[CQ-Contest] CW Skimmer in NAQP?

[RT Clay]

--- On Wed, 12/22/10, K1TTT <K1TTT at ARRL.NET> wrote:

> From: K1TTT <K1TTT at ARRL.NET>
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] CW Skimmer in NAQP?
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Date: Wednesday, December 22, 2010, 5:47 PM
> 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.  
> 

"Access to spotting information obtained directly or indirectly from any source other than the station operator, such as from other stations or automated tools, is prohibited, except as follows: Technological methods of copying information in the contest exchange (e.g. CW Skimmer, code readers, etc.) are permitted as long as all components are entirely contained within the station."

The callsign is part of a contest exchange, so to me that IS spotting information. The new wording is REALLY confusing if the intent is still not to allow local skimmer spots.

I am well aware of the differences between running a local CW Skimmer, reverse beacon, FFT bandscope, etc.

Tor
N4OGW/5


> 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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> 
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