DXLook Blog

Chasing DXpeditions used to mean keeping at least three tabs open: a calendar to see who's announced, a cluster aggregator to see if any of them are spotted right now, and a propagation tool to figure out whether you can actually work them from your QTH. The new DXpeditions View on DXLook collapses all three into a single map.

This guide explains what the view does, how the data flows, and how to get the most out of it whether you're hunting your hundredth DXCC entity or your three hundredth.

The Problem the View Solves

There are roughly 340 DXCC entities. Serious chasers track which rare ones are activated by traveling expeditions and try to work them before the operators pack up and fly home. The workflow typically looks like this:

1. Check NG3K ADXO to see who has announced an upcoming operation
2. Check a DX cluster to see if any of those callsigns are being heard right now
3. Open a VOACAP or MUF tool and mentally compute whether the path from your QTH to that part of the world is workable on this band, at this hour

The third step is where most chasers waste time — especially when conditions are marginal. You see a spot for an ATNO (All-Time New One), you race to the band, and you hear nothing. Was it propagation? Was it just the wrong band? Was anyone actually hearing them?

The DXpeditions View answers all of this in one place.

Other tools tell you who's on the air. DXLook tells you who's on the air and reachable from your grid right now.

What You See When You Open the View

Click the 🌍 DXpeditions entry in the Map Views menu on the left. Two things load:

1. A floating widget in the top-right corner with the sortable, filterable list of every DXpedition currently in NG3K's calendar.
2. Markers on the map for the expeditions that are on the air right now (more on what "on air" means below), with arcs showing where they're being heard.

The map is band-colored just like every other view in DXLook — each arc is the color of the band that spot was made on. The expedition itself is marked with a 🌍 icon at the DXCC entity's centroid, with the callsign labeled underneath.

The Three Status Categories

The widget has three filter chips at the top: All, Active, On air. Each one represents a different "level of activity":

The map respects the filter — switching to "On air" hides the markers for announced and active-but-silent expeditions. Markers also have opacity that reflects the status: solid for on-air, faded for active without recent spots, very faded for future announcements. You can see at a glance which markers are "live" and which are "scheduled."

Hover any chip to see a tooltip explaining what it includes.

The Time Window Control

In the Map Configuration panel on the left (under the perspective selector), you'll find a Time selector with seven options: 1m, 5m, 15m, 30m, 1h, 2h, 6h.

This control affects three things:

1. What counts as "on air" — an expedition becomes on_air only if there's at least one spot for its callsign within this window
2. Which spots are drawn on the map — only spots within the window get an arc
3. Arc opacity — older spots fade out within the window (a 14-minute-old spot is more transparent than a 30-second-old spot, when the window is 15 minutes)

The default is 15 minutes because that matches the rhythm most chasers actually use. Go shorter (1m, 5m) when there's an opening and you want to see only the most recent activity. Go longer (2h, 6h) for retrospective analysis or to see "everything that's been heard today" of a tough catch.

Filters: Status, Band, Continent, Search

Inside the widget header you'll find more refinements:

• Status chips — All / Active / On air (already covered above)
• Band selector — pick a specific band and only see expeditions announcing or being spotted on that band
• Continent selector — AF / AS / EU / NA / OC / SA / AN (the seven DXCC continents)
• Search box — type any callsign or entity name; results filter in real time

A few things worth knowing:

• The "All" chip is also a global reset. Clicking it clears status, band, continent, and search in one click. Useful when you've narrowed down to one expedition and want to come back to the full list.
• Changing any filter exits focal mode. If you'd previously clicked an expedition to focus on it (next section), changing any filter automatically deselects it and returns to the panoramic view.
• The map and the list stay in sync. What you see in the widget always matches what's on the map.

The Two Map Modes

Panoramic Mode (default)

When no expedition is selected, the map shows every expedition that matches your current filter. Each on-air expedition gets:

• A 🌍 marker at the DXCC entity centroid, labeled with the callsign
• Band-colored arcs from the expedition to every recent receiver location
• Pins or grid squares at the receiver end of each arc (toggle between the two with the pin/grid icon in the utilities row)
• Callsign labels at the receiver end (toggle with the label icon)

This view answers the question: Who's being heard, where, on what bands, right now?

Focal Mode (one expedition selected)

Click any expedition — either its row in the widget or its 🌍 marker on the map — and you enter focal mode. Everything else disappears and only that expedition is drawn, in larger detail. Click again to return to panoramic.

