How to Set Up the Jump Slut Board on Your DZ's TV

If you've seen the Jump Slut DZ Board — live observed winds, gusts, the spotting map, sunset countdown, your next event — you've probably wondered how to actually put it on a TV at your DZ.

Honest answer: it's about 10 minutes and $30, and there's no app, no account, no subscription. The board is just a web page. If you can put a web page on a TV, you can put the board on a TV.

Here's the setup.

Step 1: Pick a TV

Any TV at the DZ works. The best candidates:

• A wasted TV. Most DZs have at least one — a screen in the bar showing the wrong sports channel, a TV in the briefing room that's only used during student debriefs, a screen in the gear-up area showing nothing. That's your board's TV.
• A second screen next to your manifest display. Running Burble or another manifest system? Don't share that screen. Add a second TV (or a second monitor on the same setup) for conditions. Manifest gets its space; conditions get theirs.
• The packing area. Jumpers spend real time here between loads, and a quick glance at the next load's spotting map is genuinely useful.

The board is built for 1920×1080 (standard HDTV) and fits without scrolling. Bigger screens work fine; smaller screens crop a little.

Step 2: Get Something to Drive It

You need anything that can run a web browser and output to the TV. In order of cheapest:

• Amazon Fire Stick (~$30 USD). Plug into HDMI, open the Silk browser, point at your DZ's board URL. Done.
• Google Chromecast (~$30 USD). Cast a tab from any laptop or phone. Works if you have a Chromecast already.
• Roku Stick (~$30 USD). Has a web browser in the channel store.
• Apple TV (~$130 USD). Overkill but works if you already have one. The Apple TV browser is slightly limited; consider a different option if you're starting from scratch.
• Raspberry Pi 4 (~$55 USD plus a case and SD card). The "real" solution — boots into a kiosk-mode Chromium, runs 24/7, recovers from power loss automatically. If you're technically inclined, this is the cleanest setup.
• Any old laptop or mini-PC. Got a dusty laptop in the office? Plug it into the TV via HDMI and you're done. Free if you already have one.

Honest recommendation for most DZs: a Fire Stick. Cheap, works out of the box, the Silk browser handles fullscreen properly, you can leave it plugged in 24/7 and it'll just keep working.

Step 3: Point the Browser at Your DZ's Board URL

Every dropzone in our directory has a board at:

jumpslut.com/board/your-dz-slug

For example, Skydive Burnaby is jumpslut.com/board/skydive-burnaby. Skydive Spaceland Houston is jumpslut.com/board/skydive-spaceland-houston. Your DZ's slug matches its directory page — find your DZ on the directory and the URL bar shows your slug.

If your DZ isn't in our directory yet — tell us and we'll add you. Free.

Step 4: Set the Browser to Fullscreen

This is the step everyone forgets and then wonders why there's a browser address bar across the top of their TV. Different platforms, different ways:

• Fire Stick Silk browser: Tap the menu (three dots), choose "Fullscreen mode."
• Chrome on a laptop: Press F11. (Mac: Ctrl+Cmd+F.)
• Raspberry Pi kiosk mode: Launch Chromium with the --kiosk flag. Tutorials online walk through autostart on boot.
• Smart TV native browser: Look for "fullscreen" or "presentation mode" in the browser menu — varies by manufacturer.

Once it's fullscreen, you should see the full board with no chrome — just your DZ's name across the top, the live conditions on the left, the spotting map on the right, the QR cards along the bottom.

Step 5: Leave It Running

The board auto-refreshes every 10 minutes — observed METAR, winds aloft, sunset timing, any upcoming event for your DZ.

A few practical notes for set-and-forget operation:

• Disable the TV's auto-sleep for the hours you want the board visible (usually a setting buried in the TV's menu).
• Disable the Fire Stick / streaming device's screen saver the same way.
• If the screen blanks anyway, that's usually the TV's HDMI-power-saving feature kicking in. Look for "HDMI CEC" or "screen saver" in your TV's settings.
• Wi-Fi matters. The board fetches live observed METAR every 10 minutes. If your DZ's Wi-Fi drops, you'll see stale data — not the end of the world, but worth knowing.

That's it. No app, no account, no setup fee, no per-DZ pricing. The board is free, and it stays free.

A Note on Manifest Screens (Burble, etc.)

Lots of DZs run Burble or another manifest system on a TV in gear-up. Don't share that screen with the board. The manifest display is critical for jumpers timing their loads, and rotating it with anything else creates friction your manifest team will hate within a week.

Better: give the board its own screen. A second TV in the bar, the briefing room, the packing area, or right next to the manifest display. Different jobs, different screens.

Want the Setup as a PDF?

We made a printable one-page setup sheet — same five steps, formatted to hand to your tech person, your DZO, or whoever's actually plugging things in.

Download the PDF setup guide →

Questions?

If your DZ isn't in the directory, or the board's showing weird data, or you've got a setup question we didn't cover here — email us at hello@jumpslut.com or grab us on the contact page. We're jumpers; we'll figure it out with you.

Blue skies.

— Jump Slut