Does the APK work for you? The link is on the Getting Started page. There are so many Android stores to choose from (another user suggested several earlier in this thread) and I don’t love the overhead of maintaining all of them unless there is significant user value beyond the APK. Teach me: I’ve never used F-Droid and just looked at the Wiki article on it. Most of SOTAmat’s current users found the app via a SOTA or POTA oriented web site. Very few of the users discovered the app via a store, though most people install from a store.
73 de AB6D Brian
F-Droid is the default “app store” or package manager, if you like, for open-source apps. It is used by almost all privacy-conscious alternative operating systems for smartphones. It also automatically manages updates, which would not be the case if one installs the bare APK.
F-Droid is quite a popular place among open-source enthusiasts and offers more ham-related free open-source apps to install.
I prefere 1. but why not in the “My Notes” of the “SOTA Regions”
@HB9CMI You are correct about it being better to use the SOTA Regions table to define special callsigns rather than the original suggestion of using the Frequencies/Modes table. If you read further in the thread above you’ll see in the conversation that we came to the same conclusion after Andy MM0FMF educated me on the complex rules of UK callsigns that I was ignorant of previously. So when I get time I will be using the Regions table as you suggest which is much more efficient code-wise (it won’t consume more codes out of the available 1 million).
I spent this week’s time fixing some bugs discovered by a user in the Garmin inReach functionality so I didn’t get to work on the custom callsign feature yet. The custom callsign functionality is next on the list.
73 de AB6D - Brian
4 Likes
Hi Brian and others that are interested in spotting off-grid,
As promised, I edited the video featuring SOTAmāt that I used to successfully spot on EA3/GI-016:
I used no cables, but only the app and the microphone of my TX-500. It worked flawlessly even with some wind gusts that you’ll hear on some of the recordings. Sorry for that and note to myself, that next time I, should carry the wind proof microphone with me as well.
I used the noise remover from DaVinci Resolve (included in the free version), but the results were not convincing. So I looked for another solution to remove this nasty wind noise and tried a new service called Adobe Podcast Beta that uses AI to filter noise from an audio file. It’s free and not tied to an Adobe product. The first two monologues were “cleaned” this way and removed nicely most of the noise. But when I listened to the other cleaned parts, I decided to leave the noise as is, since all the background audio (FT8 tones, QSO partner, etc.) were removed as well. It sounded like a kind of squelch, only my voice was remaining.
73 Stephan
4 Likes
Stephan,
Thanks for the video! Nice job! You are only the 2nd person to make a demo video (N1CLC was the other), so thanks for sharing. It is interesting to hear how well the AI removed the wind noise at the beginning.
Regarding the desired feature for posting spots with a special callsign (including prefixes and suffixes for work outside your home country or region): I have made progress. On the web site you will see that the “Regions” table has a new column for “Post As (optional)”. Normally you would leave that parameter blank and SOTAmat will work as it does today (posting using your Callsign / SOTAmat Username). If you fill the parameter in, then SOTAmat will post your spots using the supplied string (for example: “VE/KA2VYS/P”).
It is fully implemented (on the web site, in the configuration blob, in the mobile app, and the server processor) but not tested and not deployed to production. I am starting a startup company and time is much more limited!
You can start filling in the Region tables with your desired callsigns now. Once I find time to do a quick test I will enable it. While there will be a new mobile app, it is not required since the change mainly affects the web site and back-end server (where you define your Post As callsign, and where suffixes get decoded into commands for posting to SOTA Watch). The current (old) mobile app knows how to ignore the new fields in the configuration blob. The only reason for updating the Mobile App is to display what callsign the server will end up using for a given region (and peak ID). So the mobile app change is just informational for the human, not for the service.
I should have enough time to test by this weekend or sooner.
73 AB6D - Brian
2 Likes
Hi Brian,
Very good, I just checked it and I will edit all my existing regions to the complete and corresponding call sign, which can be region dependent.
Thanks again for this great and useful tool and good luck with your startup company!
73 Stephan
@HB9EAJ, @HB9CMI , @DD5LP , and @MM0FMF ,
I have implemented and deployed the SOTAmat feature you requested. Thank-you for taking the time to explain the need and help with the design of it.
You can now specify a custom callsign per SOTA Region (and therefore all the summits within that region). To use it:
- On the web site, go to the “Regions” page. You will see there is a new column in the table where you can enter a “
Post As (optional)” parameter. Blank (the default) means SOTAmat will post your spots and alerts as your registered callsign (your username on SOTAmat) the way it has always worked. Non-blank will now post your spots and alerts as specified (ex. “VE/KA2VYS/P”). - After you update your configuration on the web site, reload the new configuration blob into your mobile app on the mobile app “setup” tab. You can use the currently released version of the mobile app as-is since the change is mainly a server-side change. Soon I will release a new version of the mobile app that displays the extra information.
