06:45 UTC and I’m getting time outs on the SOTAWatch spots and alerts pages as well as the main SOTA website page. Reflector, SMP, database and non-SOTA websites are OK.
73 Ed.
Hi Ed,
Yes SOTAwatch & the Website are down, it looks like an issue with the host rather than anything we have control over.
73, Mark
Same problem
Probably maintenance? After all who would be using the site so early in the morning on a Sunday???
I hate these ISPs with no resilience. Nowadays one expects a virtualised environment where all VMs get switched to a dfferent machine while maintenance happens.
Then again it could be an actual system failure - time will tell.
73 Ed.
Its back yipppeeee 
karl
It is at the moment, but judging by a comment posted on Facebook it did come back for a short time earlier too.
Here’s hoping that its really fixed.
Stewart
Apologies for the inconvenience. The site has been up and down several times since 5am this morning as a result of DDoS attack on the hosting company which is still ongoing.
73, Jon
1 Like
Denial of Service attack - but who doesn’t love SOTA - I guess the target was a different site that the ISP hosts.
This shows however, that despite the administration overhead, it’s good to have different SOTA webpages hosted with different hosting companies.
Good to see we’re back (at least at the moment) - thanks for the update Jon.
73 Ed.
P.S. if you have admin rights on the reflector system, feel free to delete this thread as it is no longer relevant.
Best leave it, there will be people who couldn’t get the site who went on to do other things or may now be in bed and who will want to catch up with what happened when they come back.
Brian
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Damn inconvenient, was out on a 4 summit activation trip when this happens half way through - oh well, at least we had the VK parks and peaks site as a backup (thanks Alan). Bloody Chinese government hackers - what on an earth do they not like about SOTA?
Matt
VK1MA/3
Hi Matt,
I was thinking of you and other activators when this happened. We do depend a lot on the SOTAWatch spotting site don’t we. In Australia, as you say you have parks and peaks site as a backup. Globally I suppose the standard DX Clusters (DXCluster.fi, DXFun or DXHeat for example) could be used to try to “rustle up” some contacts to complete an activation.
73 Ed.
Or GMA - Global Mountain Activity Group which is a dedicated alerting/spotting site for summits, castles, islands and other outdoor activities. You have to create an account but it is worth doing this (1). Apart from the website spotting is possible with RRT (Rucksack Radio Tool), SMS or RBN for CW.
All SOTA references are valid and the number of SOTA participants using this site is quite large. So an ideal place to spot an SOTA activity.
Btw: This is not intended as advertising just as a heads up.
73 de Michael, DB7MM
Edit
(1) An account is only necessary for posting alerts/spots. Viewing the alerts/spots does not require an account.
Thanks Michael @DB7MM for the information - very good.
Whilst here just to say thank you for all your efforts in so many ways.
Best wishes and good luck for 2016+
Cheers
Mike
1 Like
SOTAwatch seems to be intermittantly up and down at the moment. The hosting company is reporting another large DDoS attack.
Hi Jon,
Yes I’ve experienced a few short outages over that past hour or so. The BBC site was down this morning for the same reason (although quite probably a different host).
We’ll just have to grin & bear it.
Thanks & Happy New Year!
Mark G0VOF
Hi Jon
No need for you to apologize over service outages. Though we do appreciate any time you are able to offer an explanation.
I can’t believe SOTA is being attacked. It is the hosting service being attacked? (which then affects us). And if to much security is focused on the log in process, it becomes a pain for legitimate users?
It’s the hosts who are under attack. We’re collateral damage. The attack has been running for days now. Script kiddies with nothing to do over Christmas. An internet fact of life sadly.
In time, I wonder if we’ll be able to host such services as SOTAWatch on Hamnet?
Ed.
No
Hi Andy,
We must be linked by telepathy, I too had the thought that it’s the school holidays & the teenage hackers must have nothing better to do 
And to re-iterate to all, it is not simply SOTA websites under attack, there are widespread DDoS attacks currently ongoing with numerous websites & their hosts having to dealing with the problem.
Apologies, but this really is beyond the control of anyone connected with SOTA in any way.
73, Mark G0VOF