I am a frequent user of websites that plot or otherwise present amateur radio signals on maps, tables, or in other formats to find radio activity (propagation). One thing that bothers me personally is when they use my visit for advertising cookies and the like to third party sites. A third party site is a website that I did not attempt to access. This is a simple look at a few of the websites I use for amateur radio to track radio propagation and a high-level look at their use of javascript (js).
In this example, I use a browser plug-in to show, permit, and block additional third party websites. I do this to limit third party use of my website visits from third parties. In some cases, the third party websites may provide a service or function the website will not function without permitting the traffic. I make no representation on whether or not the information show here is accurate in respect to the trustworthiness of any website listed, this is for educational purposes.
firefox and noscript
I use a browser plug-in called noscript, it is a js blocker that permits you to control whether or not js may run on a particular website you visit as well as whether or not additional js code to third party sites may execute.
In the example websites and figures below, I make no disparaging comments against the site operators, their selection of third party partners is up to them. You will see green padlocks where I granted temporary trusted permission for a website to run its js to write this blog, in just about all cases, the website does not display correctly without permitting the js to execute in your browser. If you are not running a js blocker, and js is enabled in your browser, all of the third party website traffic will execute. There are many tutorials on the web for finding these settings in your web browsers and how to add plugins like noscript.
Now, there is good js and bad, this blog post is focused on showing what third parties particular websites use at the time of the blog post for educational purposes. This is not a deep dive into whether these websites use js code that is 'safe' so understand what I show below was done to write this blog post and that website owners change this often.
dxmaps.com
This was the first website that I started with when I became a ham in 2014 using PSK modes and JT65 digital modes. I loved the graphical representation of the data, many other features exist on the website that I simply do not use. I have donated the site in the past, hoping to help the operator and to show appreciation for the site. But, even when logged in as a contributing user, a visit to this website still reaches out to third parties that I do not want to promote (figure 1).
Figure 1 - dxmaps.com
pskreporter.info
My second website to look for radio propagation information from is pskreporter.info, I prefer its graphical map representation showing radio communications across the globe. In programs like WSJT-X you can choose to send your radio spots to the site for use. This website also communicates with third party sites for advertising and other activities (figure 2).
Figure 2 - pskreporter.info
Upon first glance, a visit to the site shows little third party involvement, mainly google website analytics. But, if you allow the js to run from pskreporter.info additional third party sites appear (figure 3).
Figure 3 - pskreporter.info
You can see that I had to temporarily trust some of the js to run for this website to function and display its map. I did not look at any of the js code to see what its purpose is, just to note the third party websites visited at the time of this blog post.
hamspots.net
The last example website shows a website that appears to value its visitors by not using any third party websites, this includes before and after I logged into the site as a registered user (figure 4).
Figure 4 - hamspots.net
That is it, a quick look at amateur radio websites used for looking at radio propagation and some of the third party websites that share some of your website visit information with when you allow their javascript to run from their site on your device.
Go have a cookie (oops, another blog post)
