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Re: [CQ-Contest] Summarizing the Skimmer Accuracy Thread

To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Summarizing the Skimmer Accuracy Thread
From: VR2BrettGraham <vr2bg@harts.org.hk>
Reply-to: vr2bg@harts.org.hk
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2013 02:07:13 +0000
List-post: <cq-contest@contesting.com">mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
UA9CDC added:

Another dimension to this skimming thing is spotting on wrong frequencies. Or the wrong band. Take the RBN data for a day - a non-weekend day is better, as few stations actually on >1 band at once then - and look for the same call spotted say 3 kc or more from others at exactly the same time.

Open that window to a more realistic minute or two & see just how many there are!
Every contest I run into several stations on CW who actually transmitt 3 signals. Main signal is usually 59+30 or more and two side bands spaced 1-2 kHz from the main can be as loud as 59.
No wonder, close by skimmers decode then on these sideband frequencies.

That doesn't surprise me, given all the fecal signals I see on the bands in my reincarnation as an SWL.

Though what I was referring to are skimmers reporting signals on frequencies that the signals are not really on.

How many wrong frequency spots are there on RBN? Well, back when I was looking for just same-call-different-band & spotted-on-exactly-the-same-second, I found 140 such spots in a day (out of 120k).

Open that window up to ~1.4 minutes & there were ~3700 spots of the same call on a different band than other skimmers had spotted it on (and probably more, as that excludes all spots of calls that might be on >1 band at the same time [DXpeditions, special event stations, etc]).

Of those 3700 same-call-different-band spots, about 100 were for UA9CDC. UA9CDC very likely only operating on one frequency during the ~1.4 minute period concerned. Where UA9CDC was said to be:

20m: 14042.2, 14042.3

15m: 21039.9, 21040, 21040.1

10m: 28041.9, 28042, 28042.1

There are a number of mechanisms involved & it isn't just the poorly implemented but popular quadrature sampling detector-based receivers that do this.

73, ex-VR2BG/p.

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