From public reports to bounded inference
How IonVector works
A transparent path from what receivers reported to what the evidence can—and cannot—support.
Observation / What was heard
Start with a report,
not a prediction.
A public FT8 reception report describes who was heard, by whom, on which band or frequency, at what time, and with reported signal context. It is an observation made by a participating receiver.
A raw spot map answers what was reported. Station-capability inference asks a narrower question: what contribution is supported after accounting for the surrounding observation network?
VIR / Vectorized Ion Reach
Separate the station
from the crowd around it.
IonVector validates report formats and ranges, bounds observations to a current window, and exposes sparse or unavailable evidence rather than manufacturing a complete answer.
VIR is the overall station-capability inference after separating station contribution from the surrounding network. It is not transmit power, antenna gain, or a score of operator skill.
VCF / Directional evidence
Keep direction and
distance visible.
VCF organizes selected-station evidence by bearing and distance. It helps you inspect where the current public record supports reach—and where the record remains thin.
It is directional evidence, not a deterministic coverage contour.
04 / Read the evidence state
Absence and uncertainty
are part of the result.
- Readiness
- Whether enough current evidence exists to support an inference.
- Confidence
- How strongly the available evidence supports the displayed result.
- Staleness
- How old the observations are relative to the current analysis window.
- Sparse evidence
- The public record is thin, and IonVector keeps that thinness visible.
- Unavailable
- The app cannot support an estimate from the evidence it has.
05 / Limits
Capability evidence
is not a promise.
IonVector does not guarantee a contact, calibrate an antenna, reconstruct the whole ionosphere, establish causation from one path, or serve as an emergency-communications tool.
06 / Optional local context
Public first.
Personal when useful.
Public PSKReporter FT8 reports are enough to explore the network. If you operate a station, a callsign and coarse grid can personalize the view. You can add optional local WSJT-X UDP data for decodes heard by your station; it is an enhancement, not an application gate.
Inspect the maintained record.
Operator setup and the scientific definitions evolve with the project. Use the maintained documentation rather than a frozen setup guide here.