You can find an ever so brief description of the various versions of GridMapper here.

I wrote GridMapper because I wanted to find a way to digitally track the grids I worked on 6m, and I was curious about how to use the Google Maps tool. Every Sporadic-E season I was using a printout of the US Grid Map to color in the worked grids. Once I had the thought that it would be nice to be able to show them on a Google Map display in a browser, the plan came together. GridMapper was written in PHP and Javascript, using the Google Map API v.3

Printing may work in many browsers. However, in some it just does not work well. This is very difficult to troubleshoot, as there are just too many factors. However, I would recommend doing a screen shot or capture, and then print the resulting image file. Eg. on Windows, you can use the Snipping Tool; on a Mac use Shift-Command-4, and move the area to where you want it...

The Fred Fish Memorial Award is awarded when you have confirmed working all 488 grids in the contiguous USA on 6m. Enabling this option will automatically filter out 6m contacts only, and only show grids that fall in the 488 grids in the FFMA award! Worked and confirmed gridsquares will show as usual, while missing grids will show as yellow (you can choose the colors in the upload form). This will assist you in figuring out your FFMA award progress. Additionally, some aggregate data will be logged about each FFMA grid, so what we can derive some per-grid QSO statistics. The ARRL has more information on the FFMA award.

GridMapper keeps accumulative statistics of FFMA adif uploads. For all 488 grids, we track how many times they are worked, and confirmed, accumulatively, and for each year that we have FFMA QSOs for. We show the results in two formats.

The map shows how frequently each grid is worked or confirmed, for a specific year (not uploads, but QSO year), or for all uploaded data. This map is in a weather-map like format, with difficult grids in colder colors, and more frequently confirmed or worked grids in warmer colors.

The list displays a table of all FFMA grids, with the number of worked and confirmed contacts that have been uploaded. Again, you can show all data, or just a specific year for which we have found QSOs. This may help in showing how rare or common a grid is. The output can be sorted on either contact type, and by order, simply by clicking on the appropriate column header.

Please note that we have no way of knowing how often the same ADIF file is uploaded, so the data may be heavily skewed! Even so, we hope this is at least an interesting, if not useful, page.

Note: accumulative data for all years is for uploads after 29 August 2012, when v1.1.1 was released.
Per-Year FFMA statistics are for uploads after 8 January 2014, when v1.3 was released. Note however that you can see previous years of stats, once users have uploaded FFMA check QSOs from those years!

If selected, we will only use contacts that have the ADIF propagation mode field ("prop_mode") set to the selected mode, eg. Satellite (ie. a value of "SAT"). Note that if this is selected, and the "prop_mode" field is not present, this means nothing will be shown! The FFMA option will still be functional, so e.g. you can see award progress using Satellite-only contacts. Note this is a terrible example, as we are not aware of any satellites with 6m ☺

Here you can select a callsign search site to use in the list of worked station in each grid. If selected, when you click on the grid, the popup text will have the worked callsigns as a clickable link providing a search query into the selected callsign database. Currently we support the QRZ, HamCall, AE7Q, HamData and QRZCQ sites. Note that for detailed information, you will need to provide your own login information for these services. Note: Google Earth appears to have problems with displaying the QRZ.com page content properly inside the application!

Yes, you can pre-select several output options from the URL line, using parameters.

If you call Gridmapper with the following options, the output colors will be pre-selected in the form. You can bookmark the link for future use, without having to fill in the form again.

The parameters are:

confirmedcolor=00d600 - this set the color for confirmed grids
workedcolor=db0000 - this sets the color for worked, but not confirmed, grids
missingcolor=fafa00 - this sets the color for missing FFMA grids (if selected)
supercolor=3d3d3d - this sets the color for 'super' grids, eg. "CN"

Eg. if you call gridmapper like below, by editing the url line, the colors for worked and confirmed grids will be set (note the values below are the defaults).
You can change per your needs, and then bookmark:

     http://wg7j.reinalda.net/gridmapper/gridmapper.php?confirmedcolor=00d600&workedcolor=db0000

GridMapper keeps some statistics on usage, as displayed here.

