[Elecraft] OT guestion...Help needed for the geography-challenged ham

[STEPHEN W BANKS]

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone on the list have suggestions for ways to quickly associate callsigns, country names, latitude and longitude and similar data?  I think what I'm looking for is a well-permuted index of some kind.  Seems like occasionally I see a post about such a service, but I've lost track of it/them.

Simple English names for country locations for unfamiliar callsigns would be quite helpful.  Even better would be maps depicting the country's whereabouts, its longitude and latitude, and bearing and distance from my QTH.  Frequently heard prefixes like Gs, Ms, Fs, Ds and other European countries are pretty easy to remember, as are Central and North American callsigns.  But beyond those locations I get VERY ignorant VERY quickly.

My ProLog Call Master files do a good job of quickly determining beam headings and distance to a specific ham's QTH; they are fine.  But less frequently heard DX callsigns are hard for me to visualize for beam headings and just general information about the names and whereabouts of countries, their ham populations and the like.  

What I'm looking for is a way for me to be less geography-challenged.   (No wonder my DXCC tally list is so sparce!)  Not sure how I ever made it through elementary and high school geography classes.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks and 73,

Steve Banks
K0PQ
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