[Dxspider-support] Recent posts

[Lee Sawkins]

In North America my best guess is that less than 1% of users are using
radio connections.  

The AK1A format is the only format that all clusters and clients
understand.  That is why it is still used for data exchange.  The are
some problems with a few of the AK1A PCxx messages that are used.  Some
don't have hops and some don't have originating nodes.  There are some
other problems as well.  These all could be fixed, if everyone could
agree on what to do.  That alone would be a big improvement for
security.  I also would like to see spotters IP addresses sent with
their spots.  That way it would be easy to detect abuse of the type we
have seen in the past few days.  Many different bogus originating calls,
but all from a couple of IP addresses.  Automatic detection of the same
IPs for different users could be used to drop their spots.  Limiting dx
spots to a couple per minute per IP would also help.

Many users have a client program between them and the clusters.  This
client can have all the bells and whistles the author wants.  There are
a couple of cluster to client protocols in use.  For Spider and CC
Clusters there are CC11 and for AR Cluster there is the similar AR17
protocol.  This makes it much easier for client programs to be
developed.

The beauty of the AK1A protocol or other text based client protocols is
that they have very little overhead compared to html etc.  If all
clusters started serving up web pages in the DX Summit format, then the
amount of data their Internet connection handles would increase many
times.

Lee

Iain Philipps wrote:
> 
> [G0RDI decloaks for his once-a-year posting]
> 
> Ian,
> 
> The answer is "What's your delivery infrastructure" ?
> 
> If you believe that the vast majority are internet users (and they
> probably are, IMHO) then put all the bells and whistles in you like.
> 
> On the other hand, what do you do for the "real" users - those still
> using 1200bps radio circuits to connect? OK - I guess you can build in
> a switch "low speed on interface 'x'"
> 
> Just a point to ponder :-)
> 
> 
> 73 de G0RDI
> 
> 
>      ----- Original Message -----
>      From: Ian Maude
>      To: The DXSpider Support list
>      Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 12:48 PM
>      Subject: [Dxspider-support] Recent posts
> 
>      Hi all,
>      I have been watching recent posts with interest.  I feel we
>      are still being limited by having to keep supporting AK1A.
>       I wonder if it about time that Dirk and Lee (and others)
>      started to think more about moving the cluster network
>      forward and less about always having to provide backward
>      compatibility?  It really is about time the AK1A nodes were
>      retired IMHO, after all, the price of the new software is
>      right :)  Todays cluster network needs to be more dynamic
>      and control is becoming more and more important.  The
>      majority of users are using modern logging clients that
>      would benefit from having an XML interface for example.
> 
>      I may be talking complete rubbish here and it would not be
>      the first time ;)  I really do think  we need to look at the
>      future though.  How would cluster software look if AK1A was
>      not a factor?
> 
>      73 Ian
> 
>      --
>      Ian J Maude, G0VGS
>      SysOp GB7MBC & HB9DRV-9 DX Clusters
>      Member RSGB, GQRP 9838, FISTS 14077 | K3 #455
>      http://www.amateurradiotraining.org