[Dxspider-support] PC Packet Cluster Protocol

[Mike Lewis]

I am looking for more information on the PC Packet Cluster Protocol. The
command descriptions given on the DX Cluster website are great, for as far
as they go, but I want to understand not only the message content but the
actual protocol used when nodes inter-communicate, i.e. which responses are
expected when certain messages are received by a node, etc...

My motivation is to allow me to finish writing a software package that auto
populates my WWV database of my cluster node using WWV email messages that I
receive from an official WWV update source on the web (www.hfradio.org).
This allows me to get current, accurate WWV info onto my cluster without
being connected to any other nodes. Staying unconnected is preferable to
ensure that I have only local spots on my cluster (I mean really local, i.e.
stations within my 2m transmit/receive range), and to avoid all the
complexity of filtering spots and working out the details of a cluster
connect to another system given my strange, dynamic IP setup of my DSL
connection to the web.

Currently my application I wrote is able to capture and decode the WWV email
updates as they come in, automatically login and connect to the cluster
using a callsign/SSID combo I have told the cluster is a spider node. It
then sends in a WWV spot message from my local 'fictitious' node (KE0MF-2)
to my Spider Cluster Node (KE0MF-15), using the format shown:

PC23^date^hour^SFI^A^K^forecast^KE0MF-2^KE0MF-2^H99^~

with date, hour, SFI, A, and K replaced by the corresponding values and
forecast holding a fixed string right now (for test purposes). I am not sure
what the hop parameter is used for, so it is set to 'H99'...I don't seem to
be able to reliably get the spot to be accepted (it has worked a few times,
but mostly does not work, with no apparent error messages generated...) I am
assuming that I am missing some nuance of the handshaking protocol. I would
also like to know how to potentially use the WWV merge capability to enter
archival WWV data in the cluster, if possible.

Alternatively, if there is some easier way of getting this data into the
system automatically within the constraints outlined above, I would love to
know what that is.

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