Topband: RBN and cluster spots

[Mike Smith VE9AA]

Steve, 

 

I wish I knew the answer to your question.  When I go assisted in contests,
(which is probably only 20-30% of the time)

I connect to VE7CC which carries RBN spots.  ( I prefer to tune for my DX,
but that's another story)...I will go assisted if the sponsor does not
differentiate between assisted and non-assisted..why would I want to tie
1-arm behind my back if there is no separate category?HI

 

I don't know which clusters carry them in EU (or if EU's connect to VE7CC as
well) but I *can* tell you that after only a couple CQ's in any big CW
contest, I have the same hoard of EU big guns (mostly M/M's) call me, so
that tells me it's (probably) an RBN spot.

 

Then later, at other times things will be very dry for a long time and then
I'll get a little mini "packet pileup" of normally weaker stns  when
apparently some kind soul has spotted me on a traditional
Telnet/Packetcluster there in EU..often it's a flurry of mostly DL's, or
mostly PA's, or mostly EA's (you get the idea)

 

Because I normally run UNassisted, after every contest I'll do a search on
dxscape or oh8x cluster to see who the kind souls were that spotted me and
whether it coincided with the mini packet pileups and it almost always is.
Most times it's callsigns I don't readily recognize and they are not the big
guns (who use the RBN_).  I am always grateful we have both, but scratch my
head why someone would only want 4cylinders naturally aspirated, when they
can have 8 or 12 turbocharged!

 

Seems sooooo easy to me. Connect to a cluster which carries RBN spots.
Easy-Peasy.

 

For reasons that I am not privy to, I still don't think many in EU do.

 

Weird !

 

Mike VE9AA..'course the RBN didn't help me at all this weekend on SSB, hi !

 

VE6WZ sez:

".It seems that quite a few ops out there either don't know about, have
forgotten 

about, or somehow "don't believe" in the RBN network??  ."

 

Mike, Coreen & Corey

Keswick Ridge, NB