Path Logger, Version 1
https://n3pay-2b69c-pl1.web.app/ is the temporary URL
Simplex is where the interesting radio happens. No repeater, no linked system, just two stations and whatever the terrain and the antennas will allow. The part I kept wanting to keep track of was not the contact itself but the path — where I was, where the other station was, and whether that path worked again later.
So I built Path Logger. Version 1 is deliberately small.
What it does
- Logs the contact. Callsign, date and time, frequency, mode, and signal reports, typed in on the spot.
- Captures location. The browser's geolocation gives me my position, and I record the other station's grid or coordinates. That turns a log entry into two endpoints instead of one.
- Maps the path. Every logged contact draws a line between the two stations, so a night of simplex work becomes a picture of what actually got out.
- Shares the log. Multiple operators can sign in to the same project and see each other's entries. During a net or a group activation, everyone's contacts land in one map.
Why Firebase
I wanted to spend my time on the logging, not on hosting. The free tier covers everything version 1 needs: Firestore for the contact records, Authentication so operators sign in rather than sharing a password, and Hosting to serve the whole thing. No server to patch, no database to back up by hand, and the app is a URL I can open on a phone in the truck.
The tradeoff is honest: this is somebody else's platform and somebody else's quota. For a hobby log of simplex contacts, that's a trade I'm happy to make. If it outgrows the free tier, exporting Firestore documents to something self-hosted is not a hard problem.
What version 1 is not
It is not a general-purpose logger. There is no ADIF import, no LoTW or QRZ integration, no contest support. If you want a real log, use a real logger. Path Logger exists to answer one question: what paths have worked, from where, on simplex?
Version 2 ideas, roughly in order of how much I want them: ADIF export, elevation profile along the path, and marking a contact as a repeat so I can see which paths are reliable versus lucky.
The demo is live — try it and tell me what's missing.
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