[Skimmertalk] Skimmer Signal Detection Levels

[Rick Walker]

All,

I have been conducting some very informal experiments here at my station
with my 6 skimmers.  I have 6 SDR-IQ receivers all fed by a single receive
antenna.  What I have observed is that there are cases where the skimmer
software doesn't decode a weak signal even though it is clearly visible in
the skimmer waterfall display and audible in the audio output of the skimmer
application.  I did validate that the skimmer application does assign a
decoder to this class of signal, however, the decoder doesn't produce
anything on these weak signal levels.  It appears to me that when the
skimmer application shows a signal to have a SNR of 5 (or 6) dB or less, the
decoders don't produce anything even though there are clear visible and
audible indications that the signal is present.

Is anyone else noticing this?  Most importantly, am I doing something wrong
here?

73,

Rick
K4TD