The SOTAMAT HF spotting approach doesn’t work like other systems such as those that use Internet, SMS, APRS, Satellite, etc. All those other systems have a bi-directional (2-way) communication links where they can send complete messages (many bytes of data) including your Summit-ID, your band, your mode (ex. SSB), your operating frequency, and some spotting “notes / comments”.
While SOTAMAT does support 2-way commands as well, what makes SOTAMAT special are the 1-way spotting commands you can send via HF by playing FT8 audio from a cell phone speaker into your HF radio’s microphone. Since we are using FT8 messages, they must have your callsign and may have up to a 4-character callsign “Suffix” such as “AB6D/1234”. SOTAMAT is trying to encode a LOT of information into just that 4-character suffix. Since 4-characters (much less than 4 bytes of data) is not sufficient to describe every possible frequency, nor every possible SOTA Summit, nor every possible POTA Park, we use a “Configuration” to reduce the combinations.
The SOTAMAT “configuration” is unique to every user. It encodes which SOTA Regions you can use (each region may have 100’s of summits). Your configuration encodes which POTA Locations you can use (which may have 100’s of parks). Your configuration encodes which Frequencies and Modes and Bands you can use (you might define 100’s of frequency ‘channels’ you can use). As long as your total combinations of all summits times all your combinations of Frequencies is less than 1 million, SOTAMAT can encode any possible combination of a specific summit and specific frequency into a 4-character callsign suffix in an FT8 message and send a spotting command based on it.
Thus the whole purpose of the “configuration” is to reduce the nearly infinite number of possible combinations of frequencies and summits to a manageable list of combinations with fewer than 1 million, and specifically encode just the 100 or so summits you plan to activate this year, and the 100 or so frequencies you most likely will use on those summits.
There are YouTube videos and written instructions that explain how SOTAMAT works and how to define your own personal configuration. I recommend simply following along with the Youtube video and build your custom configuration watching the video.
- Getting Started documentation
- Getting Started Video
The error message you keep receiving from the app explains what the cause of your issues are. You created an account on the web site, but you never created a configuration for SOTA or POTA on the web site. On your mobile phone you logged in and you attempted to download your configuration, but since you never defined a configuration, the download is failing. The app is telling you that you never defined any SOTA Regions nor POTA Locations.
Once you define a configuration, and once you download that configuration into your cell phone, you can then go offline into the back country. On a summit you will use the SOTAMAT app to select a specific Summit ID (from your configuration of SOTA Regions) and you will pick a Frequency and Mode (ex. SSB) from your configuration that defines your spot. SOTAMAT will encode all that information into just 4 characters. It will add those 4 characters to your callsign, as a callsign suffix (called an “indicator”) and it will allow you to transmit the callsign/suffix as FT8 audio over HF on a standard FT8 frequency (such as 14.074).
SOTAMAT has grown to be a bunch of things. At a high level you have:
- A system for spotting by transmitting audio from your cell phone speaker into your HF radio microphone (the app encodes a command into an FT8 message). These are one-way transmissions to one of 130 automated skimmer monitoring stations around the world. The monitoring stations listen only and can’t transmit a reply.
- When you do have cell service, internet, or a satellite device then SOTAMAT has a number of 2-way commands (spotting, weather reports, getting summit info, etc.)
The Getting Started page has instructions for both the 1-way and the 2-way functionalities.
I think the YouTube video will help. It is a long video because you need to understand how it works in order to use it successfully. It looks confusing at first, but once you understand what it is doing it becomes quick.
Systems that use Internet are easier to get started with, but RBNhole and SOTAMAT are special in that they allow spotting via HF over 1000’s of miles when you are in a location where there is no internet, no cell service, and where there are no APRS digipeaters available. RBNhole is only for CW operators, while SOTAMAT does something similar for any mode. RBNhole requires posting a SOTA Alert ahead of time in order to function, and SOTAMAT can post that alert for you if your forgot to do it when you had internet.
After watching the video let me know if you get stuck and I’d be happy to schedule a Zoom call to work through it with you.
73 de AB6D - Brian