Development

All development on the APRS/SMS gateway applicaton is done by me. I am not a professional programmer, nor am I an expert on APRS. All development is done on my own time, in my basement. I have no intent to sell or profit from the application, only to offer a service to the amateur radio community.

Planned Enhancements

SMSGTE currently operates as a Windows Forms application on a server in a secure data center. Application development continues. Below is a list of feature enhancements currently planned for future development and release:

• A command to allow extended delivery of a message (hold the message until the station is heard).
• A better mobile number and web access registration process
• A means of updating a user’s profile if their callsign has changed
• Allow users to remove their callsign from the database, effectively removing the ability for them to receive messages from SMS
• A filter function allowing the administrator to limit who has access to the gateway (primarily for independent deployments)
• Server resiliency allowing multiple instances of SMSGTE to work in tandem offering a more robust service.
• Streamlined remote gateway protocol

Completed Enhancements

• Remote Management features to confirm server status
• Enhanced web alias manager
• web shortcut manager
• web user profile and activity page
• SSID Aliases – Users can now use SSID appended to the gateway callsign to represent phone numbers
• The gateway will now respond to ?APRSM queries by resending any messages from SMS that were not acknowledged from the last 24 hours.
• Users can configure shortcuts that represent pre-configured messages.
• Send a position report to an SMS user. This is in the form of a link to their callsign shown on aprs.fi
• A privacy feature that allows a user to restrict incoming messages to those from numbers they have configured as aliases
• APRS users can now configure aliases for phone numbers via a web interface rather than by APRS. This feature is protected by a password
• Users may now send commands to the server via SMS after associating a number with their callsign
• Users may now use aliases to represent telephone numbers. Please see the User Guide for details
• Improved Conversation Management – Conversation tracking now allows both cellular phones and callsigns to have multiple active conversations. Replies are sent based on the most recently active conversation.

Ideas and Suggestions

If you have ideas or suggestions that might improve the gateway, please use the contact form to contact me.