I have never been a fan of logging using my phone, due to all weather condition activations I have done. But, I think the time has come for me to trust my iphone more, and use it to log when I can. This will save me a lot of time, especially when the bands are working well, and I have over 250 contacts to log after a full SOTA day on the hills…
Can someone please advise me what good FULLY WORKING apps are out there for use with the iPhone, that I can use to log my SOTA contacts, and automatically update them on the SOTA database.
Ham2K Polo is a logging app for many of the *OTA programs. I use it for SOTA logging on an iPhone 16 pro with excellent results.
The app has an export facility to your favourite cloud server, I personally use Dropbox. From there I import the activator log to the SOTA Database using Safari web browser.
That is something the SOTA database is not supporting (yet) as far as I know. But fingers crossed that this will happen in the future.
But PoLo supports directly sending the file to Dropbox or other cloud storage, emailed it or save it locally on your phone.
So ADIF upload is still the way to get your data uploaded.
Hi Ben, it doesn’t check the requirement to automatically upload to SOTAdb, but RUMlogNG can generate CSV SOTA formatted log files with the appropriate reference that can be quickly exported and uploaded to the database.
I’ll tell you my process Ben, which is easy to set up, cost free and in the cloud so accessible from anywhere. It may appeal, it may not.
I use a sheet on Google Sheets for all my “to be processed” logs. This has all the ADIF headers on it (well all the ones I would use anyway). All my portable logs go onto this, as well as other contest entries etc.
Periodically, I (a) run the sheet through Excel to ADIF to create a file to upload to my master log at home (Logger32 in my case), and (b) create .csv files for SOTA Database upload. When that is all done, I delete the sheet (apart from the headers) and start again.
I don’t habitually use this sheet for logging while on a SOTA activation, but on occasions when I’ve arrived on summit without a pencil and/or notepad, I’ve resorted to it. It’s in the cloud so doesn’t need manually saving, and magically appears on my desktop PC when I get home!
As I carry a small notebook laptop to most activations (FT8 etc), I do keep thinking about doing all my portable logging directly to the Google Sheet - it would be much more comfortable on the laptop than the iPhone (which is fiddly). It would require tethering the laptop’s WiFi to the iPhone’s mobile data though.
Maybe I should also investigate a slick iPhone logging app - if one exists. It would need to offer an extra “Comments” type free-form field for SOTA references, QTHs, names or other notes I’d normally record. Of course the logging is done automatically when operating on WSJT.
HAMRS works well for me - but you need to remember to select the SOTA log. When activating in February in awful weather I abandoned the normal (rite in the rain) log and used the app - so it did work! If also can upload to the database without having to export from the phone. Even if I use a paper log I usually use it to get the log in a digital format.
Another vote for Ham2K Polo. I’ve used it quite a lot recently for POTA activations and after the activation I email the file to myself and then just upload it.
One of things I like is if your phone has a signal the app will look up the other callsign on QRZ which is a useful check that you have entered the correct callsign. It also generates a QSO map which you can take a screenshot of.
