Hi all,
There is a skimmer access point in Guernsey, which I am connected to, as well
as the "normal" cluster, and whilst it is useful at times, I have found to be
less than useful in a contest.
The reason for this is that most skimmers still pick up callers, rather than
those just CQ'ing, so you can never be sure of a spot. In a contest, especially
one like CQWW RTTY last weekend, the bandmap just gets filled with loads of
calls on the same frequency, which only serves to slow things down.
However, they do have a place and can be very useful!
I was lucky enough to be in the shack earlier this year when I saw a spot for
K1N on 10m RTTY. I got in quick, made my call and worked them easily. From what
I can gather, they had just started on the band, called CQ, and were picked up
by a couple of skimmer clusters, which was then propagated to my local link.
And last night, I was just sorting my log from CQWW, and saw a spot for
V4/W6HGF on 30m RTTY. I found Allan calling "CQ up 1" and dialled in the split,
called and got him. Very quickly after that, the band was alive with callers,
and I doubt I would have made it through. That is now confirmed on LoTW and is
a new slot for me! Thanks Allan!
Of course, this means you have to be in the right place at the right time, but
- oh boy - it sure helps when you are one of the first to catch that rare DX.
Getting K1N was truly a happy moment for me, and made even better when I got
them on 17m RTTY within 10 minutes too.
Using an RBN is also very useful at times, and I use hamspots.net for this. It
can be very useful to see where your signals are being heard and at what sort
of strength.
In CQWW this weekend, that would have been a waste of time, as the bands were
full of RTTY, so you were going to be heard somewhere.
On a week day, when all is quiet, it can be very useful to put out a CQ, and
see just where your call is being heard.
I did this one evening last week, beaming Stateside, but found I was being
heard in JA better than the USA, so I turned the beam to JA, and had an jour of
lively fun.
I guess it is all down to personal preference.
73 all
Phil GU0SUP
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