Thursday, February 8, 2018

Do you know where your Ham Buddies are?

HamAlert is phenomenal! I can keep up with my buddies when they get on the air.  They can keep up with me IF they setup HamAlert. I try to let them know where I am when I operate portable. It is difficult task via email. In the perfect world, all of them would use HamAlert.

What is HamAlert?

HamAlert is a system that allows you to get notifications when a desired station appears on the DX cluster, the Reverse Beacon NetworkSOTAwatch, or PSK Reporter. No need to keep checking these resources manually if you're looking for a certain callsign, DXCC, CQ zone, IOTA island, SOTA summit or WWFF reference.
You can receive alerts via Email, Push notification, SMS or URL GET/POST. You can also filter spots by various criteria, including:
  • DXCC (both actual and callsign home DXCC)
  • Callsign
  • IOTA group reference
  • SOTA summit reference
  • WWFF division/reference
  • CQ zone
  • Continent
  • Band
  • Mode
  • Time and days of week
  • Source
  • Spotter callsign and DXCC
Furthermore, you can set limits on the number of alerts in a certain time period so you don't receive duplicate spots, but are still notified if for example the station changes to another frequency.
I registered for HamAlert at this link. The following screens are from the website. You can do the same with the HamAlert app for your smartphone. I use the app as the destination for most of my alerts. Note I can monitor KFF Parks On The Air activations, monitor myself and a list of callsigns for my buddies. I only monitor KFF on the weekend. There are lots of activations going on.


Here are the details on my buddies list.


It turns out for those that run FT-8, I get too many alerts. So I set up limits. I could change the limits for the weekend to get all the alerts.


Below are spots shown on my Android smartphone. It is great to know that Tom G0SWB is on CW even if I am not near the rig. He is brushing up on his CW.


Your settings will be according to your preferences. If you want to find N4KGL your chances are pretty good with HamAlert. BTW,  send TEST DE YOURCALL on CW and you will trigger RBN. The alert comes back immediately. Note on SSB, I can spot myself on DX Cluster and the alert goes out. Easy!