Well, since it’s your software I will accept which ever interpretation of Repetition you wish to use 
Warren.
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I’m using Android and keep getting “Error bad config: This configuration is missing items. Did you define SOTA regions or POTA Locations and some frequencies? if not did you define at least one valid Message command?”
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
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Brian,
I have an Android. I’ve been using the SOTACAT and loving it. I have only connected my phone to the SOTACAT wifi server. I want to use the SOTACAT to android hot spot connection so I can see SOTA and POTA spots. I did an OTA firmware update and have SOTAmat v2.1.0. I configured the SOTACAT settings to use my android hotspot as client 1 and my home wifi network as client 2. It appears that the SOTACAT does not connect to either of these when I look for it on the “Bonjour Browser”. I would certainly like to use it in that mode, but not sure why it doesn’t seem to be working.
Thank you and 73 de N6QP - Michael
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It sounds like you are doing things correctly. My assumption is that due to timing the SOTACAT is finding your home network faster than it is finding the hotspot. Once connected to your home network, your Android’s “Bonjour Browser” won’t see the SOTACAT since in Hotspot-enabled mode the Android can’t be connected to your home WiFi when acting as a WiFi host. Thus the Bonjour Browser will be browsing the Android’s cellular network and won’t see the SOTACAT which is on your WiFi network.
For debugging purposes the next thing I would try is to remove the home network definition in SSID #2 slot: either empty it, or (what I would do) is add an extra letter to the SSID name so that it won’t match your home network (that way you can easily set it back to the original value), or simply travel away from home and try it when your home network isn’t available to connect to.
It is ironic that Apple iOS is normally developer “unfriendly” with everything locked down and Android is normally more “permissive”. However, when it comes to the SOTACAT networking, iOS supports mDNS out of the box, and supports “split networking” allowing the iOS device to connect to the SOTACAT WiFi while also getting internet from the cellular network (when available). Android, however, does not support mDNS natively on many devices, and does not support split networking which is why you have to use the reverse connection with the SOTACAT connecting to the Android Hotspot and need the “Bonjour Browser” to find the IP address of the SOTACAT that the Android hotspot randomly assigns. Sorry for those extra steps, but that is just the limitation of Android. One of the co-developers of the SOTACAT firmware (@KC6X ) is an Android person and uses it exclusively. I’ve also put a lot of energy into the ESP32 networking code to work more smoothly for Android (you can see in the Github checkins), but it does require a little more setup.
Let me know how that debugging step goes. If that fails the next step is to hook a USB cable from your computer to the SOTACAT and use the Chrome Browser’s “Web Serial” connection to view all the debugging messages the SOTACAT spits out over the USB serial port. And if that doesn’t work we can also load debugging firmware into your SOTACAT and get even more info.
Let’s hope the problem is just your home network is getting in the way of your Hotspot connection (a race condition as to which connects first).
Oh, and I’m glad you like the SOTACAT. Note that I am aware there are some bugs between the SOTACAT and SOTAMAT whereby the VFO frequency on the Elecraft takes priority when you don’t want it to. For example, if you try to change the frequency of the radio in SOTAMAT, it will change briefly on the Elecraft but then revert. This is a known “race condition” timing bug between the Elecraft trying to drive the SOTAMAT frequency, and SOTAMAT trying to drive the Elecraft frequency. I’m working on a fix. The easy work-around is to change frequencies on the radio in cases where the bug occurs (the bug is intermittent - not constant). There is another bug (also an intermittent timing issue) where when you try to self-spot from SOTAMAT through the SOTACAT (direct FT8 synthesis), it will prepare the radio for FT8 and then revert without sending the message. If that happens, just try it again and it will normally work on the second attempt. Since FT8 is very timing critical, and since the ESP32 wifi module sometimes has connection “brown-outs” the handshake between the phone and the SOTACAT can have a 500ms or so timing delay and the current code doesn’t like the lost connection and aborts. Try again and it works. I’m working on a bug fix for that as well.
73 de AB6D - Brian
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Brian,
Thank you for the excellent description. I did remove my home network. At first, I had no luck getting the SOTACAT to display on Bonjour Browser. I ended up searching for a bunch of mDNS apps and in the end, I got the Bonjour Browser to show the SOTACAT and I was able to see spots. Awesome, not sure why it doesn’t always work, but I was able to use it today for a SOTA activation, so many thanks!
Also, thank you for the description about the aborted FT8 spot transmissions. My KX2 was doing that last week and I was worried something might be wrong with it, but now I know. Race conditions are the gremlin of digital systems! Thank you for all your help!!!
73 N6QP Michael
If Bonjour Browser isn’t showing the SOTACAT, you should first confirm that the SOTACAT has connected to the Android Hotspot. You can see this by going into the Android Settings under the Hotspot menu and seeing how many clients are connected to the Android hotspot. There should be 1.
One other issue that might be tripping you up with the SOTACAT is it has an auto-power-off feature where it goes into deep sleep to preserve the batteries. To prevent auto-shut off, the following need to be true:
- Both of the following must happen within the first minute of turning on the SOTACAT:
- the SOTACAT has to talk to the Elecraft (it must be plugged in and the radio turned on), and
- the SOTACAT has to connect to a WiFi (Android hotspot) or a device has to connect to the SOTACAT’s wifi (iPhone)
- Once the above have been satisfied within the first 60 seconds, then the unit will only power-off after 30 minutes of no network activity over the WiFi connection.
Even if the SOTACAT powers itself down into deep sleep, it is still (slowly) draining the battery and you should always turn it off with the switch (or unplugging the 3.5mm adapter that acts as switch in some versions of the SOTACAT). The deep sleep should easily last a week if you forget to turn it off, so even on a backpacking trip you should be OK.
So one reason the Bonjour Browser might not see the SOTACAT is that the SOTACAT might be sleeping if you took to long to turn on the radio, plug in the SOTACAT, turn on the Hotspot, etc.
73 de AB6D - Brian
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