[CQ-Contest] Contesting Technology - Phone Skimmer Nears Beta Test

[Rudy Bakalov via CQ-Contest]

There are different ways to skimmer the cat and some of them do not require voice recognition technology. It is entirely possible that each transmitter and amplifier produce a unique RF fingerprint that can reliably be used to identify the station. Think of it as the equivalent of the call history feature in loggers.  The first time you hear a station you do the call sign decoding yourself and for the rest of the contest that unique fingerprint of what you just copied could be used to populate the bandmap and the call history. Same concept of course applies to CW and RTTY. As a by product you gain the opportunity to identify fake callers.

This of course is just an example. When you focus on the outcome rather than the means of accomplishing the outcome the number of solutions goes up.

Rudy N2WQ
      From: K4XS via CQ-Contest <cq-contest at contesting.com>
 To: cq-contest at contesting.com 
 Sent: Saturday, April 4, 2015 6:29 AM
 Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Contesting Technology - Phone Skimmer Nears Beta Test
   
On the SSB skimmers.  It will really be interesting if a voice  skimmer can 
decipher what I can't...nasty overmodulated, fuzzy crappy audio that  seems 
to be the new vogue for SSB.  Randy said it right, far too many  stations 
with nasty audio out there.
 
Jim has it right on the money.  Listen to your audio, not with  the monitor 
(although that helps).  Use a second rx.  If you don't  have one, borrow 
one.  Transmit into a dummy load.  Don't have a dummy  load, then go up on 10 
meters transmit with .1 watts late in the evening and  adjust, adjust, 
adjust.  Then listen, listen and listen.  This  is a foolproof way to have good 
audio.
 
I'm not a big fan of having someone listen to the audio since  everyone has 
a different preference for what they consider good audio.  Some like a 
nice smooth FM-radio sound and others like a clean punchy  audio.
 
When you're on the air in non-contest situations you'll know if you  have 
good audio.  You'll get non-solicited comments either pro or  con.
 
As for the settings, I run my K-3 in the general range of what K9YC  does.
 
K4XS/KH7XS
 
 
In a message dated 4/4/2015 4:16:35 A.M. Coordinated Universal Time,  
k5zd at charter.net writes:

PLEASE  -- the next time you are setting up for a SSB contest, either
> listen  to your own audio on another rig or get another ham to listen
>  critically to your audio.
> 
> 73, Jim K9YC
> 
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