Transmitter Sites

Google Maps is one of my favourite services. Aside from its obvious utility for planning even local driving trips, it can be combined with ShortwaveSchedule.com to enrich the shortwave DXing experience. As I think I have mentioned before, whenever I hear a good clean signal from a new transmitter site or one that I have not logged for a while, I like to look it up on ShortwaveSchedule.com and click on the corresponding flag icon. That takes me to a Google Maps satellite view of the published coordinates for the station's antenna. This often takes me to a nearly featureless view of some forest, farmland, or desert because the published coordinates frequently lack precision. Sometimes though, the coordinates are bang on and all I have to do is zoom in for a high-angle view of the very antenna array that I am listening to.

This is what I found last month when I looked up Vatican Radio https://www.google.com/maps/place/42%C2%B003%2700.0%22N+12%C2%B019%2700.0%22E/@42.0523332,12.3312697,144m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0 and this is what I found for a TWR broadcast from Swaziland https://www.google.com/maps/place/26%C2%B020%2700.0%22S+31%C2%B036%2700.0%22E/@-26.3377786,31.5980555,92m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

I can't seem to embed the images so just click on the links to see the sites.

Sometimes a bit of panning around is necessary. Look for long straight shadows like in the second one above. One time I found an excellent image in the Kuwaiti desert but neglected to bookmark it and have not been able to relocate it. I will probably keep trying because, to me, Google Maps is far more captivating than any game or any social media platform. That's probably a common preference among DXers.