It occurred to me that a possible use of a Skimmer-type application
might be for propagation analysis.
Given that:
a. Skimmer and a wideband IF to feed it (either from an outboard
Softrock or the rig itself) can monitor an entire ham band and,
apparently with a fair amount of intelligence, decode and analyze the
signals it finds there. Skimmer is able to grasp simple phrases like
"CQ" and "QRZ" to figure out whether a station is running or not.
b. Skimmer can display its results on a bandmap for the user, but it
can (or will be able to) also telnet the components of that bandmap to a
server where presumably they could be aggregated, crunched to filter
dupes and busted calls, and displayed as a master global bandmap.
So ... what if a contest used grid squares for the exchange, and Skimmer
not only captured the callsign but also its report? Callsigns are not a
reliable indicator of location, but grid squares are. That information
could be used to generate a global propagation map for either real time
use or analysis later. Ideally Skimmer would capture signal strength
information as well (it certainly would be technically possible to pull
that off the A/D feeding the computer) but such readings would be
unreliable due to many reasons (i.e., directional antennas). However,
Skimmer might be able to derive some intensity information from the
number of reports over essentially the same path and create, for
example, a color overlay on the propagation map to identify stronger
openings.
Basically, once you have a program like Skimmer that is capable of
analyzing and decoding an entire band, the uses are limited only by the
data you feed it ... the rest is simply database crunching. So why not
feed it with something useful like location or (heaven forbid) actual
signal reports?
Just some thoughts ...
73,
Dave AB7E
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