[CQ-Contest] An Easter Egg from the RBN - Not April Fool's, I Promise

[Pete Smith N4ZR]

I just found out about an undocumented feature of the RBN's Spot 
Analysis Tool.  Maybe you already know, but you don't have to wait until 
the next day to see comparisons among stations at any given RBN node, 
and indeed you can step through a number of them and see, in near real 
time, how various stations are doing into a target area, such as Europe 
or the US.  Here's how:

Select today's date.
Select a node in your target area - preferably one that hears well and 
makes a lot of spots.
Enter the calls you want to compare - yours, your competition, up to 10 
of them.
Now here's the trick.  As you add each station whose spots you want to 
compare, they are added to the graphs *as of that moment.* To update the 
display, simply select another node and then switch back to the original 
one.  After you get back, click on the "Refresh Data" icon (it will be 
un-greyed-out now).  Shazam - the graphs will be up to date.

Oh, by the way, you can select frequency rather than SNR as the vertical 
axis of your graphs, using the radio buttons at the very top of the 
Spots Analysis Tool - a good way to see where the competition is 
running. Other useful applications are left, as they used to say, "to 
the student."

Thanks to WX3B and PY1NB for cluing me in.

-- 

73, Pete N4ZR
Download the new N1MM Logger+ at
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