Hi! I’m Ian, M0TRT. I haven’t posted here before, so hopefully this is okay to post about - I have made a utility which I hope SOTA folks will find useful.
For a while I’ve wanted a mobile map of SOTA (and POTA, etc) spots that’s designed to be used in the field. The SOTA activation map is great but definitely “desktop first”! I couldn’t quite find what I wanted, so I made it myself.
I called it Field Spotter, and it’s released today. You can access it at https://fieldspotter.radio/ .
It’s designed to work on a mobile browser (or installed as a PWA) in the field, but it’s equally happy on desktop too. As well as the map display with clickable markers, there is a frequency band display too. You can filter by band, mode, etc.
It will be free forever and the source code is released into the public domain. It’s not perfect yet, but I am tracking bugs and feature requests so hopefully it will get better over time.
If you are interested, please give it a try! I hope it helps you out with some S2S contacts, or just chasing from home.
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Hi Ian, Thanks for the work you’ve put into this. I’ve had a quick play. The distance from my location (to a selected summit) is a neat feature.
When I click on the ruler / hair comb is shows this:
What is the significance here?
Also, not much happening my end of the Atlantic at the moment.
Could a future development be to overlay the SOTA/POTA/WWFF locations on the map?
Fraser
8P9BW 
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Very nice !!!
I like the style of the map you chose.
Thanks both!
The ruler/comb is supposed to be something like a frequency band with markers on it… My drawing skills aren’t great so I just picked the best icon I could find from the icon library I’m using XD The panel that opens takes the spots that are on your current map view and shows roughly where they are on the bands.
Overlay of locations could definitely be done, I will add it to the list of feature requests.
Can’t do much about the lack of SOTA activity in Barbados sadly, unless you can buy me a plane ticket!
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Can the animations be turned off?
Not at the moment, I will add a toggle for that though!
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Cheers, it only supports up to 70cms. Can you add 23 & 13cms as well please?
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Hi Ian, thanks for your work in creating this, looks very useful. Are intending to create an app for it? This would be very useful to get into it.
73 John G0MHF
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I’ve never really delved into creating apps so I’m not sure. It already is what’s called a “progressive web app” so if you open it in Chrome on Android or Safari on iOS there is an option to install it / add to home screen.
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Thanks for that, Ian, I’ll follow it up. 73 John
Hi Ian
Thanks for your efforts. I’ve installed it on my home screen. I think it will be very useful.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
Thanks Ian for this, looks very good and useful.
One question - I installed the tool as a PWA app on my android phone, but when I run it it always opens in full screen mode with the map taking the entire screen. How are you supposed to exit the app? There is no quit button and since the map took the entire screen I had no way to get out if it. I couldn’t even get to the phone home screen or switch to any other app since since entire screen was the map.
In the end I managed to ‘escape’ by going to the (i) screen and selecting one of the project information links, which gave me a ‘normal’ browser window with other phone controls accessible so I could close the app. Maybe it’s my device or browser version but seems a bit of faff in an otherwise great app.
Chris (2E0GKW)
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I think it works the same as a game or anything else fullscreen, and you should be able to swipe up from the bottom of the screen to get out of it.
I set it go fullscreen purely because it looks nice, but it might be a good idea for me to turn that off anyway - it is a bit overkill for a simple app!
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Thanks Ian.
Last game I played on a phone was probably Snake on a Nokia.
I did try swiping but was just scrolling the map - obviously needed a little more finesse and precision on the starting location of up swipe. All good now.
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Minor problem. VK1DA is currently shown on the comb as on the different bands. Maybe there needs to be a check to ensure only the current operating frequency is displayed.
I like the full screen BTW.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
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Hi,
Do you mean the activator changed frequency but the old frequency spot hasn’t timed out yet, leaving you with both on screen?
I’ve seen that quite a bit and I’m not sure what to do about it. I could hide the old one, but that means guessing that is just a single operator on a single frequency, so they just QSYed and the old one really is invalid.
But it could get confusing if it’s something like a club or special event station where they have multiple operators working multiple frequencies. Then, the current behaviour would be best (showing all spots) and the “fix” would have the marker just showing whatever the latest spot was each time.
I’m leaning towards implementing the fix, because the single operator situation is far more common, and I have no reasonable way to tell which scenario it is.
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Hi Ian,
Yes it is a difficult decision. You cover the issues in your post
I think it would be be rare if the same non club callsign were on two bands at once. While SOTA ops may share a station it is common to use their own calls. Typically it’s a one hf transceiver station so can’t be on two bands at the same time.
But it is possible some will be on HF and others on VHF at the same time.
A club could of course set up a station, say for WWFF or POTA with the same callsign on many bands simultaneously. I haven’t seen that happen but it’s a possibility.
Having a short period of grace after the spot for a new band comes up might be the best compromise especially if the latest spot has a marker. Or the old spot could be a bit grey.
Thanks again for a nice tool.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
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Ian,
Congrats with your creation! Really helpful, to have a very quick overvieuw when you’re on a summit!
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This is needed. At the moment I can see several SOTA activators are on 3 or 4 bands at the same time making the display useless. If the same call is on more than one frequency you need to grey out the older spots.
