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Azimuthal Map
Centered on the
San Francisco East Bay
An Azimuthal Map is a map of the world, or a part of it, with a specific point set at its center; and with the property that directions from that central point are preserved. Therefore, great circles through the central point are represented by straight lines on the map.
Hams find these maps very useful for pointing directional antennas toward a desired contact location, as the map easily shows the azimuth angle and shortest distance to that contact.
Azimuthal maps must be custom created to show the desired central point. A map for a ham in Boston or London will be very different than for a ham in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Below is an azimuthal map centered on the East Bay area of the San Francisco region. A link to a downloadable PDF of this map is in the Reference section at the bottom of this page.
This particular map was provided by Tom Epperly's, NS6T, website at www.NS6T.net. Other sites can create similar maps and can be found with an internet search. Tom's site can create maps of the whole world, such as this one, or ones covering smaller distances, such as one for North America only. They can also be customized in a few ways; such as by adding grid square labels and/or latitude/longitude grid lines (they look really weird on these maps).
References:
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