[Skimmertalk] Fwd: [RBN-OPS] RTTY Skimmer - non CQ spots

[Pete Smith N4ZR]

Sorry to cross post but thought this message would be of current, strong 
interestto skimmertalk and rtty contesting

73, Pete N4ZR


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	[RBN-OPS] RTTY Skimmer - non CQ spots
Date: 	29 Sep 2015 19:23:00 -0700
From: 	wb0o at yahoo.com [RBN-OPS] <RBN-OPS at yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: 	RBN-OPS at yahoogroups.com
To: 	RBN-OPS at yahoogroups.com





Some frustrations on the RTTY reflectors and my local club Arizona 
Outlaws Contest reflector about lots of non-CQ spots in the RTTY CQWW 
last weekend. I posted a response on the AZ reflector hopefully to help 
some big scorers (AA7A, N7AT, KY7M ) understand the issues and address 
some specific concerns they had:


The RTTY skimmer decoding process is an algorithm built into the product. The
program is downloaded and turned on. Some parameters are operator defined, such
as how many khz to skim on any given band, but the algorithm is not operator
defined.

On the various Skimmer reflectors, the problem has been figured out. The
software solution is elusive. There are practical solutions though.

The RTTY Skimmer will spot a call after a CQ or a QRZ? The problem is many
RTTY ops end their CQ call with a CQ:

CQ WW CQ WW AA7A AA7A CQ

If the CQing op puts a space and carriage return after the CQ then all is
good with the Skimmer, and AA7A gets spotted, the caller N7AT doesn't:

CQ WW CQ WW AA7A AA7A CQ

N7AT N7AT N7AT

If the CQing op does not put a space and carriage return after the CQ, or
the caller doesn't put a carriage return in front of his call then the
Skimmer can't tell who is calling CQ:

CQ WW CQ WW AA7A AA7A CQ N7AT N7AT N7AT

So the cause seems obvious.

The solutions are that either the CQing station or the calling station or
both need to use the carriage return.

The solutions proposed are challenging because adding a space and a carriage
return take X milliseconds to the transmission and that is important to some
contesters. Some CW ops used to ID every 10 minutes but that behaviour has
recently been discouraged at a contest organizer level.

But it will be very challenging to write a RTTY decoding algorithm that will
be able to figure out CQ WW CQ WW AA7A AA7A CQ N7AT N7AT N7AT.

Another proposed solution is that N1MM+ and other programs will eventually
incorporate space and carriage return prompts into the RTTY preset buttons.
The same as the program booting up into SO assisted for CW contests.

So there are still bugs in a 9 month old program v1.0, but it still makes
the contest more fun for many ops, who may not have gotten on otherwise.

73, Bill KO7SS





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