[Dxspider-support] Added LoTW user mark causing duplicate spots

Dirk Koopman djk at tobit.co.uk
Sun Jan 22 22:06:03 GMT 2006


On Sun, 2006-01-22 at 22:47 +0100, Robert Chalmas wrote:
> Dirk Koopman wrote:
> 
> >>I wonder if somebody knows which system generates this kind of spots,
> >>with the "+K" which (I guess) means a LoTW user:
> >>
> >>DX de IZ8FQV:    14192.0  WX3B                                        1856Z
> >>DX de IZ8FQV:    14192.0  WX3B         +K                             1856Z
> 
> [...]
> 
> > The system that is adding the + is AR Cluster. 
> 
> Well, not sure in this case...
> Here is a spot just received on an AR-Cluster node:
> 
> DX de NE1B:     144205.1  N1SV         FN42                        +K 2134Z NH
> 
> The + is at the end of the comment field, just before the prefix this
> software adds to all spots. At this place it should not be harmful as
> most software already use to ignore the end of the comment field for deduping.

Yes. And that is all true. You will note that I was very careful to say
that, although AR-C is putting the + onto the prefix it sticks on the
end of the comment section, it is *not* AR-C's fault that this problem
is occurring.

> 
> > However that is not the specific problem. Unfortunately there are many
> > people running "spot suckers" that are re-injecting the sucked spots
> > from the "user" format output of a node, without sufficient (sometimes:
> > no) checking. It could also be a artifact of continued clx use (probably
> > using a "passive" connection. 
> 
> Yes, I guess the "spot sucker" should be the explanation.
> I see no current cluster server software that uses the format I reported.

The problem is caused by the software that processes *user* format data
and either converts it into PC protocol or automatically does 

 dx by NE1B 144205.1 N1SV FN42                     +K

into another node. Either way there are all sorts of pitfalls. Change
the above slightly:
 
 dx by NE1B 144205.1 N1SV                          +K

Inject that into a DXSpider node (and maybe others)(purely for
illustration) you will get:-

 PC11^144205.1^N1SV^22-Jan-2006^2134Z^+K^NE1B^K1AJ^H20^~

instead of:

  PC11^144205.1^N1SV^22-Jan-2006^2134Z^FN42                     +K^NE1B^K1AJ^H20^~

because I, very carefully, chop off all leading and trailing spaces for
comments in the 'dx' command. 

I hope that goes some way to explaining what is going on. 

Dirk




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