[Skimmertalk] Skimmer availability for ARRL DX Test [correction]

[Jeff Maass]

Rick:

I ran an on-site Skimmer at PJ2T for the CQWW 
160 CW Contest, and during transmit periods 
the number of decoders climbed immediately 
from the splatter/overload. When back in receive,
things settled down just as quickly. We were
able to select any of our receive antennas for
the Skimmer, and most of the time it was on the 
Europe or USA/JA Beverages. All RX antennas 
are within several hundred feet of the 
transmit antenna, and we were running 1500W.
Transmitter was my K3.

With the Callsign Validation set to "Aggressive", 
I never saw a bad spot get through to Writelog. 
It *did* spot our own call very high in the band, 
sometimes at multiple frequencies. 

I recorded most of the contest, and reviewed a 
little of it yesterday: amazing to see all the
spots pop up once again! Some screen dumps of 
the playback are shown below. We were CQing 
around 1826 at the time, according to our log.

Between Splatter/overload, around 1/24/09 0520Z:
http://www.k8nd.com/PJ2T_Skimmer_090124_0520.jpg

Showing Splatter/overload, around 1/24/09 0520Z:
http://www.k8nd.com/PJ2T_Skimmer_090124_0520_splatter.jpg

(You may need to download these screen dumps so
they can be examined using some photo application.
My browser, at least, lacks the resolution to display
the characters clearly. You can see the splatter/
overload, though.)

We found Skimmer invaluable during the contest, 
especially on the first night, when our DSL 
modem crashed within minutes of the first 
transmission. We were able to work several 
pop-up multipliers that would have been 
otherwise missed. The second night, with our 
DSL problem fixed with some new filtering, 
Skimmer still provided excellent spots that
resulted in multipliers and QSOs.

PJ2T (W8WTS and K8ND operating) is currently in
2nd Worldwide among the multi-op entries with a
score of 2.16M points, based on 3830 claimed
scores, behind CT9M (2.52M) and just (barely)
ahead of CN3A (2.14M). Not bad from 12 degrees
North of the Equator, where noise rules the
night! 

73,  Jeff  K8ND


> -----Original Message-----
> From: skimmertalk-bounces at contesting.com 
> [mailto:skimmertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Rick Walker
> Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 12:52 AM
> To: skimmertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: [Skimmertalk] Skimmer availability for ARRL DX Test 
> [correction]
> 
> Pete,
> 
> Just checked your skimmer (@0530Z) located at 
> 24.126.40.25:7300.  It provided spots on 80M and seemed to 
> respond well to the couple of commands I sent it.
> 
> BTW, I will also try to have my skimmers available via the 
> skimmer.dxwatch.com web site for the ARRL DX Test as well.  
> Unfortunately, I have recently developed some sort of 
> inteference between them and the main station when running 
> high power.  If my skimmers start producing garbage spots due 
> to this inteference, I will obviously have to pull them off-line.
> I am going to be operating this contest from my home QTH 
> along with KY4F.
> We are still undecided as to whether or not to operate as 
> multi-single or multi-two.  If multi-single, I should be able 
> to keep a rather close eye on them, but if we go multi-two, 
> it may be that I don't watch them as closely.
> So, if my skimmers start producing garbage, I would 
> appreciate any form of heads-up that someone would care to 
> provide...  :-)  Best of luck in the ARRL DX!
> 
> 73,
> 
> Rick
> K4TD
> 
> 
> 
> 
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