Sources

A source is a feed of spots that Long Lines reads around the clock: POTA, SOTA, WWFF, WWBOTA, the DX Cluster, the Reverse Beacon Network, IOTA references in DX Cluster spots, and contacts operators log through Long Lines Relay. Every connection you build starts from exactly one of them.

Why you’d use it

You want to know whether a SOTA alert will reach you in time to chase the activator. The Sources page tells you that SOTAwatch is read every 30 seconds, whether the feed is running right now, and how many spots an hour it carries, so you know what to expect before you build the connection.

How it works

Open Sources in the navigation. Each tile shows the source’s status, its volume (High volume or Standard volume) and its average rate over the last 7 days in spots/hour. The status chip is Connected while the feed is current and Delayed when Long Lines hasn’t read it successfully for three times its normal interval (3 minutes for most sources, 90 seconds for SOTA).

Source	How it arrives	Usual delay before matching
Parks on the Air	Spot list read every 60 seconds	Up to about a minute
SOTA	SOTAwatch spot list read every 30 seconds	Up to about 30 seconds
WWFF	Spot list read every 60 seconds	A minute or a bit more (the WWFF feed is itself cached for 60 seconds)
WWBOTA	Spot list read every 60 seconds	Up to about a minute
DX Cluster	Live telnet stream from a DXSpider node	About 10 seconds
Reverse Beacon Network	Live telnet stream of skimmer spots	About 10 seconds
IOTA	Read out of DX Cluster spots	Same as DX Cluster
Logged contacts	Posted by Long Lines Relay as you log	Seconds
APRS-IS	Live stream of the full APRS-IS feed	Not matched at all (see below)

The streamed sources hand spots over in batches: a batch goes when its oldest line is 10 seconds old or 1,000 lines have built up. After a spot is stored, matching runs right away, and the destination’s own pacing applies from there (see Destinations).

Spots Long Lines drops

Not every spot a feed carries reaches your connections.

Old spots. A POTA, SOTA, WWFF, WWBOTA, DX Cluster or RBN spot whose own time is more than 5 minutes before Long Lines reads it is skipped. A feed that stalls and then catches up does not flood you with stale spots.
Test spots. A POTA, SOTA, WWFF or WWBOTA spot whose comment has the word “test” or “testing” is skipped. DX Cluster and RBN spots have no such check.
SOTA QRT and other non-normal spots. Only SOTAwatch spots of the normal type are kept, so QRT spots never arrive.
WWBOTA test and QRT spots. A WWBOTA spot marked Test is skipped, and so is a QRT spot with no frequency. A QRT spot that does carry a frequency is kept.
Skimmer lines on the DX Cluster. A DX Cluster line from a skimmer (a spotter ending in -#, or an RBN-style “12 dB 22 WPM” comment) is dropped, because the Reverse Beacon Network already covers those.

A spot whose content changes upstream (a new frequency, mode or comment) counts as a new spot and can be delivered again. Reading the same unchanged spot twice never delivers it twice. To limit repeats from one activator, use Repeat spots for the same station on the connection.

Bands and modes

Long Lines works out the band from the frequency. A frequency outside every amateur band has no band, so it never passes a Band is rule.

The mode comes from the feed when the feed has one. USB and LSB are stored as SSB. When a feed says only “DATA” or “DIGI” and the comment names a mode such as FT8, the comment wins. SOTAwatch offers only DATA for digital modes, so an FT8 activation on SOTA often arrives as plain digital. Pick Any digital in a Mode rule to catch it.

DX Cluster lines have no mode field. Long Lines takes the first mode named in the comment (CW, SSB, RTTY, FT8, FT4, PSK31 and so on). With none, it uses the band plan: the FT8 and FT4 dial frequencies first, then the CW, digital and phone segments for 160m through 6m. It does not read FM or AM from a comment, and it does not guess on 60m or on VHF and up, so those spots often have no mode.

Notes on each source

Parks on the Air. Activator spots from api.pota.app, with the park reference, park name and location (for example US-NC). Shown on the band map and in Stats.

