I have been looking at the logs for APRS2SOTA and here are few stats (barring any errors in my SQL skills):
There are 571 currently registered users (of 590 total registrations)
As of a few minutes ago since 16 September 2012 there have been 13756 spots recorded.
A total of 663 spotted callsigns
27 calls spotted in 2012
65 calls spotted in 2013
27 calls spotted in 2014
137 calls spotted in 2015
175 calls spotted in 2016
197 calls spotted in 2017
214 calls spotted in 2018
196 calls spotted in 2019 (so far)
Spots by Mode
6146 on CW
6194 on SSB
1337 on FM
55 on Data Modes
Spots by band
16 on 160m
165 on 80m
3599 on 40m
1075 on 30m
4672 on 20m
524 on 15m
448 on 12m
335 on 10m
57 on 6m
3 on 4m
790 on 2m
100 on 70cm
11 on 23cm
Spots per Year
89 in 2012
772 in 2013
1811 in 2014
1595 in 2015
1976 in 2016
2577 in 2017
3093 in 2018
1843 so far in 2019
A total of 3277 unique Summits Spotted
53 in 2012
303 in 2013
547 in 2014
479 in 2015
654 in 2016
834 in 2017
981 in 2018
686 in 2019 (so far)
APRS2SOTA is a good thing for me since starting SOTA when out of mobile coverage and for me as an SSB guy (the CW operators have RBN at least, as long as it is alerted, or their standard frequencies, thus better than nothing).
You simply have to cope with the old-style SMS-like handling and let a sent APRS2SOTA spot count down to avoid rebroadcasting the old spot from your next summit if you turn off the spotting device too early.
Was happy to have it once this May at the DL/OK border with neither mobile data nor cellular phone/SMS coverage.
I have to chime in and add my thanks for this extremely useful resource. I’ve used APRS2SOTA on many remote summits here in the PNW. Many of those activations would have been failures (or taken way too long!) without APRS2SOTA.
When there are only RX I-Gates (without TX possibilities) in reach of your SOTA summit it can happen that your device is not receiving the answer messages. Then your spotting message is repeated up to 5 times by your TRX. If you turn off your handheld after the first sent out message and power it again on the next summit it can happen that the old message is sent out again by your device … and a wrong spot appears on SOTAwatch!
After I spot myself via APRS2SOTA I keep the TRX on the APRS QRG for at least five minutes, then I can be sure that the message will not be repeated again.
I use a Yaesu FT-1D for APRS spotting. In the message list it shows you how many retries are left, and you can also delete messages. I usually check the message list and delete any messages with remaining retries before I shut the radio down.
I had exactly this situation on a summit last week - I wasn’t getting any ACKs so I had no way of knowing if I was getting spotted until the pileup arrived =)
Martin, OE5REO, puts it in a nutshell – simply wait these 5 minutes (5 retries, about 1 retry per minute) before turning your device off. The number of retries and how to check this out is described in the manuals of the handhelds. Mine is an FT2DE and offers exactly these possibilities.
Wait the 5 minutes or delete the specific APRS message if you want to submit a new/different SOTA spot.
An APRS coverage can in general be expected in my area.