- When PSKreporter hands a spot report to SOTAmat, it is now aware of your
Spot As (optional)settings and will decode your suffix appropriately.
Note that I only ran a quick test. I have a busy day job and didn’t have time to do full testing. It would be a great help if adventurous people could do a bit more testing and report back here.
In the test below notice the “/P” which wasn’t previously possible:
73 Brian AB6D
3 Likes
Hi Brian,
When editing the SOTA region table - I can double-click on the row and change the “my comments” field but not the “Posting call” field, to change that I have to highlight the row and then click on the edit symbol to have the data entry panel come up.
Is this intentional or could the “Posting Call” field also be open to be changed simply by clicking on the row?
73 Ed.
1 Like
Hi Ed,
If you double-click on the ‘Posting call’ field, you can edit it. But you can also just select the whole row and press [Edit]. I used Chrome.
73 Stephan
Hi Brian,
I just edited all my regions and added some new ones (in total 34).
Then I made a test with DM/BW using 10W FT8 on 20m, and it worked as intended:
So if I don’t have mobile network in the Black Forrest this weekend, I have a great solution at hand!
73 Stephan
2 Likes
Well done dr Brian. I don’t have to test it now because i saw on SOTAWatch today, that HB9EAJ made a test with the new possibility and it seems to work.
In next future i will test in the field.
Thanks 73, Peter/HB9CMI
1 Like
Hi Stephan, I’ll try again but that is exactly what I was trying to do and it didn’t work for me. (I am using MS Edge).
73 Ed.
@DD5LP Here is a video of me using MS Edge to edit the cells with double-clicking in them. Works for me. Since this is in a browser, the double-click speed might be faster than your operating system double-click speed, though I doubt that is the issue. Anyway, good to know you have a backup of selecting the row and then using the “Edit” button.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AhZ33h8betkWjfxRVCVeBmCVSyXFaA?e=Gl9bNc
73 AB6D - Brian
1 Like
Thanks, Brian,
Today it works - no idea why it wasn’t working yesterday as I did exactly the same actions!
Who knows? Double-click speed? MS update to the browser? Windows quirk?
In any case, after using the select and edit process on all lines yesterday, I can use the far quicker way today.
73 Ed.
1 Like
Thanks for a way cool system. I sent a test SMS with success from home so now I can’t wait to use it on a mountain!
1 Like
I’ve used it on a handful of summits now where I wasn’t able to get a cell connection to self spot. Wow. It’s like magic! Modem sounds from my phone and shortly after I start getting responses to my CQ SOTA. THANK YOU!!! I’m sure others have figured it out but I use the A<->B button to quickly toggle between the frequency I plan on using and the FT8 frequency on the same band so I can settle on a frequency, spot and quickly switch back and hope it is still free.
Thanks again for such a cool system.
73
-Dan KX4JN
4 Likes
@KX4JN Suggestion: send your SOTAmat FT8 message on the band that is most likely to have SparkSDR monitoring skimmer stations listening, then switch to your operating band and frequency. Most monitoring skimmers listen on 20m, followed by 40m, 15m, and 10m in that order of popularity for SparkSDR. I too use the A/B button as you suggested, but only if I’m on 20m or 40m, otherwise I transmit FT8 on 20m and then switch bands to my operating frequency. In the rare cases I’m not heard on 20m, I try 40m next.
I’m very glad it has worked for you Dan and thanks for the nice feedback. It has been a very rough week and that was some good news.
73 AB6D
4 Likes
Thanks for this wonderful tool Brian.
Only today I found the time to take my first steps.
Maybe telling about my stupid mistake will help others not make this error.
I tried to send an email to myself (as instructed on the ‘Getting Started’ page), using my IC-7300 at 10W.
I put the radio on the FT8 preset for 20m, but that was a mistake, with the radio in USB-DATA mode, the microphone doesn’t pick up the sound from my phone. Don’t do that!
With radio in USB, it worked first time.
Now will try to send a test spot to SOTAWATCH …
EDIT : SUCCESS!
That also worked, but I had to take a second turn on 40m, I think 20m didn’t work first time.
I can guess from the receiving station (G0KTN) that it was my 40m transmission that generated the spot.
I’m just wondering, would there be a possibility to show on the Activity page, or even in the actual spot (eg. … [SOTAmat.com by FT8/40m via G0KTN via ON7DQ]) to show from which band the spot was generated. That could help in determining what band works best at any given time.
73,
Luc ON7DQ / KF0CR
2 Likes
Hi Luc,
If you’re logged in the website, you can see your own spots and the exact frequency which made it happen (Status=Processed). This is at the top of the activity page.
In the actual spot message and as well in the list of a all spots/alerts/messages below, you don’t see it though.
73 Stephan
3 Likes