[CQ-Contest] Skimmer for Propagation Analysis

[David Gilbert]

Yes, I do that of course, although it is pretty obvious that a lot of 
stations are calling DX they can't hear either.

That wasn't my point, though.  I wouldn't care whether the station was 
CQ'ing or not.  I'd only care about the grid square they gave as a 
report.  Skimmer looks for a "CQ" or" QRZ" because it is designed to 
populate a bandmap of stations that would actually be there for more 
than one QSO, but Skimmer already captures both ends of the contact.  It 
just filters out the ones without a "CQ" or "QRZ" or similar phrase 
before it adds a callsign to the bandmap (local or global).  My thought 
was that Skimmer could be written to capture the grid square of ALL of 
the stations it heard if that were part of the report.  If Skimmer 
running at my station knows my grid square as well as those of the ones 
it hears from my station, whether they are calling CQ or not, it could 
capture propagation information from my QTH.  If it did that for 
everyone running Skimmer and the results were telneted to a central 
server for aggregation and processing, you'd get a global view of 
propagation, both instantaneous and over time.

So to address your comment, if the contest exchange included grid square 
information and everyone used Skimmer (at least for propagation 
information), those folks who were calling DX that I couldn't hear would 
be telneting that reception report to the global propagation map because 
Skimmer running at their station would (presumably) be hearing the DX 
station's grid square.

Skimmer could populate a global callsign bandmap for cluster-type users, 
and a separate global propagation map without callsigns for those so 
inclined.  Aside from buying the program, I'd personally be willing to 
pay a reasonable subscription fee to support a server that provided real 
time (and time-lapse) propagation maps based upon actual receptions if 
it was populated by enough inputs to make it worthwhile.

73,
Dave   AB7E


David Robbins K1TTT wrote:
> For pure propagation analysis you shouldn't care if the station is cqing or
> not.  Lots of information can be gleaned from listening to pileups for dx
> that you can't hear, but you can hear who is calling them.
>
>
> David Robbins K1TTT
> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
> web: http://www.k1ttt.net
> AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
>  
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:cq-contest-
>> bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of David Gilbert
>> Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 16:23
>> To: CQ-Contest at contesting. com; CADXA
>> Subject: [CQ-Contest] Skimmer for Propagation Analysis
>>
>>
>> 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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