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This week, time is on our mind while we visit a Web site with a variety of online time and date related tools suited for the radio amateur.

Time and date.com is the source of a variety of online time-related tools that hams will find handy.

As the old year winds down and a new year starts up, it is a good time to revisit time, as Carl Zelich, AA4MI, recently reminded me when he pointed out an excellent Web site that is all about time: time and date.com.

The Web site offers some useful time-related tools for the radio amateur. For example, the site provides a world clock that indicates the current time throughout the world. You can personalize the world clock to your liking, and then bookmark it in your Web browser for future instant reference. And a personalized world clock applet is available, too!

A great tool for hams using the gray line for propagation is the day and night map, which displays the current position of the Sun, and indicates which parts of the Earth are in daylight and which are in darkness.

A useful tool for DXers is the distance calculator, which computes the distance and heading between any two locations listed in the Web site's world clock database. If you have personalized the world clock, your personalized location becomes the default selection in the online distance calculator, so you only have to select the second location in each calculation, rather than both locations.

The site has many other useful time and date-related calculators. Some, like the moon-related calculators, are more ham radio-related than others (like the birthday calculator), but I leave it to you to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Until next time, Happy New Year and keep on surfin'.

Editor's note: In 2006, Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, had good times, bad times and so-so times. To discuss your favorite time or other cool stuff with Stan, send e-mail or add comments to his blog. By the way, every installment of Surfin' is indexed here, so go look it up, whatever it may be.

Previous: The Amateur Amateur: Three (or Four) Words About ARES

Next: The K7RA Solar Update