[CQ-Contest] CW Skimmer in NAQP?

[K1TTT]

That is because they aren't allowing it for spotting information, only for
copying the code like any other code reader would in making contacts.  

Everyone should probably make note of 2 common mistakes... 

there is no such thing as a 'skimmer', the correct name is 'CW Skimmer'
which is a specific piece of software by ve3nea.  It can be operated in
several modes, the simplest being either a waterfall type band scope with no
decoding, or an audio passband code reader, all the way up to a multi-band
wide band cw decoder and dx spot generator.  

The other thing is the Reverse Beacon Network is a specific web site put
together by py1nb which is fed by his own piece of software that gets spots
from a CW Skimmer or Skimmer Server and passes them to his database.  There
are now also cluster nodes that provide real time feeds of those spots to
logging programs.  But this capability to create aggregate streams of spots
from multiple CW Skimmers is not unique, individuals have been doing it with
cluster nodes and/or my wintelnetx software for a while before the RBN
started, and now VE7CC also provides an aggregation of CW Skimmer spots and
regular cluster spots combined on his cluster node.

It would really be best if rules writers used more generic terms.  there
will undoubtedly be competitors for the CW Skimmer before long.  With the
growing interest and easy availability of SDR development tools I'm sure
others will come up with new and different ways to do mass cw and other
modes decoding.  Also it would be best to not name the RBN or other spot
sources since they are not unique either, there are many sources of
aggregated spots of different types, and there will undoubtedly be many more
popping up in the near future.  




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: RT Clay [mailto:rt_clay at bellsouth.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 21:53
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] CW Skimmer in NAQP?
> 
> The January NAQP is coming up soon. I notice that skimmer use (within
> one's own station) is now allowed for single ops. I don't remember that in
> the rules before...I am surprised there have been no comments about it so
> far.
> 
> Tor
> N4OGW/5
> 
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