How it started

My name is Igor. I've been on the air since 1978 — that's when I got my first SWL (listener) callsign. Over the years I've operated from different countries under different callsigns:

My passion is QRP — low-power operating. My shack currently holds two rigs: an Icom IC-705 and a Lab599 Discovery TX-500. But my warmest memories are of the Kenwood TS-520 and the tube UW3DI, the Icom IC-7100, and my very first home-built transceiver — a 160 m rig of V. Polyakov's design.

I compete in contests in the QRP category and keep chasing countries for DXCC — a few entry-level awards are already on the wall, and the hunt for new entities goes on.

And behind all of it — family: four sons and a grandson, and a beloved wife who supports both of my hobbies — radio and poker :)

I served in the Soviet Army, in the airborne troops, and finished my service as the battalion's radio station chief. My father always told me: the most important thing in a station is the antenna, not the power. He himself worked with just 1 watt into a Nadenenko dipole deployed in all directions.

The project grew out of years on the air and the wish for a single window that shows everything at once: which frequencies are busy, which are free, where a round table is running and where a rare DX station is calling. The first sketches were a plain table of frequencies; it quickly became clear the table was missing the most important thing — life. Who's talking right now, who just signed off, what's happening this very minute.

It was exactly those years of experience — from a listener to a QRP DX hunter — that sparked the idea of gathering the live ether into one window. So the first version was born: a map of bands where every frequency has its own chat, with operators shown next to it — their callsigns, countries and TX/RX status.

The interface was built to feel like a familiar rig panel rather than yet another messenger: a monospace font, color coding by band, continental tags and filters. Under the hood is a real-time data stream that brings together activity on the frequencies, chat messages and the DX-spot picture.

To show the rig's real frequency on the site, a bridge between the hardware and the browser was needed. The first attempt — controlling the radio directly over CI-V — turned into an instructive lesson.

In the end the "Bridge to Log" learned to understand several sources at once — MacLogger DX, N1MM Logger+ and WSJT-X — and to tell whether the rig is connected by the timeout of incoming packets. The frequency on the site came alive: blue when there's a link, grey when the rig is silent. Later a universal CAT connector was added for direct hookup of Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood.

A DX cluster joined the live ether: spots are pulled in automatically, a callsign is resolved to continent and country, and a "DX" badge appears in the list so rare stations don't get lost. Sign-in is verified through QRZ.com and LoTW, so the chat holds real operators. You can watch the map without signing in; a callsign is only needed to go on the air in chat. The interface now speaks eight languages, and messages can be translated on the fly.

A watch list for tracking the callsigns you care about appeared, along with a support panel offering ready-made bridge builds for macOS, Windows, Linux and Python — so you can connect in a couple of minutes.

The site has a special place — frequency 7.125, where the net of the Russian-speaking amateur radio club of Israel (IARC) gathers every Saturday. In many ways this community set the tone for the whole project: warm, lively, in its native language.

HAM-RADIO.LIVE keeps growing together with the community. Ahead: more links to rigs and loggers, easier annotations and moderation, more live data on the map of the air. But the core stays the same: to make real-time radio visible to everyone — open, from the browser, in your own language.