iotamaps.com - FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
What is IOTA?
IOTA stands for Islands On The Air, and is an award scheme for radio amateurs interested in making contacts by radio with others operating from islands worldwide.
More information can be found on the RSGB IOTA Programme page.
What is an IOTA group or island?
The IOTA award scheme has established a listing of island groups and islands around the world which can qualify for awards: there are at present over 1100 groups, and almost 13000 islands, in the listing.
IOTA awards are based around "activations" and "chases":
- activations are conducted by persons (the activators) who travel to a listed island in a particular IOTA group, and who transmit radio signals from there around the world. When the travel to and from the island is especially difficult, or few contacts have ever been made from that island or group, the event is often called a "DXpedition", from the words "DX" (meaning long distance) and "expedition". Activators do not receive points for their efforts, but do receive credit for providing the contacts;
- chasers are those, at home or operating portable, who make radio contacts (chases) with the activators. Points are claimed by the chasers who register their contacts with the main IOTA organization.
Why have mapping for IOTA?
Why not? - but seriously, using the maps provided by iotamaps will show you where the IOTA station you have contacted is situated, and can give you a much better idea of some, or all, of the following:
- the geographical location of the activator's station
- the propagation path between your station and that of the activator
- the difficulties involved in setting up the activator's station
- additional links to other sources of information on the island group and its' individual islands
There are other mapping sites for IOTA - what's so special about iotamaps?
There are other mapping resources for IOTA, but they are all very limited in their coverage of IOTA island groups, with old-fashioned, clunky user interfaces - some of which will only work in certain browsers!
iotamaps, on the other hand, has been built with the user in mind, features a fully interactive user-interface, works in all modern browsers, and uses as its' basis the Leaflet Maps API to provide fast mapping services, plus a regularly-updated database of IOTA island groups and their individual islands.
Several features unique to iotamaps allow it stand head and shoulders above the competition:
- When a single island group is displayed on the map, along with all it's islands;
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a separate dialog window also opens which lists group information, with each individual island listed in a table.
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Islands listed in the table function as links to other, external, sources of information on that particular island.
- A search dialog is also provided to enable the user to quickly find any IOTA group, or individual island in the database:
- Using the options dialog, users can enter their callsign and grid locator, so that distances and bearings between their station and an IOTA group can be calculated:
- A very special feature - unique to iotamaps - is the ability to show the individual islands within a group in the correct position on the map. Here displayed are the Canary Islands AF-004, with each of the eleven islands in the group marked with a custom icon:
- If more than one IOTA group is displayed in the map, as in this example showing all groups in the DXCC entity 221 (Denmark), each group rectangle has a title, such as "EU-088" or "EU-172" as in this example:
- If the user double-clicks on a group title, that single group will be loaded into the map, together with all of its' island markers, and its' accompanying list dialog.
- Please note that all dialog windows in iotamaps are moveable - i.e. they can be moved or dragged around the screen, allowing the user to move a dialog to a place on the screen where it doesn't obstruct the view of some other object in the map. Use the mouse to grab the top bar of the dialog, and drag it where you want.
Anything else which makes iotamaps special?
Plenty! For instance, you can link to the iotamaps mapping page so that it does any of the following directly on startup:
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load a particular IOTA group:
Examples:
- load the Canary Islands AF-004 group: https://www.iotamaps.com?grpref=AF-004
- load the Turneffe Islands NA-123 group: https://www.iotamaps.com?grpref=NA-123
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load a particular continent:
Example:
- load all IOTA island groups in Asia : https://www.iotamaps.com?cont=AS
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load a particular DXCC entity:
Example:
- load all IOTA island groups in DXCC entity 497 (Croatia): https://www.iotamaps.com?dxcc=497
Please note that data on island groups and islands in this website are copyrighted material:
"Includes IOTA Group Information, copyright (c) 1985-2026 Islands On The Air (IOTA) Ltd"
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As more features are developed, we will list them here. Until then, happy IOTA'ing from the iotamaps team! |
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