thank you for installing the new SMS Spotter Service. I tried it just now and worked fine, already added the number into my smartphone. Personally I like spotting myself via SMS a lot because mobile internet reception is mostly very poor on the summits.
Two questions:
When sending a spot to the HA-SMS you get a notification e-mail (if you register your e-mail) … is that also possible with your server?
Is there a site like this one SpotGateway Log … where you can check the recent sms-spots?
Could it be that the SMS spotting service is not working now?
Was trying it 18th of November 2017 and 6th of January 2018 without success.
Also no entries in the list since 17th of November 2017 http://sota.irratia.org/
Btw. how much hard and software effort is needed to setup such a service?
I’m thinking of setting it up for OE.
I can’t comment on that service Joe as it is different to mine. However, Allen VK3HRA runs a satellite service in VK for me.
Allen wrote the software that uses an old Android phone to handle the SMS and it forwards the message via its Wifi connection to the internet and to me. The phone needs a valid SIM so it can receieve messages.
Check with Allen if his software is available for you to use. If so, I’ll be happy to let you run a “server” that forwards SMS received in OE to me.
I should have said that the service I use for the UK number costs $1.00/month for the phone number and $0.0075 for each SMS received. An Austrian number would cost $6.00/month and $0.00923 for each SMS received. I don’t know why an Austrian number costs 6 times more. It’s quite a significant cost over what it costs me to run my server per year.
Thanks for the offer. I was thinking on using an Raspberry Pi and and USB 3G Modem with a prepaid SIM card. That can receive SMS without problems and receiving SMS should be for free within the EU.
Is there a specific API for sotawatch or would I need to create a web-session handling and form submission script?
(My choice would be Python. As far as I know the current script is in perl or ruby)