[Skimmertalk] CW Skimmer Spots in HRD Logbook now possible - SkimCC11

[Paul Hannington]

Hi all

I notice there have been a number of people struggling to get spots
identified by the excellent CW Skimmer software to appear in the spot list
and band map in Logbook. If this is you, read on.

There is a fundamental incompatibility between the two in that Skimmer
produces text "DX de xxx:" spots, and Logbook is expecting to receive spots
in the DXSpider CC11 format as a result of issuing a 'set/ve7cc' command in
it's login script to the DXSpider node - CW Skimmer does not support this
command; the only real command implemented is 'sh/dx' to re-issue spots.

Having consulted with Lee (ve7cc) and Alex (ve3nea), the authors of the two
pieces of software, there is now a solution.

I have produced a piece of software, SkimCC11, (which will be free, before
folks shout 'blatant advert') which allows CW Skimmer to appear to be a DX
Spider node that has received a set/ve7cc command. This means that by
placing SkimCC11 'between' CW Skimmer and Logbook, spots now correctly
appear in both the cluster spots window and are placed onto the bandmap. If
you have a radio and skimmer connected, clicking of course will qsy
everything, as it should.

I have extensively tested, but would welcome some end user beta testing
volunteers, and an idea of the interest level. This has also been posted at
the HRD forums.

If you would like to beta test and/or be notified in a few weeks when the
program will be made generally available, please reply to this message - I
won't use all volunteers for testing but I will compile all responses into
an 'interested' list. If there's not much interest that's OK as I really
wrote it to solve my own problem.

Paul
G6UVS