Some people may have spotted that M1MAJ and M3ZCB only ever activate summits in April, June and September. Well that’s our usual holiday pattern, but this year is an exception. We’re having an extra holiday this year, and will be spending next week (5th-12th July) in the Welsh Borders, and hoping to activate various G/WB and some GW summits.
Which brings me to the subject of the posting. The SOTAwatch alerts/spots system is great, but I find it a bit restrictive for advertising my plans, particularly when they are a bit vague. A few members of our local repeater group have recently started using the social networking site Twitter, and as an experiment, I intend to try using this to tell people what I’m up to.
For those who don’t know it, Twitter works on the basis of sending short mini-blog messages, which can be followed by anybody interested. What is useful from my point of view is that it integrates well with both the Web and the SMS text message world. If you sign up, you can get updates sent to your mobile phone free of charge.
You can read the messages without registering, but for maximum benefit you need to sign up and “follow” me. The more people elect to “follow” me, the more likely I am to post updates, but don’t expect anything relevant to SOTA until Saturday.
As I say, this is just an experiment. I’m certainly not boycotting SOTAwatch and will still alert and/or self-spot if I can.
I needed a little time to understand what this is … never heard b4 about Twitter. Maybe it’s useful. I’ll follow you and some other “calls” which I found in your followers.
In reply to M1EYP:
The primary functionality offered is a simple free format text message, which might not even be about radio. SOTAwatch doesn’t offer that; it demands structured information, which I’m not always in a position to give.
Also the integration with the SMS message world is handy.
No way is it a replacement for SOTAwatch - it’s a totally different beast.
Twitter does seem to have been having some load problems recently; OTOH SOTAwatch has not been immune to that! It seems to work most of the time.
This happened to me a couple of days ago, then all my followers reappeared again with a note at the top of my home page saying that Twitter had some issues and were being fixed asap.
I think it’s a victim of its own success like so many things these days.
I have to admit, I use it less than I used to but it still has its place.
and some other “calls” which I found in your followers.