ON6ZQ | AC6ZQ

ECHOCAT turns any radio into a remote station — operate from your phone's browser with live audio, PTT, spot browsing, and QSO logging over Tailscale.

- No app to install, no monthly fees, completely self-hosted and open source.

- Pulls 7 spot sources (POTA, SOTA, DX Cluster, RBN, FreeDV, WSJT-X, DX Expeditions)

- Built-in logging to Log4OM 2, HRD, N3FJP, or DXKeeper

https://potacat.com/

#amateur_radio #hamradio #SOTA #POTA

POTACAT — Hunt POTA, SOTA & DX Faster with 1-Click QSY

Hunt Parks on the Air, SOTA, and DX Cluster spots faster with 1-click CAT tuning. Real-time spots, interactive map, watchlist notifications, and RBN monitoring. Free Windows app for FlexRadio and Hamlib rigs.

Mar 31 at 2:06pmWeb
Show threadJeromeMar 31
@ON6ZQ Seems great, but for a catch. To find the remote radio somewhere on the Internet, the system uses tailscale. Tailscale needs users to be identified (makes sense), but only supports OIDC. And, in practice, OIDC implies for a private person an account on google, facebook or microsoft 🙁
Show threadScott VE3QBZMar 31
@dl2jml @ON6ZQ you could use wireguard instead, no hard dependency on tailscale as your VPN transit
Show threadJeromeMar 31
@ON6ZQ @scott If I understand correctly, wireguard only does the VPN part, not the "discover where the remote is on the vast Internet" part.
The latter can only be done if:
-one uses a fixed i.p. or
-one uses a known fixed server.
Besides, if the remote is connected via cell networks and depending on the country, the remote may be hidden on a ipV4 address shared with thousands of other people and without ipV6. The VPN solves that part, but not the "discover" part.
Show threadScott VE3QBZMar 31

@dl2jml @ON6ZQ Dynamic DNS handles non-fixed IP.

If you are putting your station behind CGNAT, you can still do it without tailscale; you'll just need a tertiary wireguard endpoint that isn't behind CGNAT.

Or, since we are amateur radio folk, leverage 44Net's new wireguard service and tunnel to that from both ends - they should be able to reach each other since they'd both have 44.x.x.x addresses. Assign DNS to the station side 44. address and you're set.

Show threadJeromeMar 31
@scott @ON6ZQ I know that there are many solutions to that problem. I just wanted to point out that the default solution used tailscale and that tailscale requires an identity broker which, for most people, is going to be google, facebook or microsoft.
Show threadScott VE3QBZMar 31
@dl2jml @ON6ZQ The default solution doesn't "use" anything - it's on the user to pick a VPN provider. I do agree the documentation could be more explicit in suggesting Tailscale for "easy mode" access, in addition any other kind of self-hosted VPN as a viable alternative.
Show threadJeromeApr 1
@scott @ON6ZQ My bad, then. Please add to the docs that tailscale is an option.
Show threadAndrew VK3ARRApr 1

@ON6ZQ another day, another vibe coded app pulling down 200 spots every 15-30 seconds while simultaneously fetching summit details for each spot 🙄

*Sigh* do I raise an issue or a pull request