[CQ-Contest] Reverse Beacon Network - After-Action Report

[mebly5343@gmail.com]

Hi Barry:

These filtering options need to be done for the individual RBN spot users, not the raw RBN feed.  VE7CC or the AR-Cluster needs to implement these as filters that can be selected by the individual.

Losing spots of DX not in some database is a HUGE price to pay for some of us.  :-)

73,

Mark



Barry N1EU <n1eu.barry at gmail.com> wrote:

>Although I greatly appreciated all the spots from the RBN and the hard
>work by the network/server admins, I still feel a great improvement
>would be more screening (“CQ” and callsign database validation) by the
>skimmer servers.  I noticed myself and others spotted numerous times
>when calling dx.  And there sure wouldn’t be a downside to eliminating
>all the LW3LPL and “EK” spots.  Losing potential spots of dx not in
>the database would be a small price to pay for really cleaning up the
>RBN contest spots.  And those “lost” spots can always be entered the
>old fashioned way by human ops.  I got a laugh at one point when I
>glanced up at my cluster client screen - have a look:
>
>http://n1eu.com/skimmer_spots.gif
>
> . . . the irony of W3LPL spotting itself as LW3LPL and W4LPL - it
>just doesn't seem right that the system allows this
>
>
>73, Barry N1EU
>
>On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 7:29 AM, Pete Smith <n4zr at contesting.com> wrote:
>> Wow!  What a weekend - records falling in bunches, 5 bands open for
>> contesting at once.  And I'm happy to report that the RBN was mostly
>up
>> to the challenge.
>>
>> First, the big numbers.  The RBN handled 1.578 million spots on
>> Saturday, and 1.691 million on Sunday, or an average for the 48 hours
>of
>> *18.9 spots/second.  This is roughly double last year's record
>average
>> (also in CQWW CW)*, and is a measure both of how much the bands have
>> improved and how many more people are contributing to the RBN.  Thank
>> you all!
>>
>> In case anyone wondered, we did have some trouble with the DX Spider
>> Telnet server (telnet.reversebeacon.net, port 7000) on Sunday
>morning,
>> as the load built to even a higher level than on Saturday.  Felipe
>PY1NB
>> did some quick first-aid and got it running again within about a
>> half-hour.  Meanwhile, the AR Cluster V6 server
>> (arcluster.reversebeacon.net, port 7000) continued to deliver spots
>at
>> full bore, though to a smaller audience than our main and
>> long-established server.
>>
>> There are also some signs that the load that CW Skimmer puts on
>Reverse
>> Beacon participants' computers may be starting to cause problems.  A
>> number of Skimmer ops reported trouble with less than 100% decoding
>of
>> signals, due to excessive CPU loading from too many decoders running
>at
>> once.  At least the failure mode appeared to be graceful - my node,
>for
>> example, stayed up unattended all weekend despite being on an anemic
>> dual-core Pentium machine.
>>
>> One surprise, at least to me, was the strong user demand for the main
>> Reverse Beacon web page, which peaked at 384 simultaneous users, also
>on
>> Sunday.  Log data suggest that most of these users were using the
>site
>> to track spots of specific stations (maybe their own?), which puts an
>> additional load on the database server.  However, the new hardware
>> handled it very well, and that gives us a good level of confidence
>for
>> the rest of the contest season.
>>
>> Future plans?  Well, we intend to do some work on streamlining
>DXSpider
>> so that it will handle the heavy throughput better.  There's no need
>for
>> a lot of the features that put a drag on performance in the RBN
>server
>> role - for example, the server doesn't accept DX spots from users, or
>> Announce messages or WWV messages. Meanwhile, we're on the lookout
>for
>> good new features to add to the mix.  Tell us what *you'd* like!
>>
>> --
>> 73, Pete N4ZR
>> The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at
>> www.conteststations.com
>> The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net,
>> blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com,
>> spots at telnet.reversebeacon.net, port 7000
>> AND now at arcluster.reversebeacon.net port 7000
>>
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>>
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