[Skimmertalk] How did your Skimmer Server computer do in CQWW

[Dave Pascoe]

Wes-

Thanks for starting this thread.  My Skimmer Server has only been in
production mode for a short while - previously it was on and off over
the last year during experiments.  I believe it may be the only
QS1R-based server in New England at this time.

I was at the KC1XX Multi-Multi operation and not closely monitoring my
Skimmer until I saw a couple of emails over the weekend hinting at other
Skimmer Server operators having load issues.  I then remotely logged in
to my machine to poke around.  I did need to limit the number of bands
covered at various times of the day but probably ran the bulk of the
first 20 hours or so at reduced capacity.  I felt that it was better to
get 100% decoding than to run more bands at reduced capacity - wonder
what others feel about that.

Machine/CPU: Dual-core Pentium 4 - 3.4 GHz/1GB RAM
Receiver: QS1R
OS: Windows XP SP 3 32-bit

Notes:
- On this hardware CPU would become overloaded approaching 2,000
decoders (usually around 1,800 or so)
- Generally I was forced to run no more than 3 bands at a time
      - I could not cover 14,21, and all of 28 MHz (had to limit to
28.000-28.091)
     - At night I generally covered 160-40m (which seemed to do OK)

I should have kept closer watch on the number of decoders running at
various times but that would have taken a lot of effort.  I was busy
contesting.  :-)  It would be nice to have an option in Skimmer to log
the number of decoders on each band every X minutes to a log file or to
a remote syslog server. 

I am pretty convinced that it may be time to get an i7/2600 or something
more powerful, but it only seems to be needed in periods of very high
activity (contests).  The other option is to run a pair of QS1Rs and two
separate machines (but more $$$).

Based on Wes' data, I think there may be a somewhat nonlinear relation
with number of cores and number of decoders that can safely run.  That
is, increasing cores may not linearly increase the number of possible
decoders.  But we need more detailed data (and data from other stations)
to understand this better.

73,
Dave KM3T
Amherst, NH

On 11/28/11 9:14 AM, Wes Cosand wrote:
> --How did your machine perform?
> --How many decoders were you seeing?
> --Are you using 32 or 64 bit OS?
> --What is your CPU
>
> My Core 2 Quad Q8300 could not handle more than 2800 decoders and I
> was seeing many more than that on 5 bands.  I am running XP Pro (32
> bit)
>
> Wes, WZ7I