[CQ-Contest] Can Reverse Beacon Network skimmers get overloaded?

[Hank Greeb]

Hi Pete:

Thanks for the very thoughtful and thorough response.  At least you 
didn't say "Life is too short for QRP - get a REAL rig" etc, which is 
what several folks say when I mention QRP.

The F1 Key on my N1MM logger was set  to send
CQ CQ TEST {MYCALL} {MYCALL}

I'd generally set the speed at 24 WPM, and the skimmers who heard me 
would say I was sending at 22 to 23 WPM.  (They always seem to report 
slightly lower speed than the speed for which N1MM is set). Sometimes, 
out of sheer exasperation, I'd hit F1 twice and it would repeat the 
routine back to back.  And, sometimes I'd speed up to 26 WPM or higher, 
though 24 wpm seems more comfortable to me.

I got the above from the N1MM hamdocs page, and also from K0RC, who is 
one of my "Elmers" who tolerate stupid questions from a "wannabe 
'mediocre' contest op" who is stupid (stubborn) enough to run <5 watts.

I suspect your analysis that folks in my skip zone might have been on, 
or very near, my frequency, but I never heard anyone coming back to 
them.  I tried calling >14060 KHz where the cacophony of CQ's seemed a 
mild roar, as well as a "clear spot" down around 14025 (and on other 
bands in the similar areas within and above the din of running 
stations.)  And, I had a "usually fairly quiet" site in a rural area 
with a good takeoff angle in three directions.  It's efficacy was been 
proven in the recent Michigan QSO Party where runs of as many as 5 or 
more were not uncommon after a few CQ's.   And, as I said, my S&P rate 
was similar to past years.   This is the first year that I've tried 
"running" fairly often because I had a nice setup for the "tri-band 
wires" subcategory.  In the past I had only a fairly low wire antenna.

Note that WQ8RP provided a unique multiplier in the past 5 or so CQ WPX 
contests, which is one reason I use it.  Several ops tell me that a 
unique call can add as much a 10 dB to the effectiveness of the 
radiation :)  If I had been using my "blah n8xx" call with a very common 
prefix, that might have contributed to the lack of responses.

72/73 de n8xx Hg
QRP >99.44% of the time
Operated WQ8RP during CQ WPX 2013

On 5/28/2013 8:16 AM, Pete Smith N4ZR <n4zr at contesting.com> wrote:
>    11. Re: Can Reverse Beacon Network skimmers get overloaded?
>        (Pete Smith N4ZR)
>
>
> Message: 11
> Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 07:43:12 -0400
> From: Pete Smith N4ZR<n4zr at contesting.com>
> To:cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Can Reverse Beacon Network skimmers get
> 	overloaded?
>
>
> Hi Hank - to the best of my knowledge there is no such "desensing" phenomenon with CW Skimmer or Skimmer Server. During the contest, there were both a large number of six-band-at-once Skimmers (using QS1Rs, mostly) and a large number of one-band-at-a-time Skimmers using everything from Softrocks to QS1Rs to Perseus receivers.  The single-banders consume relatively little computer power, as you can imagine, while the multi-banders use much more.  In theory, if a Skimmer has too many decoders working at once, so that its CPU utilization hits 100 percent, it will not decode them all until the rush subsides.  It is also possible that something as yet undiscvered may have caused not all spots to be passed on to the RBN's Telnet servers, but we have had no indication of this, and the sheer volume of spots that*were*  forwarded suggests this is unlikely.
>
> There are a couple of other possible explanations for why you were not successful in triggering more spots.  You*must*  use either "CQ" or "TEST" in your CQs, with no more than one other word between the keyword and your call, or else Skimmer doesn't know if you are CQing.  QRM could have reduced the number of spots, simply because stations that you couldn't hear at your QTH were QRMing you in places like Europe, where there is the greatest concentration of RBN Skimmers.  Or possibly, the times when you were trying to run were ones where you did not have propagation to large numbers of Skimmers.
>
> I'm sorry, I know probably none of these answers is satisfactory. I'd love to hear other possible explanations, if anyone has them.
>
> 73, Pete N4ZR
> Check out the Reverse Beacon Network at
> http://reversebeacon.net,
> blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com.
> For spots, please go to your favorite
> ARC V6 or VE7CC DX cluster node.
>
> On 5/27/2013 11:21 PM, Hank Greeb wrote:
>> I had a terrible time trying to make a "run" when I tried now and then during the recent CQ WPX contest.  I'd call CQ for as long as 10 minutes, and only once did I get more than one or two contacts in a row from trying to "run."  I figured that propagation was weird, but couldn't figure out what the deal was.