SOTA Goat is back (Part 1)

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Stinky the Goat may have slipped on a rocky outcrop, but he has regained his footing and is back on the summit! :goat:

SOTA Goat has returned to the iOS App Store. It may take a few hours to become available in your country. iOS 11+ is required.

:tada: New features

  • Integration with SOTAwatch3 spots and alerts
  • Improved spot and alert submission forms
  • Real-time summit search by name or designator
  • UI support for newer devices: bigger screens and dark mode

:bug: Bug fixes

  • The summit database update is fixed - it correctly handles the new summitslist.csv formatting
  • New alerts will be posted with the correct time zone offset

:calendar: Coming soon

Iā€™ve already started working on push notifications, which will have an abundance of new options. You will be able to configure multiple notifications depending on criteria such as mode, SOTA region, and activator callsign.

The app also needs a lot of general polish and usability improvements, but I wanted to get this back into the hands of the SOTA sloths and goats in a functional format as quickly as possible.

:question: So, what happened?

With recent updates to SOTAwatch breaking most of the core functionality of the old version, I removed it from the App Store so folks wouldnā€™t waste their hard-earned $2.99. I hadnā€™t anticipated the inability of existing customers to reinstall the application.

I also didnā€™t realize just how many of you folks use the app and rely on it every day. I havenā€™t done a SOTA activation in years, so the app became low priority. All my development bandwidth is focused on RemoteHamRadio these days.

After seeing many frustrated and upset users here, it became clear that the app really does require continued support. I made some time to write a whole new back-end server, integrate it with SOTAwatch3, and update the app to work with the new server and the latest core iOS features.

I hope update works well for everyone. You can post bugs or feature requests in this thread, tweet me at @WW1X, or shoot me an e-mail at schrockwell@gmail.com.

33 Likes
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Yesssss! I got the update just now and itā€™s working great! Thank you sir!!! :+1:t2::+1:t2:

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thank you :sunny:

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Awesome!!

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it doesnā€™t work for me yet, certainly soonā€¦ :grinning: :+1:
73 in3adf, markus

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Many thanks for your efforts Rockwell! Unfortunately it appears I need a new iPhone as my 5s iPhone doesnā€™t support beyond ios 10.3 ;-(. Your app isnā€™t the only one I have issues with in this regard so I guess Iā€™ll finally get a new phone!

73, Brad
WA6MM

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Good work - thanks. App downloaded. Unable to login to SW3 though.

Update: I was able to login when placing a spot but I was unable to login using the facility in Settings.

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Just updated and tested - works awesome ā€¦ glad to have SOTAgoat back!

Future suggestion - Simple logging capability with CSV/ADIF export

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I have to disagree with this. There are already many great logging programs out there.

Recognizing that this isnā€™t WW1Xā€™s main gig, and he isnā€™t making money off thisā€¦ Iā€™m very happy with the plan to focus on ā€œgeneral polish and usability improvementsā€.

-J

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Agree entirely. I would like to be able to store a favourites for band and mode to prefill a selfspot.

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I also see that the login via Settings is not working - will investigate. Like you said, itā€™s okay when posting the first spot.

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Thanks for understanding. There is no such thing as ā€œsimple loggingā€, and anyways it is beyond the scope of this app.

Iā€™ve fielded many requests for a good, general-purpose mobile logger. The need is definitely there. Maybe in the next lifetime.

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13

iPhone 5S supports iOS 11 through 13, but the iPhone 5 does not. Maybe you have a 5?

I had to weigh my options, and iOS 12 was reportedly on 88% of devices over 6 months ago, so that seemed like a reasonable cutoff.

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14

Great news! Thank you!!

Ron - W6PZA

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Hi Rockwell,
My badā€¦I have an iPhone 5c. In any event, since other apps require iOS 11 plus I do need to get a new phone.

73, Brad
WA6MM

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Rockwell - Iā€™ve had some time to check the various parts of the new Goat and it all works great. I really appreciate being able to locate summits, and go directly to Google Maps for directions. Even if I know the way the maps function allows me to determine the travel duration so I can set up my alert appropriately! Great work and many thanks.

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Yes! Available in VK app store! (apple doesnā€™t call it that). Updated on the phone, app looks good, posted an alert. Required logging on using the sso user id, ok no problem. A minor glitch when the time defaulted to local time so the UTC time chosen resulted in an incorrect alert time, but no problem, fixed that with time setting and updated the alert using the edit alert function. Time corrected. No mental arithmetic required now. Will report any glitches.
Thanks Rockwell @WW1X!
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH

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Great! There is a setting to use UTC or local time throughout the app, but the alert form doesnā€™t honor that setting right now, and it defaults to local time. Will change that in the future.

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Thanks for the return of this vy nice app. Iā€™m using it every day. And itā€™s a good app for SOTA.
Only one minor future suggestion : map scale. Vy handy when you are walking to the top of a summit. Then you can estimate the distance to the summit.

Thanks again for the good work. 73.

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Can you tell me a little more about this use case? What are you really trying to do - measure the distance between yourself and the summit, or measure distance between two arbitrary points on the map?