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js8spotter

JS8Call's companion — spot tracking, forms, APRS and SMS gateways

What it does

A companion to JS8Call: watches its API for activity, tracks spots and stations on a map, exchanges forms, and gateways to APRS and SMS -- the EMCOMM side of JS8 that JS8Call itself leaves to companions.

Why you would want it

If JS8Call is your keyboard, this is your logbook-and-dispatch desk: who was heard where, forms traffic for nets, and reach into APRS.

Before it will work

JS8Call running with its TCP API enabled (Settings -> Reporting -> API). Everything arrives over the local API; no radio access of its own.

How it installs

  • prebuilt zip from https://kf7mix.com/files/js8spotter/js8spotter-120_src.zip
  • AHRL v27 shipped 1.18; upstream is at 1.20 (fetched and hashed 2026-08-30). AHRL also apt-installs python3-tksnack for it -- one of the four suspected-stale dependency lines D-016 records; 1.20 runs without it and it is deliberately absent here.

What it changes on your machine

  • installed tree — /usr/local/share/hammunition/js8spotter is created and handed to the operator who ran the install by an explicit chown step in the plan (D-043): the software keeps settings, logs or data beside its executable, so the tree has to be writable by whoever runs it. On a shared machine that means anyone who can act as that user can change what the launcher runs.
  • /usr/local/share/hammunition stays root-owned; the tree itself is replaced whole on every install, so anything the software wrote inside it is lost then
  • undo: hammunition uninstall js8spotter removes the tree

Known problems

Runs in place from the installed tree via the generated js8spotter launcher; its SQLite database is created in the working directory on first run, so per-user data lands in the tree unless you set the DB path in File -> Settings. A per-user copy is the upstream-documented alternative if that bothers you.

Keeping it current

  • probe: none
  • strategy: reinstall
  • Versioned zips at kf7mix.com/js8spotter.html; KF7MIX releases a few times a year. Bump the URL and hash together.

Where to get help with the software itself

Joe KF7MIX, via the js8spotter groups.io list linked from his site.

Source: catalog/packages/js8spotter.yaml