Planning my first activation tomorrow

Can someone spot me? I’ve tried the SOTA app and the website and it isn’t going through. I have great reception but not sure why the thing isn’t submitting.

I’m on 7.036-cw

Well & truly spotted, Derek. Hopefully, you know that by the brisk trade you are doing :slight_smile:

Thanks! That worked! I don’t know why I could spot myself but use the reflector site. And sad the app didn’t work. Worked Australia! It was awesome. But cold and windy. Snuggled in the hammock now.

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Well done on the activation and don’t worry that you couldn’t spot yourself - it would have been very strange if you had come back from a first activation, not having an issue that needs to be resolved!

I don’t know which App you were using and the fact that you couldn’t spot on the webpage using a browser is strange - in both cases however - were you logged in. In the case of the App there will be somewhere to record your userid (normally your callsign) and your password. On the website/browser access you’ll enter it as you do at home (and then optionally save the information on the phone).

73 Ed.

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I cannot take credit for something I did not do. Well, this time, at least :slight_smile: I did not actually spot you - robots did. I think it work like this - IF you post an alert AND you get spotted by RBN AND the parameters more or less match, the robots push a spot to SOTAWATCH. Nice fallback process for those really out-of-the way summits :slight_smile:

Thanks. The app I was planning to use is SOTA Goat on my iPhone. I was really disapointed that it didn’t work, and that the web spotting failed. I was logged in and opened the form, but for some reason hitting submit did nothing. I’m glad this email chain worked! But it also sounds like the RBN caught me (incidentally, I was happy to see how many hits I had!).

I backpacked with some of my kids and we had a fun time. Really cold. Really windy. I wasn’t able to operate very long, and we eventually moved our camp to get off the ridge and out of the wind. We’re all safely back!

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Hi Derek,
Sorry I don’t know the internal set-up of SOTA Goat for iPhones, being an Android phone user. I do know there was a new version of SOTA Goat recently - it was announced on this reflector here:

It might be worth checking you have the latest version as with SOTAWatch3 starting and SOTAWatch2 stopping many Apps were updated. If you still have the old version it may still be trying to use something at SW2.
Apart from that another option is to put a weblink on your smartphone to SOTA Atlas which also has spotting and alerting options the URL is: sotl.as. This WebApp also displays the RBN network SOTA spots.

73 Ed.

I’ve spotted reliably with SOTA Goat - might be worth putting out a test spot. I’ve only had issues when struggling for coverage. There are also SMS gateways - I know there is a UK one but there is probably one closer - have a search on the reflector. It can make all the difference getting a spot out. And Well Done!!! Paul

I used sotagoat yesterday and the day before. It worked normally. Ok - if you don’t have a net for your phone it won’t work… but that’s normal.

I hope you made your 4 qso… you haven’t put anything in the database yet…as long as you have a nice day

73 Armin

Thanks everyone. I will check to make sure my SOTA Goat app is up-to-date.

I’ve uploaded my log, so a big thank-you to all the chasers who helped me! in the middle of a pile-up, I realized I wasn’t keeping track of the time, so I guessed a little. I hope it works out in the log.

Upon reflection, I did have a protocol question. When or how often do I need to send the summit details? I mistakenly sent in the middle of my pile up (sorry!) but I was worried I needed to repeat that info, but wasn’t sure. What’s the right procedure for sending the summit details (e.g., W7A/AE017?

While I only logged a dozen contacts (it was getting too dark, too cold, and too windy to operating much longer), had a blast and will now try to do SOTA again. Thank you all for your help on my first attempt.

73,
KJ4BQS, Derek

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Hi Armin,
When Derek couldn’t spot with SOTA Goat, he posted a message to this reflector using the iPhone’s browser requesting someone to spot for him, so he must have had Internet connectivity.

73 Ed.

I think I figured out what was wrong. I tested SOTA goat a few times here at home and saw the same error so I logged out and back in again And it seemed to work. I’ll try that next time and see if it resolves.

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Hallo Ed

It depends on the quality of the mobile phone network… in germany we have some areas that are not supplied at all or are rather undersupplied. Sometimes you can barely make a phone call or send a sms.

In my experience sotagoat needs at least 3G better 4G for it to work. Otherwise the response time will be too long… I fight with it in the black forest in many places

73 Armin

Hi Armin,

I made the assumption that if a browser is working, smartphone Apps should work, but I can see where timing of responses could be more critical to an App.

Yes I know about the variation of network coverage, that’s one reason that I have always bought dual-SIM smartphones and have one account on Telekom and one on Vodafone. I still occasionally get summits where coverage from both networks is bad though and sending a spot via SMS has got through when Internet doesn’t work.

73 Ed.

Using morse I call "CQ SOTA de M6GYU/P Ref G/TW-001 (the ref). K - I do this repeatedly.

If I haven’t self spotted this normally gets picked up by the RBN or gets spotted by another ham, then after about 5 or 10 minutes this normally results in a small pile up of anything between 5/6 or up to 20 answers pretty quickly. I have always assumed that those people have seen the spot, so know which summit I’m on or have heard my CQ. (As a chaser in a pile up I don’t think its a good idea to try to get a QSO if you have then to ask for a summit ref) I rarely get asked for a summit reference at this time.

As soon as the first rush dies down I resume calling CQ followed by my summit reference again so that those who maybe don’t have access to the internet.

There are those like me on some summits who don’t always have modern phones, software, or good phone signals and they may ask for the summit ref if they need too - or in the case of a S2S take the risk of waiting to find out by looking on the Reflector when you get back home.

So I’d suggest good practice would suggest sending your summit reference when time allows and when asked.

David P.

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