[Skimmertalk] Skimmer Tests during SS

[Dick Green WC1M]

Jim and I have been discussing his report offline. His results don't
correlate with mine in IARU CW, where I often got more spots for CQing
stations than I could keep up with, and accuracy was outstanding.

While Pete is probably correct about the effect of SO2R time delays on
finding CQing stations, another reason for the low hit rate is that it's
quite common for stations CQing in SS to simply send something like "SS
<call sign> <call sign> SS". The words "CQ" and "TEST" are often omitted. CW
Skimmer doesn't have SS-specific code, does it? If not, I'm sure it will
eventually... :-)

I agree on using Paranoid mode. With the right SCP file, that would have
eliminated the non-USA calls, and I suspect it would have greatly reduced
the number of busted calls that got mangled into valid FCC calls.

73, Dick WC1M

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pete Smith [mailto:n4zr at contesting.com]
> Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 6:44 AM
> To: skimmertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] Skimmer Tests during SS
> 
> I have posted the full report at
> http://www.pvrc.org/~n4zr/K5QQ%20Skimmer%20Test%20-%202008%20SS.pdf
> 
> His statistics are very interesting.  However, I'm a little skeptical
> about
> Jim's conclusion that I quoted below.  In my tests, if anything,
> Skimmer
> does not identify *enough* of the stations that are running.  It
> relies on
> markers in the stations' transmissions, such as QRZ, TEST,or CQ.  If a
> station is running on a frequency, just signing [call] TU or[call] UP,
> then
> Skimmer doesn't know that he is "CQ-ing."
> 
> I suspect that part of the problem Jim encountered is due to SO2R
> stations
> CQing, and then taking a pretty long time to work someone they find on
> the
> second radio.  The issue with busted calls is real, of course, and
> many of
> them are going to be legitimate calls, because even in Aggressive mode
> Skimmer is relying on patterns rather than a positive list.  If you
> want to
> cut way down on the number of busted calls, switch to Paranoid, and
> make
> sure Skimmer is pointed to a current master.dta file.
> 
> 73, Pete
> 
>    At 05:36 PM 11/14/2008, Jim Baremore wrote:
> >I performed this evaluation at 8 different intervals during the
> contest and
> >did evaluations on 20, 40 and 80.  All total 359 spots were tested.
> Of
> >those, only 111 were the station CW Skimmer was indicated on the
> frequency.
> >30 were for a station whose callsign was close but which I judged
> Skimmer
> >had missed a dit or something and mangled it into another call.
> >Interestingly enough, the mangled call was still a valid FCC call.
> Finally,
> >218 spots were for stations no longer on the frequency.  Most likely
> they
> >were stations just worked by the station running the frequency.
>