[Skimmertalk] Skimmer Tests during SS

[Rick Walker]

Jim,

First, the appearance of your write-up was not "choppy" on my viewer so it
was easy and interesting to read.

I'm assuming that you performed your analysis using version 1.2.  I wasn't
aware that version 1.3 had come out until after the SS had concluded.  I ran
six version 1.2 skimmers here at my station during SS and also noted that
the call sign decode wasn't really that accurate.  I keep my six skimmers in
operation 24/7 and, for the most part, they produce pretty accurate and very
timely spots.  I wonder if the SS exchange gave the decoding algorithm some
type of unexpected trouble.

On a side note, W4PA came to my station to operate the IARU contest in July.
Since the contest committee had at that time indicated skimmers were okay
for use by single Ops, he expressed an interest in seeing them in operation.
So, I had them up and running while Scott was operating the contest.  When
the contest concluded, he commented to me that in his opinion my skimmers
were producing correctly decoded call signs at an 80-90 percent success
rate.  Interesting that there could be such a difference in accuracy from
contest-to-contest.

I also agree that the lack of meaningful multiplier information was a bit of
a disappointment.  I feed the output of my six skimmers into a local DX
Spider cluster, which I configured to show the US state of the spotted
station in the "Remarks" field.  The hope was that Win-Test would pick up on
this and flag some of the spots as multipliers.  I obviously realize this
wouldn't have helped to identify all possible mults (such as those in CA,
FL, MA, NJ, PA, TX, and WA), but I was interested in seeing what the results
might be.  Unfortunately, that portion of my experiment was a complete bust.

I am a big supporter of this technology and use it on a daily basis.  I have
invested in a significant amount of computer hardware and network
infrastructure to facilitate the use of this type of technology at my
station.  I am extremely excited about its potential and look forward to
using it for a long time to come.  I say all that as a prelude to my
statement that the competative edge we derived from skimmer in our 2008 SS
CW multi-op effort at K4TD was essentially non-existant.  I suspect, given
Alex's responsiveness, that next year at this time, I won't have to say
that...  ;-)

73,

Rick
K4TD