Privacy
The short version
CQ Park is a hobby site run by one ham. There are no ads, no trackers, no analytics scripts, and nothing is sold or shared for marketing. The site keeps the minimum it needs to work: your account if you make one, what you choose to save, and anonymous daily usage counts.
Your location
"Find parks near me" asks your browser for your location. It is used to run that one search and is not stored with your account. Like any web request, the search coordinates appear in the server's request log for a short time (see Server logs). You can always use "This area" instead, which searches the map center without asking for your location.
Accounts
If you sign up, the site stores your email address, a hashed password (never the password itself), your callsign if you enter one, and when you signed in. Email is used only to verify your address, reset your password, and for anything you explicitly ask for. With Google or Facebook sign-in, the site receives your email address and name from that provider and nothing else.
What you save
- Activations you log or import from a pota.app CSV — park, date, counts. Visible only to you.
- Routes you save — the start and end you typed, the road line, and the corridor width. Visible only to you. Without an account, saved routes stay in your browser's local storage and never reach the server.
Feedback and problem reports
What you write in the feedback form or a park's "Something wrong?" box is stored on the site and also filed as an issue in the maintainer's private GitHub repository, together with the page you were on, the site version, and the callsign or email you chose to give. Do not put anything in there you would not want the maintainer to read.
Usage counts
The site counts page views, visitors, and searches per day. "Visitors" is counted with a flag in your session cookie, not with your IP address or a fingerprint. These are totals; there is no per-person history.
Cookies
Two, both first-party and required: a session cookie (keeps you signed in and holds the daily visitor flag) and a CSRF cookie (protects forms). Your browser's local storage may hold your preferred map layer, search mode, and — if you are not signed in — saved routes. No advertising or third-party cookies are set.
Server logs
The web server records each request's IP address, time, URL, and browser type, as nearly every website does. Logs are used only to diagnose problems and are rotated out after a few weeks. The site sits behind Cloudflare, which sees the same connection details under its own privacy policy.
Other services the page talks to
To draw the map and plan routes, your browser fetches directly from: map tiles (OpenTopoMap, CyclOSM by OpenStreetMap France, OpenStreetMap Deutschland), Leaflet from unpkg, fonts from Google Fonts, and — only when you use route planning — Nominatim (place search) and the OSRM demo router (driving directions), both OpenStreetMap community services. "Navigate" links open Google Maps. Each of those sees your IP address and the request you make. Park, trail and summit data come from pota.app, sota.org.uk, WWFF and OpenStreetMap; nothing about you is sent to them. Email is delivered through Mailgun.
Deleting your data
Ask through the feedback form (include your callsign or account email) and your account and everything saved under it will be deleted. Server logs age out on their own.
Changes
If this page changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes with it.