GridMapper keeps some accumulative (anonymous) statistics for all grids mapped. We track how many times they are worked, and confirmed.

The map shows how frequently each grid is worked or confirmed, for all uploaded data. This map is in a weather-map like format, with difficult grids in colder colors, and more frequently confirmed or worked grids in warmer colors.

Please note that we have no way of knowing how often the same ADIF file is uploaded, so the data may be heavily skewed! Even so, we hope this is at least an interesting, if not useful, page.

Note: accumulative data for all grids is for uploads after 1 May 2014, when v1.4 was released.

Please send an email to the address listed above, and we will look at it. Here is list of things we are considering implementing.

Any logging software that allows you to create or export a file in ADIF v2 format can be used. Most ham logging applications can do this nowadays.

No, uploaded files are not permanently stored. Once the resulting web page has been sent to your browser, the data file is deleted. We do log a few things anonymously for our usage statistics (such as the number of QSOs and grids found, logging software, etc.)

This is based on the ADIF field MY_GRIDSQUARE. We calculate the center of this grid, and use that as the center of the map display. If no home gridsquare is found, the map will be centered on the geographical center of the contiguous US (somewhere in Kansas)! Please note that only the first home grid found is used. GridMapper cannot currently support multiple operators/stations in one ADIF file.

This is based on the ADIF field STATION_CALLSIGN. We use this as the text for the marker that we place at the station location. If none is found, no marker is placed. Please note that only the first callsign found is used. GridMapper cannot currently support multiple operators/stations in one ADIF file.

We can only map the grids that are listed in the QSO record. We look for the standard ADIF fields called GRIDSQUARE or VUCC_GRIDS (for Satellite contacts). If either of these is not present in a qso record, we can not show it. At this time, we do not query callsign databases yet.

This is based on qso records to that grid where one of the following ADIF fields have the value 'Y' or 'V': QSL_RCVD, LOTW_QSL_RCVD or EQSL_QSL_RCVD

This distance is calculated from the center of the station location gridsquare found (if any), to the center of the gridsquare mapped.

A gridsquare, or simply grid, is a small area used to indicate location. A grid indicater consists of only the first 4 characters, eg. DM33 instead of DM33vq. We use the grid only as this is customary in VHF/UHF exchanges. While the code can calculate and map 6 character subsquare grids, this is currently not enabled. If there is enough demand, we may make that an option.

A super grid is the big grid consisting of only the first 2 characters, eg. DM instead of DM33.

A subsquare is a small portion of a grid, consisting of 6 characters, eg. DM33vq instead of DM33. We use the subsquare only to outline the home qth, if found in the log file.

A microsquare is an even smaller portion of a subsquare, consisting of 8 characters, eg. DM33vqab instead of DM33. We currently do not use the microsquare, although the code can parse it. However, we do use the subsquare only to outline the home qth, if found in the log file.

A geodesic line is a projection of a line as it follows the curvature of the earth. On the three-dimensional earth, this is a "straight 3D line" between two points. In flat earth projections, this becomes a curved line. This becomes particularly obvious with major grids. See this Wikipedia article for more.

There are many places to learn more, but a good place to start is at http://www.adif.org/

Not yet, but if there is enough demand, we will consider adding support for it. See the suggestions topic at the top.

A good place to start is at Google's Maps Javascript API Documentation

Some things we may consider implementing are below.
If you have thoughts about these or others, please contact the author (see above):

• Filling in unknown grid squares for qso's from a query to one or more ham callsign databases.
• Allowing users to login, and store the important pieces of qso information, so that data can be filtered and remapped without the need to upload again. This would probably be done in the form of a Drupal module, so as to not reinvent the user-account-management wheel.
• A way to store and report aggregate data, eg. the number of uploaded contacts, grids mapped, etc. Currently, there is no database connection whatsoever, all uploads are stateless. (This is trivial to add ...)