[Skimmertalk] FW: Skimmer Tests during SS

[Jim Baremore]

Hi Pete

Thanks for the comments.  I have extracted a portion of your note to make
the e-mail a little shorter.

Yes, I think what I was finding in the large list of spots were the station
that was replying to the station running the frequency.  In other words,
there was a station there, just not the one reported by the spot.  That put
it into the bin of 218/359 stations that were not there when I clicked on
them.  Not that the call was mangled or anything, just the run station was
apparently not being reported.  I likely did not have the CQ'ing only box
checked as I did not know exactly what algorithm Alex is using to forward a
station if that box is checked.  I read your note to suggest more reports
would come out with it unchecked but you were not finding enough of the run
stations with it checked.  I don't have enough information to surmise how
that might have changed my outcome.

As far as busted calls, I did not use the master.dta file in CW Skimmer to
prefilter its' data. Instead, all of the CW Skimmer spots, good, bad, or
mangled, were sent to a separate Linux processor.  It examined each call
against the FCC Data base.  Only a currently valid FCC call (thus USA only)
was then sent to the logging program as a spot via a Telnet server on the
Linux box.   Interestingly enough, if CW Skimmer mangled a call into a
legitimate US call that was also a licensed call, it would still pass the
FCC filter and be passed on to the logging program.  The bottom line is that
only valid, current and legitimate US calls were forwarded.  Canadian or DX
calls were excluded and sometimes mangled US calls can look like DX calls
but again they would have been dropped by the Linux processor.

Thanks for your comments and thanks for hosting a spot to make it easy for
others to find it.

73

Jim K5QQ


-----Original Message-----
From: skimmertalk-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:skimmertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Pete Smith


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."

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