Many thanks to Hamilton (KD0FNR) who writes:

Hamie (KO6BTY) and I have been playing with mapping our QSOs for a few years now. We evolved from ionosonde data and Google Earth to data from an NOAA model called GloTEC, (Global Total Electron Content), and Cesium Ion maps. Out of that, we have an app up and running that provides half hour in the past global values for hmF2, (height of the F2 layer at the maximum electron density), and foF2, (the frequency a vertical signal will still be reflected back at.)

The app pulls data from GloTEC, runs it through an open-source data tool called Datasette that uses a plugin we wrote to turn the data into a CZML file that can be viewed with a Cesium Ion map. We use Cesium’s free site, Cesium Sandcastle, to display the map on our page.

The app is at
https://copaseticflow.blogspot.com/p/project-toucans-current-f2-map.html

The code is at
https://github.com/hcarter333/glotec_hm_fo_f2

Here are a few screen shots:

The grid squares are color coded on the foF2 scale. The ‘spires’ are color coded on the hmF2 scale and extend upwards to each spires’ corresponding hmF2 height in km.

The map is hosted though github and Cesium Sandcastle at no cost to us on our blogger.com domain blog. Users can view the most recent GloTEC data for their area by exploring the map.

If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it.

Thanks Thomas!

What a clever way to visualize this F2 data! You’re such an innovative father/daughter combo! Readers, they welcom your feedback!