I have used SOTOMAT a few times to SPOT myself on summits where phone coverage is non existent. I use an INREACH to make the connection. It works great . It took a bit of trial and error to get the format correct, but thanks to Brian’s help it all got sorted. A very nice tool in the back country.
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I can’t repeat myself enough on this…thank you VERY much Brian. SOTAMat is game changer. Great work, just great.
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Clever stuff. Took me a while to understand how it works but managed a self spot test quite quickly once I did. Thanks for an innovative application.
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Brian made fantastic tool 
Just tested how it work, and it work flawless.
Thanks Brian for Your huge amount of contribution in SOTA
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also for me, yesterday i used the tool for 1st time, directly wire-connected from iPhone to KX-3 . Works very well with no problem.
great job.
73 de Peter
When I first saw this, I thought it was going to be one of those systems where the radio would have to be connected via USB to a laptop/tablet etc., with an extra software to send FT8, with complicated setups etc. That would, in all honesty, be too complicated for this old f*rt to do on a summit … but I was wrong!
Just place the smartphone close to the microphone? - that looks easy enough even for me to use. So, I’m going to try it out - wish me luck.
EDIT - 1hour later - 𝑶𝑴𝑮 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕 - 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌𝒔 !!!
This is brilliant, just brilliant.
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It’s worth reading how it works. The encoding is very clever and uses some neat tricks!
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Hi Brian,
Excellent, This is cool spotting system. Tested now and worked fine. Will introduce SOTA JA in my blog.
Toru JA1CTV
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Recently had an issue where SOTAmat spotted me on the wrong summit (ZL3/CB-585 instead of 572).
The sotamat message sent was:
S ZL4NVW/1MVL
On returning to coverage I did a new ‘load config from server’ in the sotamat app and noted that the message for the same spot was now different:
S ZL4NVW/1MV8
I had not chsnged my server-side config at sotamat.com in the interim.
Do I assume that this resulted from changes to the sota summit list held by sotamat? Or other system server-side updates? If so: bit of a gotya there for field users!
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Hi Matt,
I had a similar “surprise” in Canada on 17th of August and was spotted on wrong summits and with wrong frequencies.
It wasn’t the fault of SOTAmat, but the SOTA database with wrong data for certain VE7 regions. Brian @AB6D was very helpful and with the help of the SOTA management, the problems were solved in a very short time, so I could activate again off-grid.
Maybe the database for some ZL regions were fixed in the meantime?
73 Stephan
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Who have test succefullty this clever tool with a Iphone and a QDX or QCX ??? I tried with an Lightning OTG adapter to USB-C. The iphone speaker is cut but nothing on the QMX …
73 Nico
@ZL4NVW Stephan (@HB9EAJ ) is correct that there were several hundred database records that were not self-consistent between the full summit ID and the short-code for the same summit ID. This seems to be the result of association managers making edits to some summits while not simultaneously editing their redundant short-code for those summits. The inconsistencies resulted in SOTAmat getting confused about those summits since different API’s gave different results. The SOTA management team has corrected those issues, and the SOTAmat software has been updated to automatically ignore bogus short-codes if they ever happen again in the future (it will always use the long code).
Unfortunately if your SOTAmat configuration on your mobile phone had one of those “bad” summits in any of your pre-defined SOTA Regions, then your results using SOTAmat can be completely random as the indexing is mismatched between the mobile device and the server.
The solution is simple: reload your configuration into the SOTAmat mobile app so that it grabs a corrected configuration with the proper summit long-codes and short-codes. This should never happen again due to the new server-side defensive code, but for people who pulled a configuration into the mobile app some time ago (before the database was corrected) will have issues with those 2% of “bad” peaks until the config is re-loaded into the mobile app…
73 de AB6D - Brian
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Sorry, we never described the short-codes and what they are used for. The lesson to take from this is using undocumented data is dangerous as it may not have the purpose you expect or may change in an undocumented way. 
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Thank you for your hard work on this!
Kent K9EZ
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Hi
SOTAMAT saved my PY2/SE-003 operation.
Excellent program, I suggest it to everyone.
Very easy, just send data via FT8 and success is guaranteed.
Many thanks to the developers.
73
Carlos
PY2VM
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I’d like to know how one can donate a few dollars as thanks for the service, and to help with upkeep of Sotamat. I couldn’t find a link for it in the Sotamat site.
I’ve found the system to be of great use while doing my own activations where cell coverage is poor or absent.
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Of course, it’s a SOTA Welcome Mat!
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I appreciate the support @DM1CM . At this time there is no way to donate as I am happy to contribute to our wonderful “sport”. As usage increases the costs have risen, but for now I am happy to cover the costs. You might consider donating to some of the systems we depend on, such as PSKreporter (which is not free for Philip to run!). Or consider running your own SOTAmat compatible Skimmer. Or help others learn how to use the service.
Thanks for the consideration!
73 de AB6D - Brian
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Today’s SOTAmat news:
The skimmer software CWSL_DIGI version 0.88 now supports SOTAmat. That adds another network of about 30 monitoring skimmers around the globe listening for our FT8 commands in addition to the SparkSDR simmers and people running WSJT-X with the SOTAmat Plugin.
When the full CWSL_DIGI community upgrades to V0.88 it will result in about a 30% increase in the number of SOTAmat monitoring stations worldwide. I’m already starting to see SOTAmat reception reports from a few CWSL_DIGI v0.88 skimmers.
Thanks to the author of CWSL_DIGI for working with us to get it done!
73 de AB6D - Brian
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New SOTAMAT Beta available. Looking for testers.
I am not sure of the etiquette of creating a new topic on this reflector vs. tagging onto the end of a related topic, but for now I’ll error on the side of tagging onto this topic (I can always create a new topic later). Please advise on Reflector etiquette.
There is a new BETA version of SOTAmat available for iOS and Android (V1.2.0-61). I am looking for help in testing since I only have a few devices at home to test with myself. Details are on the Changelog page and installer links available in the “Development Builds” section of the Getting Started page.
73 de AB6D - Brian