[VHFcontesting] Beta Twitter-to-APRS/DX-Cluster Gateway for June

[Gerry Hull]

Hey Folks,

Now that spotting is allowed, I have been putting together a gateway to
allow you to
spot yourselves, both on ARPS and DX Cluster.

A fiend and I are working on a mobile client that will work on iPhone,
Android and Windows phone.  Due to delays and getting it to the App Store,
I do not believe they will be generally available by contest time.  We will
probably have the Android APK available on our web site
later in the week.  The client will read your GPS and automatically tweet
your info.  No intervention required.

Until then, manual spotting via Twitter is pretty straightforward.

You can use a mobile Twitter client, or, ANY cellphone, as long as it can
send SMS Messages.
If you don't have a Twitter account, sign up for one at www.twitter.com.
Make sure you associate your cell pohne number with your twitter account.
Then, to send an SMS tweet to twitter,
you use the short code: For the US, it's 40404, for Canada, 21212. For more
details,
see https://support.twitter.com/articles/14226-tweeting-via-text-message

The format of the tweet is important:

#rvrstatus CALLSIGN GRID|LAT!LONG FREQ MESSAGE

Where:

#rvrstatus is the tag my service is looking for.
CALLSIGN is your call.   Can include /R if you want.
GRID is your Grid.  Six-character grids if you know them.
OR you can send LAT!LONG, which is numeric latitude/longitude with an
exclamation in between.
FREQ is your frequency.  Enter in Mhz or KHz.
message is a short message indicating your status.

For example:

#rvrstatus W1VE FN42ax 144.160 QRV 6-432 for 30 mins


My cloud-based web service will be listening for this tag in tweets.
When received,
a DX Cluster spot is formatted, an attempt is made to log in my DX Cluster;
if it is not a valid call, the tweet is disregarded.
if valid, a cluster spot will be sent.
if valid, I will obtain the APRS password for your call via web service.
I will then send an APRS update via the network.

95% of this is operational; I will post here and on other reflectors
when testing is available.

The website will also be up with more information: www.roverstatus.info.
As soon as the Android automated client is ready, I'l post it on the web
site.

PLEASE:
- Don't post too often.  5 minutes is fine.  30 seconds is not.
- Don't put nasty messages in your message block.  They won't post.
- Make sure you format your tweets correctly, otherwise they won't post.
- Due to the potential for a very large number of tweets, you won't get
  feedback, as I'll hit twitter limits.

Tweet your feedback to @roverstatus.

See you all on the bands  -- I'll be an op at W2SZ.

73,

Gerry Hull, W1VE