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

[Steve Hanis]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 10:22 PM, John Gorkos <jgorkos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Friday, February 11, 2011 09:51:24 AM Steve Hanis wrote:
> > Hi John,
> >
> > I have no intention of irritating anyone one the list, and apologize
> > if I have done so. I haven't written any programs since college back
> > in the early 90's and don't consider myself programmer, I use Linux
> > occasionally. I was made aware of this list after I posed this same
> > question on the APRS Yahoo group.
> >
> > What I am looking for is something like what is described on
> > http://www.aprs.org/aprs-messaging.html:
> >
> > "APRS Messages to Your Cellphone: . N3FLR Frank Rossi reports that he
> > uses "YahooAlert" to send all of his APRS messages to his cell phone.
> > First, Find-U has RSS output capability so he has his computer RSS
> > Feed Reader watching his Feed From FindU, and YahooAlert also
> > watching. After setting up Yahoo Alert for a pager, he uses his
> > phone's text e-mail address such as xxxxxxxxxx at txt.att.net . Then you
> > just need to know what your phone's "e-mail address" to "text address"
> > is. You don't need mobile internet to do it this way, just text
> > ability. That will work with a text pager also. . When FINDU sees a
> > message to him on APRS it generates an RSS Feed that now Yahoo-Alerts
> > is watching. YahooAlerts then forwards the RSS Message as Text to his
> > cell phone. Although this is only one way communications, it still
> > lets him receive his APRS messages. He also says that you can set up
> > RSS feeds from FindU for weather alerts, or APRS users X amount of
> > miles from you. You can make the miles anything you want. He has not
> > tried that function yet."
> >
> > I've tried this to no avail, but was wondering if anyone else had come
> > up with a different way to accomplish the same goal. I have no
> > commercial interest in this, I just want to be pinged on my cell phone
> > (SMS, Email, IM) when my friend goes mobile, or for special cases like
> > a high altitude balloon with a known call sign goes active on APRS.
> >
> > Kind Regards,
> > Steve
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 7:35 AM, John Gorkos <jgorkos at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 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
>
> Believe it or not, I've not forgotten about this.  I've spent about 10 hours
> so far doing design and outline work on the code.  I've also had to hunt down
> some extremely nasty off-by-one bugs in the Java AVRS position parsers.  Now
> that I'm getting reliable, accurate positions from all 4 types of position
> packets (compressed, uncompressed, MICe, and raw NMEA) I can move on to
> alarms.
> In the AVRS sourceforge repo, there is a new package called Wedjet
> (net.ab0oo.aprs.wedjet) that contains some rudimentary code for monitoring
> positions.  The alerting portion will come later.  I'm using a Spring-injected
> Jetty container as a base web-server, so the whole thing can be self-
> contained.
> Give me another few days and I'll have something you can play with.  Once we
> reach a stable beta point, we'll look for hosting options.
>
> John Gorkos
> AB0OO

John,

A sincere thank you. I had no idea how much work would be involved.

Kind Regards,
Steve
AB5ID