Focal mode adds three things you don't get in panoramic:

1. One VOACAP path arc per band — explained in detail below
2. A reality check — comparing what VOACAP predicts to what's actually being heard near you
3. Bigger marker for the focal expedition so it stands out

This view answers the question: Can I work this specific expedition from my QTH right now?

How VOACAP Predictions Work in This View

This is the most important part of the view, and the one that's worth understanding well.

The Per-Band Approach

When you select an expedition in focal mode, DXLook fetches VOACAP predictions from your home grid to the area of the expedition's centroid. For every band the expedition is operating on, you get a separate VOACAP arc.

So if 3G0Z is being spotted on 40m and 20m, you'll see two VOACAP arcs from your QTH to Juan Fernández — one for 40m and one for 20m, each with its own predicted score. You decide which one to try.

Why this matters: VOACAP predictions are highly band-specific. The same path can be excellent on 20m and useless on 40m, or vice versa. A single aggregate score would hide the information you actually need to make a decision.

What Bands Get a VOACAP Arc?

DXLook chooses bands using this rule:

• If the expedition has recent spots (i.e., it's on the air), VOACAP runs only for the bands where spots have actually appeared. The operators have empirically found what works; predicting a different band would be misleading.
• If the expedition is announced but not yet heard, VOACAP runs for every band the operators announced. "HF" expands to 80/40/20/15/10m; "VHF" to 6/2m.

Reading the Arc Style

Each VOACAP arc uses the same visual language as DXLook's dedicated VOACAP view:

• Dashed line — distinguishes predicted paths from real spotter arcs (solid lines)
• Band-colored — same band colors used everywhere else on the site
• Line thickness — proportional to the predicted score (thicker = better)
• Opacity — also proportional to the score (more solid = better)
• Midpoint badge — shows the band and predicted score percentage (e.g., 20m 92%)

Hover any VOACAP arc to see the full prediction details: quality label (Excellent / Very Good / Good / Fair / Poor), band, SNR in dB, reliability percentage, MUF in MHz, and the score percentage.

The Reality Check

VOACAP is a propagation model, not a measurement. It tells you what the ionosphere should allow, based on the date, time, solar flux, and the path's geometry. But the real ionosphere doesn't always cooperate — there can be a magnetic storm, absorption, sporadic-E that wasn't predicted, or just localized weirdness.

The DXpeditions View runs a reality check alongside VOACAP. For each focal expedition, it computes:

• How many spots fall in the 9 Maidenhead grids around your QTH within the current time window (your own grid plus the 8 neighbors — roughly a 200×400 km area in mid-latitudes)

Then it compares VOACAP's prediction to that reality, and shows one of two contextual messages when the two disagree:

"VOACAP predicts a good path, but no one near you is hearing them right now" The model is optimistic; the band isn't actually delivering. Maybe a magnetic storm, maybe just localized fading. Try later or try a different band.

"VOACAP is not optimistic, but they are being heard near you" The model is being pessimistic; conditions are better than predicted. Worth getting on the air — your neighbors are working them.

When VOACAP and reality agree (either both positive or both negative), no message is shown — the map already tells you the story.

This honesty about the model's limits is the whole point of the view. VOACAP is a guide, not a guarantee, and we don't pretend otherwise.

What's in the Widget's Table

The widget shows a sortable table with these columns:

• St — status badge (● on air, ○ active, ◇ announced) — color-coded
• Call — the callsign, in the deterministic color used for that expedition's marker
• Entity — the DXCC entity name (hover for the full name if it's truncated)
• Dates — operating window in DD/MM format (hover for the full ISO dates with year)
• Bands — chips for each band the operators announced or that's been spotted:
  • Normal chip = announced and spotted (working as planned)
  • Chip with ⌛ = announced but no recent spots (operators planned this band, nothing heard yet)
  • Chip with 📡 (green) = spotted but not announced (operators are using a band they didn't advertise)
• S — spot count in the current time window
• QSL — QSL info (LoTW, manager callsign, OQRS, etc.)

Click any row to enter focal mode for that expedition.

Tooltips Everywhere

Hovering any marker, arc, pin, or grid square in this view shows context-specific information:

• Expedition marker — callsign, entity, status, date range, announced bands, announced modes
• Spotter arc (or its end pin/grid) — receiver callsign and grid, band, mode, the expedition it heard
• VOACAP arc or its destination grid — quality label, band, SNR, reliability, MUF, score

If you ever wonder what something on the map is, hover it.

