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wwl

Distance and bearing between two Maidenhead locators, from the command line

What it does

Takes two Maidenhead grid squares and prints the great-circle distance and the azimuth from the first to the second. It also converts between locators and latitude and longitude in both directions.

Why you would want it

It is the small tool that answers the question a beam heading depends on, without opening anything. Two arguments, one line of output, scriptable -- which is what makes it useful inside other things rather than only at a prompt.

Before it will work

None. It is a single binary with no data files.

How it installs

  • apt: wwl

Known problems

It computes the great-circle path, which is the right answer for a beam heading and not always the path a signal actually took: long path, and skewed paths near the auroral zones, are real and this will not tell you about them. Six-character locators give a centre-of-square answer, so distances between nearby stations carry a few kilometres of inherent slop.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

Small, long-stable utility. Debian's package is the practical support route; there is no active upstream project page beyond the download directory above.

Source: catalog/packages/wwl.yaml