Privacy Policy

• You start location sharing. The app only records your position while a trip you started is running. Stop or pause the trip and recording stops.
• Trip data is kept indefinitely. Your routes, contacts, and trip totals stay on our servers until you delete them. They are the basis of your trip history and awards.
• You can delete any trip at any time, from the app or the website. Deleting a trip permanently removes its route, contacts, and spots.
• You control who sees your position. Every trip is public, delayed, followers-only, or private, and you can trim routes and delay replays.
• We collect usage statistics and crash reports so we can see what gets used and fix what breaks. We never sell your data and we show no advertising.

Account information

When you register in the app or on the site we store your amateur radio callsign, an API key that authorizes the app to upload on your behalf, and, if you provide them, your name, email address, and home grid square. If you create a web password we store only a salted hash of it, never the password itself. Signing in on the website sets a session cookie; we use no other cookies of our own.

Location data

Location sharing is initiated by you when you start a trip. While a trip is active the app records GPS fixes (latitude, longitude, time, speed, heading, and accuracy) and the state and highway each fix resolves to. The app keeps recording while the screen is off through an Android foreground service and tells you so with a persistent notification. Fixes are stored on your phone first and sent to our servers as you regain signal. Pausing or ending the trip stops recording.

Trips you plan in advance store the origin and destination you entered. Address lookups for the trip planner are sent to the OpenStreetMap Nominatim geocoder, and road names along your route are resolved the same way, keyed by a coordinate cell of roughly one hundred meters.

Contacts (QSOs)

Each contact you log, whether streamed live from the app or uploaded as an ADIF file, stores the other station's callsign, grid, band, mode, frequency, signal reports, the time, and your position at that moment. Contacts are deduplicated by callsign, band, mode, and minute so re-sending a batch never double-counts.

Community activity

Spots you post (frequency, band, mode, a free-text location, and a comment) are stored with your callsign and shown publicly. Operators you follow are stored so followers-only trips can reach you. Awards you earn are stored against your callsign.

Audio

The app uses the microphone to decode FT8 from your radio. Decoding happens entirely on your phone. Audio is never recorded, stored, or sent to us.

Usage statistics and crash reports

We collect anonymous usage statistics and crash and error reports from both the website and the app to understand which features are used and to find and fix bugs. For the website we use Vercel Analytics, which records page views and named events (such as “trip published” or “spot submitted”) without cookies or cross-site tracking. Error reports include the error message, a stack trace, the app or browser version, and the device model. They do not include your route, your contacts, or your password.

• To map your route and contacts and build your trip pages and history.
• To show hunters where you are, subject to the privacy level you chose for that trip.
• To calculate trip totals, leaderboards, and awards.
• To authenticate the app and website and keep your account secure.
• To contact you about your account, only if you gave us an email address.
• To measure usage and diagnose crashes so we can improve the app and site.

We do not sell personal data, we do not show advertising, and we do not share your data with anyone except the service providers listed below.

Every trip has a privacy level you choose when you plan or start it, and can change at any time:

• Public: your approximate position and route are published as the trip happens.
• Delayed: the trip is listed publicly, but position data lags by a delay you set (30 minutes by default).
• Followers: hidden from public feeds and the map; visible to operators who follow you and anyone you give the link to.
• Private: nothing is published. Only you can see the trip.

You can also trim miles off each end of a published route, delay the public replay after a trip ends, and show overnight stops at town level only. Site administrators can view and edit any trip to support the service and enforce these rules.

Trip data, including routes, contacts, spots, and awards, is kept indefinitely so your trip history and awards remain available. We keep it until you delete the trip or ask us to delete your account. Sign-in sessions expire on their own. Usage statistics and crash reports are retained by the providers below under their own retention schedules.

Trips. Open any trip in the app or on your dashboard and choose Delete. This permanently removes the trip's route points, contacts, and spots. It cannot be undone. Cancelling a planned trip deletes it the same way.

Your account. Email burnsoft@gmail.com from the address on your account, or with your callsign and API key as proof of ownership, and we will delete your operator record and every trip, contact, spot, follow, and award attached to it.

Your logs are yours. You can export any trip as ADIF at any time, before or instead of deleting it.

• Vercel hosts the website and API and provides Vercel Analytics.
• Neon hosts the database that stores your account and trip data.
• OpenStreetMap serves map tiles to your browser and resolves addresses and road names through Nominatim. Your browser's IP address is visible to the tile server when a map loads.
• Google Play handles app distribution and the optional ROTA Plus subscription. We never see your payment details.

All data is encrypted in transit.

ROTA is for licensed amateur radio operators and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

We will update this page when the policy changes and revise the effective date above. Questions or deletion requests go to burnsoft@gmail.com.