SOTA. Summit spots from SOTAwatch, with the summit reference. When a spot was posted by the RBNHole bot, Long Lines takes the real skimmer’s call from the comment as the spotter. Shown on the band map and in Stats.

WWFF. Activator spots from spots.wwff.co, with the reference and its name. WWFF overlaps POTA heavily and Long Lines does not merge the two, so a park that is both a POTA and a WWFF reference can reach you twice if you have connections on both sources. Shown in Stats, not on the band map.

WWBOTA. Bunker spots from api.wwbota.net. One spot can name several bunkers; Long Lines keeps all of them (up to 50) and the first bunker’s name. Not in Stats or on the band map.

DX Cluster. Human-entered spots from a DXSpider node. DXSpider cuts comments at 30 characters. There is no park, summit or reference on a DX Cluster spot, except an IOTA reference when the comment has one. Shown on the band map.

Reverse Beacon Network. Skimmer spots from telnet.reversebeacon.net, CW and RTTY only. FT8 and FT4 skimmer spots are not read. The comment holds the signal strength and speed, such as 18 dB 24 WPM CQ. This is a high-volume source: a connection on it must name stations with a Callsign or Callsign group rule, and only spots for stations some connection names are matched at all. See Filter rules.

IOTA. Not a feed of its own. Long Lines reads the first IOTA reference in the form EU-005 out of each DX Cluster comment (EU005 and EU 005 are not recognized) and names the island group from the IOTA list, refreshed monthly. Picking IOTA when you create a connection gives you a DX Cluster connection with an IOTA island is Any island rule.

Logged contacts. Contacts that operators log, posted by Long Lines Relay. The operator who logged the contact is the spotter, and the station worked is the callsign. There is no comment and no reference. A connection on Logged contacts gets every Long Lines operator’s logged contacts, not only yours. When an operator edits a contact in their logger, the old spot is replaced; when they delete it, the spot is taken down. Deliveries already sent are not recalled.

APRS-IS. Every packet on the full APRS-IS feed, stored for about two days and then archived. Packets are not spots: you can’t pick APRS-IS for a connection, and packets never reach profiles. You see them only on the Stats page.

The source page

Select a tile to open its page. It shows:

Average, 7 days, Peak, 7 days, Minimum, 7 days and Busiest moment, from the hourly Stats snapshot. New sources show “No rates yet” until the next hourly refresh.
Rate over time for the last 7 days, with a red dot on the busiest hour.
Schema and Example spot: every field on a spot from this source, as a webhook receives it.
Recent spots: the newest 100 spots from the last 24 hours, before any connection filters, refreshed every 30 seconds while the tab is open. The footer says when the source was last read, for example “Last fetch 12s ago, every 60s”.
Your connections: the connections you have on this source.
Create connection, which starts a new connection on this source. APRS-IS has none.

Set it up

There is nothing to set up. To use a source:

Open Sources and select the source’s tile.
Check the status chip and the Recent spots list to see what the feed carries right now.
Select Create connection. The connection editor opens with this source already chosen. See Connections.

When it doesn’t work

The tile says Delayed. Long Lines hasn’t read the feed for three intervals. Most often the upstream site is down or slow. Check Health, where Pulled sources and Inbound feeds show the same thing in more detail. Spots that arrive more than 5 minutes late are dropped, so an outage leaves a gap rather than a burst of late alerts.

An activator is on the air but no spot arrived. Look at the source’s Recent spots. If the spot isn’t there, Long Lines never stored it: it may have been older than 5 minutes when read, had “test” in the comment, or (SOTA) been a QRT spot. If it is there, the problem is in your connection’s filter or its destination.

FT8 SOTA spots don’t match a Mode is FT8 rule. SOTAwatch reports digital modes as DATA. Use Any digital.

A DX Cluster spot has no mode. The comment named none and the frequency fell outside the band plan’s guesses (60m, VHF and up, or a gap). Filter on band or frequency instead.

An IOTA activation was missed. The spotter wrote the reference without the dash (EU005) or put it in a form Long Lines doesn’t read. Only XX-NNN with a continent code is recognized.