[VHFcontesting] Spotting and the DX Cluster in VHF Contesting

[Phil Theis]

It's time for me to stop the digest and get these emails directly. So 
glad to hear the comments coming.  There is a solution out there and I 
think it will be a combination of several things.
ON4KST is a great choice for when you have the time to chat.  One of the 
brilliant things about that page is that it does include a filtered 
display of spots.   Most of what I've seen is EU spots, but we can 
change that by generating our own NA spots as well.
At times it may be necessary to consult the chat page to gain that new 
grid / multiplier, but when the going is fast the place to stay is 
usually the logger when you are busy and the major loggers are all set 
up to present filtered spotting activity to your attention.   It's a 
proven tool in very busy (HF) contests.   Why not use what we already 
have in our hands.
My belief at this time is that the existing amateur radio cluster (which 
seems to be used heavily by the EU crowd) should be at the core of our 
common attention gathering efforts.
One of the thoughts that came out of our initial workshop was to employ 
a gateway to feed the cluster.
For instance we can take APRS data gleaned from Rovers who are ready and 
in position to operate and post it to the cluster.   This covers Rovers 
who may not be in cell phone range at their location.  If they do have 
coverage it will be possible for this gateway to put an APRS message out 
on the cluster or to take a twitter feed and put it out on the cluster.
As has already been mentioned there is a talk mechanism that allows 
private messages to be passed between cluster users; we need to pursue 
that further.   These messages show up in a logger window in Highlighted 
fashion.   Several of us did some experimenting with this function in 
the 222 sprint.   There is much to discover, and perhaps much to develop 
further here.
My next task is to evaluate further the internal schema of the cluster 
traffic to see just what latitude we have going forward.
I know that there are at least two cluster programs being used; 
AR-Cluster and DX Spider.   There seems to be a difference in capability 
here which we need to explore.  Is there anyone out there in the VHF 
community with intimate knowledge of these features?
There are also opportunities to build more functionality into the 
loggers that we use.
I'll stop rambling now.   Perhaps we can start a few separate threads 
here to keep focused on how we can really make the new rules work to our 
mutual advantage.
73,
Phil K3TUF