[Skimmertalk] Skimmer in CQWW and CPU Utilization Problem

[Pete Smith]

At 09:20 AM 12/2/2008, W3OA wrote:
>Skimmer was on a dedicated computer, a 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4 with 2 gigs of
>RAM.  I noticed a couple of times (like the bottom 96 kHz of 40 during
>the first hour and 20 on Saturday morning) the CPU utilization was
>bouncing up to 100 percent and "Decoders" showed something like 600 of
>1000 or 500 of 1300.  During these times the number of spots put out
>seemed to drop dramatically.  I wonder if this is normal operation?  I'm
>thinking a way to get around this is to use 48 kHz sampling rate and
>switch between band segments every so often, maybe ever 5 minutes.  I'd
>appreciate hearing comments from others on this.


Hi Dick - thanks for the report.  Very useful.

There are a few things you can do.  One is to set up your Skimmer band plan 
a little more restrictively and tell Skimmer not to decode outside the CW 
segment.  For example, I tell it to cut off at 7040 on 40M, because I know 
from experience that it tries to decode the sidebands of SW broadcast 
stations, spawning hundreds of additional decoders.  You can also use a 
lower sampling rate, as you suggest, or you can also uncheck "Adaptive" and 
tell Skimmer not to exceed a fixed number of decoders, though that 
shouldn't really be necessary with a CPU like yours.

How did you feel the Skimmer spots compared in accuracy and utility with 
cluster spots?

73, Pete