Practical Workflows

Hunting Your Next DXCC

1. Open the DXpeditions View, leave the time window at 15 minutes
2. Scan the On air chip to see who's being heard right now
3. Click any expedition you need for DXCC
4. Look at the VOACAP arcs: which bands have green/yellow predictions from your QTH?
5. Cross-check the reality message — if VOACAP is optimistic but no one nearby is hearing them, try the next best band instead
6. Tune to the working band and listen for the pile-up

Pre-Trip Planning

You see an expedition announced for next month to a country you need. While they're not on the air yet:

1. Click their row in the widget
2. The VOACAP arcs show predictions for every band they announced
3. You can see at a glance which bands have the best historical propagation from your QTH to that part of the world for the time of year
4. Plan your antenna setup and operating schedule accordingly

"Is the band open?"

A different question — not "where's the DX" but "what's working from here?". Use the Band filter in the widget to restrict to a single band (say, 10m). The map now shows only expeditions that have spots on 10m. If clusters of arcs are converging from a particular part of the world, that part of the world has propagation to you on that band.

Retrospective Analysis

Set the time window to 6 hours and switch to All. You'll see every expedition that's been heard anywhere in the last six hours, with arc fading by spot age. Useful for understanding daily propagation patterns or for catching up after work to see what you missed.

How Status is Determined

Just so the categories are clear:

So the same expedition can be active at 14:00 (no recent spots) and on_air at 14:30 (someone just spotted them). The status changes dynamically as spots come and go from the time window.

Past expeditions (end date more than a day ago) are filtered out automatically — the view shows current and future ops, not history.

Mobile

On a phone or tablet, the widget moves into the bottom sheet — drag the chevron up to see the list, drag it down to maximize the map. All the same filters, all the same interactions. Tap a row to enter focal mode; the map handles VOACAP and reality check the same way as on desktop.

Data Sources

The view brings together three independent data streams:

• DXpedition announcements — NG3K ADXO by W.B. Feidt. Bill has been hand-curating the DX calendar since 1996; he's the standard the entire DX community uses. DXLook pulls his RSS feed every 30 minutes.
• Live spots — WSPRnet, PSK Reporter, RBN, and the DX cluster network, all already in DXLook's database
• Propagation predictions — VOACAP, computed per-grid and pre-cached so the predictions appear instantly when you select an expedition

All three sources are credited in the Help panel under Data Sources.

A Few Honest Caveats

Some things the view doesn't do (yet, or by design):

• It doesn't track your personal DXCC need list. It shows every DXpedition; you decide which ones you need. We don't ask you to log in or upload your log.
• It doesn't filter out pirates or busted callsigns. A few false spots can occasionally trigger an on_air status incorrectly. If you see something weird, hover the marker to see the spot count and where the spots came from.
• It uses the DXCC entity centroid as the expedition's location. Some entities are large (like a whole country), and the centroid is a geographic average — it's not the operator's exact location. For VOACAP purposes this is fine; for visual exactness it's an approximation.
• The VOACAP model has limits. The reality check tries to flag the cases where the model and the actual ionosphere disagree, but it can only do so when there are real spots near you. In the middle of the night with nobody on, you only have the model.

Why We Built This

Three observations led to this view:

1. NG3K is a 1990s table. It's a phenomenal data source, and Bill is a hero — but the presentation hasn't been touched in 30 years. Modern UX can do more with that data.
2. The other tools all show propagation OR DX, never both fused per-expedition. OpenHamClock and the QRV iOS app come closest, but their propagation is global, not per-expedition-per-band.
3. DXLook already had the pieces. We already had VOACAP per-grid, real-time spots, a fast map, and the i18n + mobile infrastructure. Adding the DXpedition layer on top was a natural extension.

The result is the view that didn't exist before but should have: every announced and active DXpedition in the world, on one interactive map, with honest answers about whether you can work them from your QTH right now.

Try It

Open dxlook.com, click the 🌍 DXpeditions entry in the Map Views menu, and start exploring.

Set your home grid (top left, under your callsign) if you haven't already — that's what powers the VOACAP path and the reality check. Without it you'll still see the panoramic map and the list, but the per-band predictions will be hidden.

If you spot a DXpedition that should be in NG3K's calendar but isn't, contact Bill directly — DXLook is downstream of him, so corrections go there first.

73 and good DX,

73 de AK6FP Rodrigo https://dxlook.com