Hi all,
I’ve been using my personal build of GridTracker for a while now, and it’s become my go-to tool for summit chasing (and beyond, but that’s another story). Figured it might be of interest to other SOTA enthusiasts too.
Never heard of GridTracker? This post probably isn’t for you yet. I’m looking specifically for users who are already familiar with the program and are active SOTA chasers/activators. If that’s you, read on:
What this build adds on top of standard GridTracker:
- Pulls recent spots from the SOTA cluster and spotHole.app
- Plots those spots on the map
- Shows you (via roster) whether you’ve already worked this summit today/ever
- Shows you (via roster) whether you’ve already worked this given association/region
- Shows you (via roster) whether a spotted summit is a complete candidate for you
- In case you run it alongside Log4OM:
- Sets the TRX frequency of the spot when you click on it
- Receives the log entry from Log4OM to automatically keep track of your chases
Below a screenshot of the SOTA spots visualized in GridTracker, taken just before this post.
A few caveats before you jump in:
- Windows only.
- This has only ever been tested on my own PC — use at your own risk.
- Never tested alongside FT8/FT4 traffic.
- I’m not a professional programmer; this is heavily AI-assisted. Stuff may go wrong.
- I’m only looking for a handful of testers, so if you don’t hear back from me, my apologies — there were probably more replies than I expected.
- I’m working on this in my free time, so updates and/or fixes may be slow, and will happen whenever I’m in the mood. Anyone pestering me about when things will be done will be blacklisted and ignored. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be impolite — I just want to manage expectations here.
Still interested? Send me a message here on the forum and I’ll get back to you when I can.
73, Matt (HB9HWI)