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

[Jonesy W3DHJ via VHFcontesting]

On Tue, 9 Jun 2015, Gerry Hull wrote:

>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.

 ... and it is no longer amateur radio.   sigh...

Jonesy W3DHJ
-- 
  Marvin L Jones     | W3DHJ      | W3DHJ  | http://W3DHJ.net/
   Pueblo, Colorado  |  @         | Jonesy |     __
    38.238N 104.547W |   jonz.net | DM78rf | 73  SK