Every ham knows the routine. You get home, string up the antenna, fire up the radio, and find out the bands are dead. SkipWatch answers one question before you go to all that trouble: should I get on the air right now, and on which band?

It gives you a plain answer like “Yes, 20m · Open to Japan,” built from real reception reports for your grid square, current solar conditions and local weather warnings.

Status: SkipWatch 1.0 is with Apple for App Store review. I’ll post the App Store link here the day it goes live.

What it does

Now. The big answer sits at the top: the best band, where it’s open, and which of your modes could work. Below that, every band from 160m to 6m shows Open, Some paths or Closed. It flags tropo and sporadic-E on 2m and up, and tells you when it’s time to disconnect your antennas. You also get a Sun card (SFI, K index, flares), NOAA space weather alerts and local National Weather Service warnings, including a lightning banner. Type a place into “Talk to” and it tells you whether you can reach it.

POTA. Live Parks on the Air activators, filtered to your station, with a “Can I work them?” answer from your grid. Tap an activator for details, aim at the park, or jump to the map.

Map. Lines to every station hearing your grid, or heard from it, colored by band. Search any grid or callsign. Look up your own call to see who actually decoded you. Long-press anywhere to drop a pin and aim at it.

Point. Bearing, distance and long path to any city, grid or coordinates. A live true-north compass buzzes when you’re on target, there’s a north-up mode for rotator folks, and you get band conditions toward that target.

Station setups. Tell it your radio, power, antenna, bands and modes, and every answer adjusts to your gear. 5 W into an end-fed reads differently than 100 W into a beam. Switch between Home, Mobile and Pack setups with one tap.

Red night mode. Full red interface for summits and night ops, so you keep your night vision.

Where the data comes from

  • PSK Reporter for real reception reports around your grid square
  • NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center for solar conditions
  • National Weather Service for local warnings
  • Parks on the Air for live activators (Parks on the Air is a registered trademark of POTA, Inc. SkipWatch is not affiliated with POTA.)
  • callook.info for operator names, from the FCC’s public license data

SkipWatch talks to these services directly from your phone. There’s no server in the middle.

Free, and staying that way

No accounts, no ads, no tracking, no in-app purchases. I could probably charge for it; however, I believe ham radio should be open for all. One of the best feelings money can’t buy is knowing my friends check SkipWatch before they waste an evening setting up an antenna.

It runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 18 or later. No radio hardware required.

Thank you

A big thank you to the Radio Buddies who beta tested every build, broke things, and told me exactly what was confusing. This app is better because you were blunt with me.

Questions or ideas? Reach out. The privacy policy covers exactly what SkipWatch sends and why.

73, Sal, W6SAL