[Skimmertalk] URGENT for RBN Nodes - Making Sure You Spot WRTC Competitors

[Bob Wilson, N6TV]

Unfortunately there have been multiple versions of Patt3Ch.lst uploaded to
the server in the last two days, and all have the potential to *create
busted spots* for some (but not all) of the WRTC competitors, potentially
creating unwanted dupes from hungry prefix hunters,  possibly affecting the
outcome if things are close.  No WRTC callsigns use the prefixes Y80, Y85,
or Y88.

I therefore recommend manually editing Patt3Ch.lst as follows:

REMOVE (if found):

+ Y##@
+ Y8#@

ADD:

+ Y81@
+ Y82@
+ Y83@
+ Y84@
+ Y86@
+ Y87@
+ Y89@

(The plus signs are significant and must be present, followed by a space,
as shown).

You will get a red message from Aggregator warning that Patt3Ch.lst does
not match what's on the server.  At 1200z Sunday, after the competition
ends, you can download the server version.

73,
Bob, N6TV

On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 5:03 AM, N4ZR <n4zr at comcast.net> wrote:

> The WRTC organizers have just announced that the WRTC competitors will
> all use callsigns in the format Y8#@, where "#" is a single digit and "@"
> is a single letter.  The calls actually to be issued were then culled to
> ensure more-or-less equal difficulty for CW and phone - for example, there
> are no Y85 calls included, and E, I, and S suffixes were not included.
>
> Assuming that you want your RBN Skimmer node to copy the WRTC competitors
> fairly, you'll need to change your patt3ch.lst file.  We've automated this
> to make it trivial to do.
>
> 1.  Go to the "patt3ch.lst" tab of the Aggregator.  You should have
> already entered the current location of this file in the box on this page.
> For those who haven't, browse to it at, nominally, "C:\Users\[your
> username}\appdata\roaming\Afreet\reference" and make sure the box is
> properly filled.
>
> 2.  Once the Aggregator knows where to find the pattern file, you'll see on
> both the "patt3ch.lst" tab  and the "Status" tab of the Aggregator a red message
> that your patt3ch.lst file needs to be updated.  Go back to the
> "patt3ch.lst" tab and click the Download button.  Within a few seconds,
> you'll see a green message indicating that your pattern file is now up to
> date.
>
> 3.  One final, essential step - stop Skimmer or Skimmer Server and
> restart it, to load the new pattern file.
>
> A footnote for anyone running Skimmers on more than one computer: the
> procedure above assumes that Aggregator and Skimmer or Skimmer Server are
> on the same computer.  If you have additional Skimmers running as Secondary
> Skimmers, you will need to copy the new patt3ch.lst file from the computer
> that has the Aggregator on it, and manually put it in the appropriate
> folder on the other(s). Don't forget to restart *each* instance of Skimmer
> or Skimmer Server so that it will load the new pattern file.
>
> One last thing - the new patt3ch.lst file can also be found on the RBN web
> site under the Downloads menu.
>
>
> Any questions?  Write to me ASAP and I'll try to help.
>
>
> --
>
> 73, Pete N4ZR
> Check out the Reverse Beacon Network
> at <http://reversebeacon.net> <http://reversebeacon.net>, now
> spotting RTTY activity worldwide.
> For spots, please use your favorite
> "retail" DX cluster.
>
>