ARO Field Atlas
← Map In progress · Building in public

We put amateur radio on the map.

Wir bringen den Amateurfunk auf die Karte.

Ponemos la radio aficionada en el mapa.

La radio amateur, sur la carte.

The most complete view of where amateur radio happens outdoors. Every park, every peak, every operator.

See the roadmap Why we're building this

What is amateur radio?

Amateur ("ham") radio is a licensed, non-commercial radio service used by millions of people worldwide. Operators communicate across cities, countries, and continents using nothing but radio waves. Many take their equipment outdoors to parks, mountain summits, nature reserves, and islands. ARO Field Atlas maps these outdoor locations so anyone can explore them.

Why we're building this

Outdoor amateur radio is bigger than any single program, and no one has put it all on one map. Four root causes, one map.

01

Fragmented data

Want to find an outdoor location to visit or operate from? You have to check six different websites, each with its own database: parks, summits, nature reserves, mountains, and islands are all tracked separately. None of these databases talk to each other.

→ Effect

A single peak can be a SOTA summit, a POTA park and a WWFF reference at the same time, and live in three databases that don't reconcile. Entities that qualify but aren't listed yet live nowhere.

What ARO does

A canonical cross-program registry with gap detection and per-claim provenance. Every entity links back to its program's official record.

02

Buried knowledge

The average outdoor-activation video on YouTube runs 1.5 to 3 hours, unindexed and uncaptioned. Trip reports are scattered across forums in threads from 2014.

→ Effect

Each generation of operators rebuilds the same activation knowledge from scratch. Lessons don't compound.

What ARO does

Grayline Stories: scrubbable activations with synced log, audio, photos and propagation. Searchable across operators and regions.

03

Travel friction

Answering "Can I operate in country X?" pieces together at least five sources: the country's regulator, the IARU society, ARRL's country page, forum threads, word of mouth.

→ Effect

Hours of pre-trip research, often outdated. Operators arrive uncertain about reciprocal rules, customs, and antenna realities.

What ARO does

Country pages with per-claim citations and named human reviewers. Bilingual from day one.

04

Under-served voices

Latin America has roughly 600 million Spanish speakers and a sizable licensed population, but less than 5% of high-quality outdoor-radio content online is in Spanish.

→ Effect

Spanish-speaking operators read in English or do without. Regional events, voices and content are invisible to global audiences.

What ARO does

Four languages live (EN, ES, DE, FR). Native editorial leads recruited before pilot.

Roadmap

Started with Switzerland, now expanding. Each wave adds countries and languages we can reach through cultural and regulatory proximity.

  1. Wave 0 done

    Switzerland + Dominican Republic

    3,013 entities across POTA, SOTA, WWFF, WWBOTA. Live at aro.travel.

  2. Wave 1 in progress

    DE · IT · FR

    Switzerland's neighbours. CEPT-aligned regulators. Cross-border Alpine peaks.

  3. Wave 2 planned

    Rest of Europe

    UK, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Benelux, CZ, PL, Scandinavia, Mediterranean.

  4. Wave 3 planned

    United States

    POTA originated in the US (~50,000+ parks). FCC reciprocity layer.

  5. Wave 4 planned

    Latin America

    XE, LU, HK, CE, TI, HC, OA, HI and Caribbean. ES content fully native.

  6. Wave 5+ planned

    Rest of world

    Japan, Australia, NZ, Korea, Asia, Africa, Pacific.

Patient, capital-efficient, fully under founder control. Wave 0 is live. Each new wave adds countries and programs. See /roadmap for the full detail.

FAQ

Short answers to the questions different audiences actually ask. If something's missing, the planning workspace in the repo answers most of it in detail.

What does ARO mean?
ARO stands for Amateur Radio Outdoors. A brand and a practice for taking ham radio out of the shack: parks, peaks, beaches, islands, expeditions. Field Atlas is the project we're building under that brand.
What is amateur radio?
A licensed, non-commercial radio service used by millions of people worldwide for technical experimentation, public service, emergency communication and outdoor adventure. You don't need a license to listen.
Is this another POTA / SOTA / WWFF?
No. Every entity links back to its program's official record. We add a unified map across all programs, live propagation data (PSKReporter, solar conditions, greyline), weather forecasts for activation planning, cross-program gap detection, and activator profiles with stats from all programs combined.
How is this different from SOTLAS?
SOTLAS is excellent for SOTA summits. ARO Field Atlas covers all outdoor programs at once (POTA, SOTA, WWFF, GMA, IOTA) on one map, with live propagation data (PSKReporter, solar conditions, greyline), weather forecasts, activation planning, and cross-program entity reconciliation. We follow the same respectful third-party model, and we're bilingual from day one.
When does the map launch?
The map is live. Wave 0 (Switzerland + Dominican Republic) is shipped with 3,013 entities. New countries are added progressively. See the roadmap above.
Why Switzerland first?
It is the founder's home country (HB9HJU). One of the most active SOTA associations in the world. A clear regulatory landscape with BAKOM. Rich Alpine cross-border peaks. And small enough to validate the whole pipeline before expanding.
Who is behind it?
An open project by Doulab (Santiago Arias Consulting), built by Luis Santiago: HB9HJU / HI8ILO. Source-available under MIT (code) and CC BY-SA 4.0 (educational content).
Will I have to pay?
No. Reading ARO is free for everyone. Programs and partners may have optional paid integrations later, but the public registry, country pages, stories and map remain free to read.
What about my data?
We collect almost nothing today: cookieless analytics and your local theme preference. No tracking, no third parties, no data sold. When we add features that involve personal data, we will ask explicitly. Read our privacy policy.
Can I contribute?
Yes, once submissions open in Phase 2C. Operators, program admins, and travelers will be able to submit new entities, corrections, and trip reports through a public, audited workflow.
Is there an ARO net?
Yes. We run the ARO JS8 / Winlink Weekly Net, active since 2021-07-25. Check in via Winlink to [email protected], or via JS8CALL on 40m at 21:00 UTC. We also publish a Daily News Wire and a weekly After-Action Report.

Where we are right now

We're building in public. Wave 0 is live: Switzerland (HB) and Dominican Republic (HI) with 3,013 entities across POTA, SOTA, WWFF, and WWBOTA. New countries added as the pipeline expands.

Source-available: MIT for code, CC BY-SA 4.0 for educational content. Privacy-first, by design.

Privacy, by design

We use only privacy-friendly, cookieless analytics. We do not sell data. We collect the minimum we need to operate the site. When we add features that handle personal data (accounts, submissions, location pins), we will tell you exactly what is collected, why, and how to remove it. Read our privacy policy.