[Dxspider-support] Skimmers

[Danny Pease]

Actually, I like seeing the quality and quantity of spots from what W3LPL
has been doing, but obviously others do not. If you do not want to see it,
you can always filter it out. 

 

NG9R

 

 

From: dxspider-support-bounces at dxcluster.org
[mailto:dxspider-support-bounces at dxcluster.org] On Behalf Of Dave Hawes
Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:17 PM
To: The DXSpider Support list
Subject: Re: [Dxspider-support] Skimmers

 

Wayne asked:

 

> With the RBN do we really need this on the regular cluster network?

 

I have been watching with interest the W3LPL spots.  It became apparent
quickly what Frank was up to, even before reading this email from him, since
his posts were 24-7, including non-contest periods.  If his claim on "100%
valid" is true, and if he turns down the volume as he intends, what's the
harm?

 

The RBN has to date been largely un-validated in my experience.  During a
contest weekend, the percentage of broken/busted spots was problematic,
enough so that the RBN team has developed some spot validation routines of
their own.  I tested the most recent incarnation of the RBN this weekend in
the Russian DX Contest, and in the 12 hours that I was active and chasing
spots from the RBN, I found not a single broken call.

 

Most users have access to the conventional cluster and the RBN, but most
loggers (contest and everyday) can't aggregate the two sources in a single
application.  (I say "most," but my experience is primarily with N1MM.
WinTest can do it, but it's a tedious setup.)  As Brendan noted, K1TTT's
WinTelnetX does a fine job of this, but it is not very user friendly, and
folks are put off by it.  I wrote a short "How To" for my local club
describing the set up for RBN + Cluster, hoping to help things along.

 

I personally have no objection to W3LPL's high quality, relatively low
volume automatic injection of CW spots into the network.

 

Just my opinion.

 

73 - Dave N3RD

 

 

 

On 20 Mar 2011 at 14:03, Wayne wrote:

 

>   This from W3LPL to one of the locals...

> 

> **********************

> 

> Thanks for your email.

> 

> W3LPL-2 is an experimental DX spot validator tool.  It takes DX spots 

> from CW skimmers on the east coast and performs a rigorous validation of 

> every spot.  If the tool determines that the spot is 100% valid, it is 

> then posted on the DX clusters.  So far the experiment has been a big 

> success, as far as I'm aware no one has detected an spots that are 

> incorrect.

> 

> There have been a few complaints about excessive spotting volume from 

> the W3LPL-2 experiment.  The next version will reduce the re-posting 

> interval to 30 minutes for all but the most rare DX callsigns.  It will 

> also significanlty reduce the volume of DX spots on 40, 20 and 15 meters 

> for all but the most needed DXCC entities

> 

> The vast majority of comments about the W3LPL-2 experiment have been 

> very positive, and the few concerns received have mostly focused on 

> reducing the volume of spots.

> 

> 73

> Frank

> W3LPL

> 

> ****************

> 

> 

> With the RBN do we really need this on the regular cluster network?

> 

> 73

> 

> Wayne  WA1PMA

> 

> 

> 

> On 3/20/2011 5:39 AM, Brendan Minish wrote:

> > On Sun, 2011-03-20 at 10:41 +0000, gu6efb wrote:

> >> Hi Group

> >>

> >> What are sysops views on the rise of all theses skinners such as W3LPL

> >> and UT7MA just to name a few.

> >

> > It's My view that the Skimmers are extremely useful BUT have no place

> > feeding spots to the conventional network, under ANY circumstances,

> > ever.

> >

> > There is a large network of skimmers. it's called the reverse beacon

> > network (RBN), My skimmer reports to it along with about 50 others.

> > http://www.reversebeacon.net/

> >

> > The system does have telnet ports, one of which runs dxpsider however

> > the level of traffic would I suspect, bring the conventional cluster

> > knees.

> > During CW contests the system handles a truly vast amount of spots.

> > Yesterday for example during the RDX contest the RBN spider node reports

> > that there were 452,529 spots in 1 24 Hour period, My conventional

> > cluster node handled 17,246 spots

> >

> > Both W3LPL and UT7MA are active in the Russian DX contest as

> > multi-operator stations and seem to be spotting all QSO's from their

> > Search&  Pounce (multiplier)  station(s), This IS useful to other

> > contesters and a feature that many contest logging programs support. I

> > have used this on occasion myself but with my S&p run rates it's

> > unlikley to upset anyone ;-)

> >

> > I am not seeing skimmer spots from either station on the regular network

> > at present, Just S&P spots.

> > W3LPL is submitting spots to RBN currently at the rate of several per

> > minute, as are the other connected skimmers

> >

> > By the way it's quite a testament to DXspider's abilities and Dirk's

> > coding that DXSpider can handle 90+ connected users at the very high

> > spot rates that RBN sees.

> > However I suspect that there is room for further performance

> > optimisations for these traffic rates.

> >

> >> I have had a number of complaints about these skinner stations from my

> >> users.

> >>

> >> I have put the calls of skimmer stations in the badspotter list which

> >> is helping.

> > the problem with this is that both stations generate a lot of legitimate

> > spots too, I suspect it's really a user issue and it might be better

> > solved by asking stations sending skimmer spots to the regular network

> > not to do it

> >

> >> I know that CC Cluster has a NO Skimmer command is this something that

> >> we now need in Dx Spider?

> > VE7CC IS collecting skimmer spots from some skimmers directly, He did

> > ask me for a connection to my skimmer but at present I don't allow

> > inbound connections to it, I simply push a connection out to the RBN.

> > I also think the needs of the DX community are better served by a single

> > system or network handling skimmer spots rather than disparate systems

> > each carrying only a portion of the shared skimmers.

> >

> > It would be nice to see some features in Dxbase to allow easy peering

> > with nodes supporting skimmer spots so that there is no possibility of

> > these spots being leaked back to the regular cluster network.

> > perhaps a variation of the set/node command that allows a peer to be

> > declared a skimmer nod and set up the filtering rules appropriately

> >

> > there would also need to be user commands to give the users control of

> > which types of spots they see.

> >

> > I would love to run a node that carried Skimmer spots in addition to

> > regular spots but only propagate local spots back to the regular cluster

> > network.

> > Right now I mix feeds from RBN and my spider node on my local computer

> > with WintelnetX then feed this to my logging programs

> > http://www.k1ttt.net/software.html#wintelnetx

> > but it's a bit of a hack

> >

> 

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