[aprssig] APRS activity triggering a text or email notification via internet push

[John Gorkos]

It "can" be done.  It hasn't yet.  What you're asking for is 4-6 hours of 
custom coding (mostly for the web interface).  Do you have a web server that 
can host something like this?  I've got a few hours this weekend I can use to 
code this.
Let me make sure I've got the requirements right:
You want a web interface that allows you to enter a "monitored" call sign, and 
an email address to send a message to when that position report from that 
monitored callsign indicates movement.  You want one message only.  Then, time 
passes and the monitored station stops moving.  Once the station starts moving 
again, you want another text message.
The SMS messages will have to be sent via email (i.e. 
2125551212 at sms.verizon.com), since a direct SMS interface is spendy and less 
standard.

Do you have any programming skills you could apply to this?  Web design, 
maybe?  I hate web design, but the back-end portion isn't too difficult.  This 
request will probably irritate some people on this list, FWIW.  Everyone has 
an imaginary line they draw between "ham radio" and "commercial radio and 
internet."  Using your cellphone/commercial radio to get updates about APRS 
happenings on ham radio is probably on the far side of some peoples' lines.

John Gorkos
AB0OO

On Thursday, February 10, 2011 18:48:04 Steve Hanis wrote:
> Thank you for your reply. I am looking for a way to trigger an email, IM or
> SMS using existing web interfaces. A way to "push" an alert to me when I am
> working or relaxing at home. Can this be done?
> Kind Regards,
> Steve
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 10:41 AM, Guido Trentalancia
> <iz6rdb at trentalancia.com
> 
> > wrote:
> > 
> > Hello Steve !
> > 
> > On Mon, 07/02/2011 at 22.19 -0600, Steve Hanis wrote:
> > > A friend and I just starting using APRS.  Is there way to trigger a SMS
> > 
> > text
> > 
> > > message or email via Internet monitoring when his APRS goes active or
> > 
> > moving?
> > 
> > > This would let me know he is mobile and available to chat or view his
> > 
> > location
> > 
> > > on a map. My apologies if the question is too simplistic for this
> > > list, I am a newbie.
> > > 
> > > Thanks,
> > > Steve
> > > AB5ID
> > 
> > Suppose your friend has call AB4HB, then you could use something like:
> > 
> > FROMEMAILADDRESS=dmesteve at gmail.com
> > MYEMAILADDRESS=dmesteve at gmail.com
> > APRSCALLSIGN=AB4HB
> > SMTP_SERVER=smtp.ab5id.org
> > axlisten -a | grep -q " fm $APRSCALLSIGN to " && echo "An APRS packet
> > from $APRSCALLSIGN has been heard" > /tmp/aprs_message.txt && env
> > MAILRC=/dev/null from=$FROMEMAILADDRESS smtp=$SMTP_SERVER mailx -v -n -s
> > "Mail from APRS" $MYEMAILADDRESS < /tmp/aprs_message.txt && rm
> > -f /tmp/aprs_message.txt
> > 
> > Note that APRSCALLSIGN is case sensitive (unless you pass the -i option
> > to grep). Note that SMTP_SERVER needs to be defined according to your
> > actual smtp server.
> > Most importantly note that the above will send out an email message for
> > every packet that is received from APRSCALLSIGN and this might not be
> > desirable as there might be a lot of packets coming continuously (so you
> > might do things better with some extra code that checks whether a
> > message has already been sent recently, for example by creating a
> > temporary file each time a message is sent and then checking that the
> > timestamp of such file is not too recent before sending a new email
> > message).
> > 
> > Or otherwise you can download a tiny program that I wrote
> > (ax_emergency_listen) which is generally used to monitor APRS emergency
> > packets and adapt it to your needs (by modifying the C source code):
> > 
> > http://iz6rdb.trentalancia.com/en/aprs_igate.html
> > 
> > 73,
> > 
> > Guido IZ6RDB