If you use the 'SMS to SOTA' spotting gateway to get spotted on a summit, please note that the US number has changed as of Jan 2019! The new number is:  1-424-373-SOTA ( 1-424-373-7682 ).

If you don't currently use the SMS SOTA spotting gateway... well, you should! It just might save your activation some day.

How does one go about using this magical gateway, you ask?

First step is to register by sending an email to Andy MM0FMF (mm0fmf_sota AT intermoose.com). Subject of the email should be: "Please sign me up for your SMS to SOTA spot gateway".

Include your name, callsign, email address, cell phone number (the number you will be sending spots from) in the body of the email.

Once you get a confirmation from Andy, you are all set! To post a spot all you need to do is send a specially formatted text message to 1-424-373-7682. Here is an example:

! w7w kg001 146.52 fm qrv now

The ! means to use your registered call sign and is a shortcut. If you are posting a spot for another ham, replace the ! with the callsign. The above would generate a spot for summit W7W/KG-001 with freq 146.52 mode FM and the comment "qrv now". Freq should be in megahertz with a single period in there. (e.g. 14.062 or 7.035) Mode can be any valid mode that sotawatch.org recognizes (most often used: fm, cw, ssb). For the comment field you should keep it under 50 total characters, and avoid all punctuation.

You can find a lot more info on this useful tool at this link.

73 de WU7H