[CQ-Contest] Reverse Beacon Network Question

[Pete Smith]

Thanks to an off-reflector message from KU5B (which I have somehow 
misplaced), I can confirm what I thought had happened.  He did not use 
the key words "TEST" or "CQ" in his CQ message, so CW Skimmer did not 
recognize him to be calling CQ.

There are some other key words that would have worked the same way, but 
Alex has asked me not to talk about CW Skimmer details.  However, I 
don't believe "NA" is on the list, and it should be.

As it is currently configured, the RBN Aggregator software, which each 
RBN station runs to send information to the server, does not forward 
non-CQ spots to the "mother ship".  This is because to do so would badly 
overload the server. That precludes our doing any post-processing, to 
identify runners that Skimmer has missed.

In coming months, we may be able to change this, but for ARRL DX, I 
suggest putting TEST in your CQ messages periodically to make sure 
you're recognized.

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



On 2/13/2011 7:55 PM, Dave/Sally Cockrum wrote:
> With the news that the Russian DX Contest will want additional
> information from QRP and LP entrants so that a comparison between
> signals can be made using the Reverse Beacon Network, I decided to
> compare the results for the recent  Sprint CW contest.  I compared the
> top five LP stations in the 3830 results (in order: KU5B, K7BG, N9CK,
> N5DO, and N7CW) for February 6 using the Signal Comparison Tool .  I
> selected the Reverse Beacon from K3LR because it had the most spots on
> that day -- 11,011.  Nothing dramatic jumped out at me from looking at
> the graphs comparing the signals, except for one thing:  The number of
> times each station was spotted by the Reverse Beacon.  Those were
> surprising:  KU5B was spotted 0 times, K7BG 58 times, N9CK 0 times, N5DO
> 72 times, and N7CW 63 times.
>
> The leading station and number 3 were never spotted at all!
>
> I thought maybe it was a propagation issue, so I picked a leading
> Reverse Beacon from the west coast, WA7LNW, with 6,038 total spots on
> that day.  The same pattern occurred:  KU5B 0 spots, K7BG 46 spots, N9CK
> 0 spots, N5DO 37 spots, and N7CW 12 spots.
>
>
> Is this some artifact of the Sprint contest?  Is there something in the
> way KU5B and N9CK called CQ that led to them not being spotted?  And is
> there a secret to being spotted more often?  How will results like this
> effect the ability of the RBN to be an investigative tool?
>
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