevin remarked. (This is a repeat, but I botched up "IRLP" last time, so it deserves repeating.)

Until next time, keep on surfin'.

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, stands on his front lawn each evening hoping to be captured for a Google Earth high-resolution image of downtown Wolcott. To discuss high-resolution images, Google Earth, downtown Wolcott and other odds and ends, e-mail Stan or add comments to his blog.

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