What you're looking at

Every shaded territory is somewhere I've made contact with by radio — no internet in between, just a signal travelling through the atmosphere and, on a good day, most of the way around the planet.

The borders aren't quite countries. Amateur radio counts about 340 DXCC entities, which split some countries up and treat far-flung islands separately — Alaska and Hawaii are their own, as are Sardinia, the Canaries, and Scotland. That's why the map looks subtly unfamiliar.

Green means the other operator and I have both filed a matching record, so the contact is formally confirmed. Amber means we made contact but haven't exchanged confirmations yet. The map refreshes itself once a day from my logbook.

Each pale dot is a single contact, dropped roughly where the other station was. The dots are deliberately blunt instruments — positions are rounded to about 10 km, and there's nothing behind them: no name, no callsign, nothing to hover. Where they pile up is simply where the contacts are.