[CQ-Contest] Skimmer for Propagation Analysis

[David Gilbert]

I don't get it.  What good does that do?  I was trying to point out that 
a broad use of Skimmer (or similar application) could create a global 
propagation map that would be extremely useful for analysis, maybe even 
more so after the fact when the openings and closings as a function of 
time could be examined.  Forget signal reports ... I agree they can't be 
trusted and all that is needed is accurate QTH information.  If I only 
depend upon the signals I personally hear, or stations I can't hear 
being called by stations I do hear, I don't get anything close to a 
global picture like Skimmer could generate.  I doubt there would ever be 
enough active stations to make any of this worthwhile outside of a 
contest, which is why I hypothesized that a contest with grid square as 
part of the exchange would be helpful.

Looking up addresses is just plain silly ... it's manual and greatly 
limits the data points you could capture in any interval of time.  
Skimmer could automatically generate a detailed global propagation 
record for the entire period of the contest, at least within the 
constraints of it's recognition threshold and limited only by the number 
of telneting contributors.

Dave   AB7E



David Robbins K1TTT wrote:
>> But it doesn't matter if THEY can hear the dx, nor if you can, if you can
>> hear a station calling someone else you can look up their address and
>> populate the map even if they don't send a grid square.  Sure, some stations
>> would be mapped incorrectly if their address wasn't up to date in the
>> callbook, but that is much easier than getting everyone to send a grid
>> square with every report, and could be done 24x7.  signal reports are
>> worthless also, especially for dxing and contesting, that is why my
>> propagation program predicts MOF instead of MUF or signal strengths like the
>> fancy ones do.  I don't care if someone is loud enough to pass traffic, just
>> enough to hear a call and maybe some kind of short exchange is plenty.  
>>
>>
>> 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: Sunday, March 09, 2008 18:28
>> To: k1ttt at arrl.net
>> Cc: 'CADXA'; 'CQ-Contest at contesting. com'
>> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Skimmer for Propagation Analysis
>>
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>