I had SOTA Goat on my iphone but deleted it to reinstall it because the map wasn’t working properly. It is no longer in the app store and when I went to the SOTA Goat website to click on the link, it said the app is unavailable for my country. I am in the U.S. Anyone know when it will be working again?
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Probably never. The original author is now working on other projects etc. Also to note, SOTAgoat uses the old SOTAwatch2 system which is going to be closed down in the future which will render it non-functional for all users.
There is the need in the iOS world for a developer to produce an alternative as I’m unaware of anything similar.
I have not looked into this yet (juggling some other things at the moment) but is there an API available for the new sota database?
Yes, an API exists for spots/alerts and DB access. PM me and we can take this further.
Pocket SOTA is still available and still works, even though it hasn’t been updated in years. It isn’t quite as polished as SOTA Goat.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pocket-sota/id474308793
Maybe we can convince Nick to update it to SOTAwatch3.
His Mac and Android apps are also still available.
http://pignology.net/sotaapps.html
wunder
Dear all
Outd Log is running in the iPhone/iPad world, too.
Regarding SOTAgoat, just seen over the last days that the “Last Activation” data is not updated at present. Maybe this is another problem. Regretting here that the SOTAgoat developer is able to do other projects as said above but is not able to state to his clients the end of his app. 
Baa!
Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ
I am an Android user, so have no direct experience with this app.
Have a look at Parks & Peaks.
It may be useful.
Peter VK3PF
Sue VK5AYL has developed and released an IOS app named ParksnPeaks which has reached version 2 after extensive testing and is available on the app store. It is focussed on interfacing with the website Parksnpeaks.org which was developed by Allen VK3ARH and which has a feed of alerts and spots from sotawatch.
It also provides a contact logging function and can email the file of contacts logged to a configurable address in CSV format suitable for the SOTA database. I run it myself and it is very useful for viewing summit locations and data. The parks (WWFF) functions are currently limited to VK and ZL. I actually went to use it in Spain but soon found that Spanish parks were not in its database, sadly.
It is a very useful app for VK and ZL activators as it can remind you of those long park codes you didn’t write down before setting out, and also it does manage alerts rather than just spots, which I think is a great feature.
If it was expanded to cover additional countries it would be a very handy addition to any activator’s IOS apps.
Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH
I will be sorry to see SOTAGoat being discontinued. It has been my go-to app for many years. I don’t think that it has been actively developed for some time.
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This is a shame. I’ve been using SOTA Goat as well, and it is a great app. It’s still working for me at the moment.
I tried the Parks and Peaks app and it looks good. I would likely use that if it were updated to include NA summits.
What I really desire is http://sotl.as/ in app form, with it’s own internal summit database for off-line use! @HB9DQM has done an amazing job. I absolutely love sotl.as and use it frequently.
-Josh
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It appears to load Sotawatch3 when summit info is clicked. Does it use Sotawatch2 for sending out spots?
As Sotagoat has not been updated for about 3 years, before sotawatch 3 was live, and was working in the preceding 3 years I think it’s a fair assumption that it uses the sotawatch2 data for viewing and posting.
It’s sad that the product isn’t being developed further. I reported the alert time bug to Rockwell (the developer) several years back and he acknowledged it, but he couldn’t say when further work would be done.
It is a shame because the functionality and the elegance of the design is very high quality. We were very lucky to have such a product to support a hobby.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH
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I have managed to get an email to Rockwell, in an attempt to get an update or the code to allow others to keep it up to date. I am hopefully waiting for a reply.
73 Doug W1DMH
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I’ve got SOTA GOAT at my Iphone 5s… and it still works.
I’m still happy with it.
73 Armin
You need to evauate other solutions ready for when SW2 is retired.
While it isn’t as nice as SOTA Goat, I’ve found something that works rather well.
You can download the SOTA Summits .CSV file and upload it to your Google Drive. You can then use the Google Sheets app to view it. The sheets app has very nice filtering and sorting options, so you can search by ref (or partial ref), summit name, etc.
You don’t get the spots / alerts stuff, but honestly if you have cell service or WiFi then sotl.as works so much better for this.
You don’t get a map view of the summits, but you can download waypoints for the area you are interested in and then import them into an app like Gaia or Google Earth. I never found the map feature particularly useful on SOTAGoat anyway… it really needed some different map overlay options.
Anyway, this is a workable solution until something better comes along.
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If you have a data connection why faff about like this when you can just use the SOTA summits site? (https://summits.sota.org.uk)
It has:
- all the summits locations, heights
- all the activation history
- links to many different map systems
- filtering and table sorting/ordering
- distance based search
- adaptive display so it fits phone screens, tablet screens or full size displays
- links directly to the database so is always fully up to date.
There’s a link to it from Sotawatch3 as well.
Yes, clearly if you have data service then you would use better tools. Quite often I am outside of cell service and find it very handy to look up details of a summit (coordinates, points, name, ref, etc). I’ve provided this info to others during S2S contacts where the other party didn’t know their ref. I’ve also got on to a summit and realized I forgot to write the ref on my log sheet at home (frequency of this seems to be directly proportional to how early I leave!).
The point of my post was to describe an easy way to have the summit data on your device for offline use.
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I’ve only tried SOTL.AS on an oldish Android phone with 4x 1.2GHz A53 cores and it struggled a bit on there, I should try it on my main phone which is 8x 1.4GHz A53 with a lot more RAM. On the PC and laptop it flies. At present it does seem like Android users are better supported with specific SOTA apps than iOS users. Also there’s mapping apps like Orux with OSM maps with the GPX/KML files you can download from the SOTA mapping site you get a very compelling offline solution.
Hi folks,
Developer of SOTA Goat here. I’ve read all your concerns and will make a proper effort to revisit the app and get it back up and running with the same functionality as before, including SOTAwatch 3 integration and push notifications.
Rockwell
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