SOTA Watchtower

SOTA Watchtower is a project designed to monitor SOTA activities and send notifications via Telegram. It uses AWS Lambda functions to process events and send messages to a specified Telegram chat.

Features

Spot forwarding

Reception of SOTA Spots from HamAlert and forward to Telegram chat

Daily Morning Briefing

Daily summary of upcoming planned activations (Alerts)

Activation Zone Monitoring (APRS)

Receive notifications when an Activator reaches the summit area (based on APRS data)

Data sources

• HamAlert
• SOTA API
• APRS-IS

AWS Resources

Networking

HamAlertApi - API Gateway Endpoint for HamAlert Spots

Compute

AprsMonitorInstance - Reception of APRS-IS data

ActivationZoneMonitorFunction - Processing of APRS data and trigger of notifications

DailyBriefingFunction - Generation of daily morning briefing based on available Alerts

GetSotaAlertsFunction - Get SOTA Alerts from SOTA API

GetSotaSpotsFunction - Get SOTA Spots from SOTA API

HamAlertProcessFunction - Forwarding of HamAlert Spots to TelegramNotifyFunction

TelegramNotifyFunction - Generic function to send Telegram messages

Cloudwatch

DailyBriefingEvent - Event to trigger the daily morning briefing

SotaWatchtowerMasterLogGroup - Central loggroup for all Logs

AprsMonitorAlarm - Alarm to monitor health of APRS data stream

Additionaly there is a CloudWatch Dashboard showing details of the application

Getting Started

To get started with SOTA Watchtower, follow the steps below to set up the project locally and deploy it to your AWS account.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.12 or higher
• AWS CLI configured with your credentials
• AWS SAM CLI installed
• A HamAlert account
• An AWS account
• A Telegram bot token and user or group ID

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/DO4AF/sota-watchtower.git
   cd sota-watchtower

2. Configure Triggers in HamAlert

   Triggers need to follow a specific naming convention in order to be processed by SOTA Watchtower

   The required keyword is

   SOTA2TELEGRAM

   Configure one or more triggers in HamAlert under configuration option Triggers

   Make sure to include the keyword SOTA2TELEGRAM in each trigger comment field for triggers you want to be recognized by SOTA Watchtower

   Example trigger comment:

   SOTA2TELEGRAM_VHFUHF_DM-South

3. Configure parameters in samconfig.toml

   TelegramUserChatId is optional if you want to receive your own spots also via Telegram.

   FrequencyFilterPattern is a regex to filter out alerts of interest based on frequency or mode. This is applied on the frequencies field in the alert from SOTAwatch.

   Make sure your bot is added to the Telegram group chat associated with the ID provided in TelegramGroupChatId.

   parameter_overrides =[
   "TelegramBotToken=<YOUR_TOKEN>",
   "TelegramUserChatId=<YOUR_CHAT_ID>",
   "TelegramGroupChatId=<YOUR_CHAT_ID>",
   "FrequencyFilterPattern=\\b(145|433|2|70).*-.*\\b"
   ]
   

4. Build the AWS SAM template:

   sam build

5. Deploy the AWS SAM template:

   sam deploy

6. Configure API Endpoint in HamAlert

   Copy the Invoke URL from API Gateway, which is shown at the end of the deploy process

   Key                 ApiGatewayInvokeUrl
   Description         URL to enter into HamAlert Destination
   Value               https://abcdefghijk.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Prod/notify
   
   Key                 DashboardUrl                                                                                                                 
   Description         URLtotheCloudWatchDashboard
   Value               https://eu-central-1.console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/home?region=eu-central-1#dashboards/dashboard/SOTA-Watchtower-Dashboard
   

   Insert the URL from above output into HamAlert under configuration option Destinations -> URL notifications

   Example URL:

   https://abcdefghijk.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Prod/notify

Usage

• Check your Dashboard at the provided link SOTA Watchtower Dashboard
• Observe your Telegram chat group for incoming messages
• Test the notification functionality by sending a test spot from HamAlert under configuration option Simulate and make sure the keyword SOTA2TELEGRAM is entered in the Comment field
• Try the Activation Zone Monitoring feature by entering an Alert prior to your next activation. Carry your APRS Tracker/Radio with you and you should receive a notification as soon as you are near the summit.

File Structure

• template.yaml: AWS SAM template defining the Lambda functions and API Gateway.
• samconfig.toml: Basic AWS SAM stack configuration and user defined parameters
• src: Folder containing all Lambda functions and layers
• ec2/aprs-listener: Init code and python script for APRS data reception

Contributing

If you would like to contribute to this project, please follow these steps:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a new branch (git checkout -b feature-branch).
3. Make your changes and commit them (git commit -m 'Add some feature').
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature-branch).
5. Create a new Pull Request.