I often do!
2 Likes
Information of an impending (possibly delayed) activation, certainly doesn’t irritate me - I find it useful - as you say Dave, setting the frequency to something that is obviously not the frequency you will be on, is a good idea. Doing that should probably fix the problem that Ron has with missing the “real” spot I think, as with a changed frequency, the app ought to alert on both spots.
Ed.
Hi Compton, you can change the alert via your phone if you have Internet access, you simply have to use the browser to access the sotawatch website. Fiddly but possible.
Ed.
Some of us do NOT own Smart Phones - because we do NOT want one. I know that is a hard concept for most to understand. Often enough someone has posted a Spot “message” to pass a request or information to me while I am on the Summit. I can NOT see any of it from the Summit…
And when I do post a “QRV” SMS Spot, I only have confirmation that it actually went through if I start making contacts. That works OK for me.
Of course I can comment. He’s right 
SOTA Spotter does not take into account any modifications to an existing spot and there’s no setting to enable that. It is, as some of you have already stated, a design flaw. However, there isn’t much in the way of support for third party app developers. For a long time I had no idea that existing spots could be edited, so obviously I didn’t take that into account when designing the app.
I can make no promises, but I will look into the matter when I have time.
73,
Bogdan
Thanks Bogdan,
For clarity, if a second spot is submitted with similar data to the first, this will be seen as a separate record and should be displayed by SOTA Spotter I think? It’s only if someone goes in via SOTAWatch and changes the content of a spot that the record “number” is still the same and hence wont be dispalyed by SOTA Spotter.
If my understanding is true, it’s probably a good solution that activators always send a new spot and don’t go in and amend the existing one.
Ed.
Also a good idea because as far as I recall the modified spot retains the original time, so may be some way down the list and the change missed by chasers.
73,
Rod
Precisely. A second spot is a new record, and it will appear as such in SOTA Spotter, no matter what information it contains.
I also agree with Rod, I find it confusing that the modified spot retains the original time. I mean, if there is new information to add to an existing spot, wouldn’t it be fair to say that said information is current, and it should be reflected by an update in the timestamp as well?
73,
Bogdan
The purpose of editing a spot is to fix an error such as incorrect ref or frequenc etc. If it is ued for other purposes than that then confusion can and will happen.
I agree with that. But spotting oneself say, on 20m and editing the same spot after an hour and changing the frequency to 40m seems like a misuse of the editing feature. Especially since in the meantime other spots for other activations may have appeared and pushed the spot in question far enough down the list that it would’t be easy to notice the change in frequency. This is just my opinion, of course.
And it’s one I agree with Bogdan. Edit a spot to fix an error and not to change the context.
1 Like
How about adding a checkbox or extra button to the edit spot form.
[X] respot
Or button:
Replace spot
73 Joe
Perhaps remove the edit function and just leave the delete option. Then the user will then have to enter a new (correct) record. Then we lose the problem we’ve been discussing.
Ed.
Just my humble opinion, if you can edit a spot, then you should be able to send out a new one. It doesn’t take that long. SOTA Spotter will remember your data (if you check the box) so all you have to do is change what you want and send it. It goes out as a new one. Even if you have to re-write it, it still doesn’t take that long.
Maybe an app need another 2 x 2 screens added to accommodate alerts and provide notifications when alerts are posted/changed within (x) minutes of the proposed on air time.
Food for thought for the app developer 
Another way of viewing this is that if a spot needs amending within a few minutes of posting it, it will be in view on the website and on an app. But more than a few minutes later, it sinks down the list at times of high activity so it would be smarter to post a completely new spot. It’s all in the hands of the activator. Or whoever posted the spot.
I suggest that amending an older spot may have been done by some in the past in the hope/belief that the various announcement mechanisms would generate a new bleat or other sound. They don’t.
Re Edits: I would not remove the spot editing feature. it is invaluable for correcting mistyped spots, however with the proviso that correcting an expired spot is not worth while other than to correct the record.
I would suggest copying features from some apps to the website (when the rebuild is done). I suggest a handy feature would be to clone either an alert or an existing spot, when creating a new one. The purpose would be to spot an existing alert or spot without retyping the callsign or reference, which can introduce errors when done from scratch.
2 Likes
In my opinion that is a perfectly valid use of the Spot function and is the simplest option when up to your ocsters in snow and trying to make a summit.
Editing a spot is a different matter (except to correct errors).