[SFDXA] An Alternative for alerting the Club on DX

Mon Sep 10 15:20:25 EDT 2012

For the last year I've been experimenting with using a website/twitter/text 
messages for a similar application with some good results.

My other radio hobby is the listening to Military Aircraft on the UHF 
bands.  So us MilAir hobbyist can help MilAir listeners follow Military 
Aircraft from point "A" to point "B" or alert others as to training 
missions.   I had setup a MilAir spotting network on my website which is 
similar to the 'DX Cluster".  I have linked this with my twitter account 
and anyone who follows my MilAirComms account on twitter can have all the 
Spots be sent to their cell phone via SMS messages.

The process is simple, each spot to the website is sent to the twitter 
account then twitter does all the rest.  I use a combination of SQL 
database and PHP programming.

After a year I have about 400 people on twitter exchanging "milair" spots 
and about 5000 people who use the web-based network without twitter.  With 
this many people I see very little junk on the twitter account.

My web-based network is: 
http://milaircomms.com/mil_air_spotters_network.html and the twitter 
account is: https://twitter.com/MilAirComms for those who want to get some 
ideas.

Also, if you wanted to by-pass twitter and just get spots sent to your cell 
phone via SMS text messages, that would be very easy.  All that would be 
needed on the DX cluster would be someone to add code to forward to your 
cell phones email address any spots you wanted to be texted aboutn.  If you 
have an AT&T phone account it would simple be YourPhoneNumber at txt.att.net, 
any email to that address is processed by AT&T as a text message sent to 
your phone. Nearly all cell phone carriers have this feature...

Just some ideas...
George - KI4FIA - EL99mc
http://www.MilAirComms.com

At 14:40 9/10/2012 -0400, you wrote:
>I don't tweet... Too much garbage once you sign up.
>
>PeteR  N8PR
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ed Callaway
>Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 12:01 PM
>To: SFDXA at mailman.qth.net
>Subject: Re: [SFDXA] An Alternative for alerting the Club on DX
>
>I think the reason this type of thing is of only moderate interest is that
>one has been able to get SMS DX alert messages for years, from any number of
>cluster web sites.  On http://www.dxwatch.com , for example, it's easy to
>set up alert filters for the DX entity, the spotting entity, band, and mode;
>when a spot meeting your requirements appears, at text is sent to your phone
>(or whatever email address(es) you desire).  One can, for example, receive
>spots only for Swains Island activity on 12m CW, sent by spotters in the US.
>
>Using one of these sites, one is immediately aware of DX activity on a
>desired band or mode.  The question then becomes one of propagation to SFL
>and, in my experience, the variation in station capability and local noise
>is so great among SFDXA members that knowing that Norm or Bill or Dick or
>Harry has heard a DX station is of little use.  Even when I was at W4MOT --
>not a pipsqueak station by any means -- frequently Norm would spot DX that I
>could not hear (and, I hope, the reverse was true -- at least occasionally
>:-) ).
>
>Frankly, while W4MOT was just down the hall from my office, I used the web
>alerts to great advantage -- at the first DX spot, from any spotting entity,
>I was off to the station like a shot, before the pile got too big and the
>time away from my desk noticeable.  If I had to wait for someone locally to
>spot the DX, rather than anyone anywhere in the world, I would be waiting a
>long time.  Having a worldwide network of potential spotters means that
>substantially no DX activity is missed, and the value of this, in the minds
>of most, is greater than the knowledge that the DX is audible to someone in
>the tri-county area.
>
>Ed N4II.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: sfdxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:sfdxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
>On Behalf Of Norman Alexander
>Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 10:44 AM
>To: Sebastian, W4AS; SFDXA at mailman.qth.net
>Subject: [SFDXA] An Alternative for alerting the Club on DX
>
>I shall leave the answer to these questions to the experts - as I have yet
>to "tweet" or "twit?"
>
>Is there significance to the statement below that says there is a "new tweet
>application?"
>
>
>Norm
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
>From: "Sebastian, W4AS" <w4as at bellsouth.net>
>To: "SFDXA at mailman.qth.net" <SFDXA at mailman.qth.net>
>Sent: Mon, September 10, 2012 10:04:44 AM
>Subject: Re: [SFDXA] An Alternative for alerting the Club on DX
>
>Unless I missed it on their site http://www.grouptweet.com/, everyone must
>still
>use a Twitter client (or app) in order to receive and send messages.  I
>didn't
>see any mention of standard text messages.
>
>This means you must have a smart phone in order to use the Twitter
>application,
>and unless you are using one of the newer phones, you must be running the
>twitter application to receive the messages.  Please correct me if I'm
>wrong.
>
>
>73 de Sebastian, W4AS
>
>
>
>On Sep 10, 2012, at 9:06 AM, Norman Alexander <npalex at bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > The following email is an extract from another DX club addressing one of
> > the
> > problems that prevails in many DX groups.  I tweaked the email a bit
> >substituting
> >  our club SFDXA.  Novel idea, and utilizes today's new communication
> > tools.
> >
> > It maybe a useful idea for DXers of SFDXA - maybe we meed a CIO as well as
> > PIO
> >
> > Norm W4QN
> > ===========================================================
> > An Alternative for alerting the Club on DX
> >
> > For a whole lot of reasons, many of us do not monitor .33 very much
> > anymore.
> > Some of us have taken to alerting others in the Club about DX on the air
> > by
> > sending messages to our Yahoo Group. That is appreciated, but most of us
> > are not in front of our email computers all the time.
> >
> > I suspect that most Club members have a cell phone. If so, that means we
> > can all receive standard text messages.
> >
> > There is a new Group Tweet application available that will allow anyone in
> > the Club to send a text message via Twitter that will in turn be broadcast
> > to every member as a text message to your cell phone. So, when I found the
> > NH8S this morning on 10 SSB, rather than sending an email to the list, I
> > could have simply sent a short message that read "NH8S, 28473 QSX UP 5 de
> > K9EL". That message would be sent to everyone who signed up to the group
> > via a standard text message.
> >
> > Not sure who in our club is our "CIO" (Chief Information Officer), but all
> > we need to do is create a Twitter account in the name of SFDXA. Then each
> > member needs to sign up for Twitter as well - this is all free. A few
> > simple mechanics and anyone can then send a short text message or online
> > message from their PC to the SFDXA account which will then in turn be
> > re-broadcast to every member who has signed up - just like the repeater!
> > Only done via text messaging on any cell phone - does NOT need to be a
> > smart
> > phone. This system works worldwide, by the way, so even our ex-members
> > living in FL or CA or VE3 land can participate.
> >
> > Is there any interest?
>
>__
>______________________________________________________________
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>______________________________________________________________
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>SFDXA WebSite: http://qsl.net/k4fk
>SFDXA Repeater 147.33+ 103.5 Tone
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>______________________________________________________________
>South Florida DX Assoc.
>SFDXA WebSite: http://qsl.net/k4fk
>SFDXA Repeater 147.33+ 103.5 Tone
>To Post: mailto:SFDXA at mailman.qth.net
>Subscribe or UNSubScribe:
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