[Dxspider-support] VarAC Beacon spots

[Joaquin]

It seems that the sending of spots is not something automated in VarAC, 
according to its developer it is the user who manually decides their 
sending.

I attach the answer of Irad 4Z1AC:

Hi Kin,

/Nice to meet you :) Sure - I will be happy to clarify. //
/

/VarAC is New digital mode based on the VARA protocol that allows 
conducting ARQ QSOs (like Pactor speed and error-free but with FT8 
resilience and software only) We have a calling frequencies for CQs and 
also beacons. We have ~8000 users currently on this mode with hundreds 
active daily. //
/

/Now regarding DX cluster spots: A user can send a SPOT to a cluster of 
his choice using a dedicated button. Here is an example: I noticed a CQ 
from a DX I want to report like VK2LX. I right click it and chose SPOT. 
Then a popup comes up with spot info that the user can edit before you 
send it. The user click "SPOT" and the spot is sent while he is shown a 
log of the spot. There is no automated reporting into DX clusters. //
/

/Only manual per user own request. I hope it clarifies. I will be happy 
to answer any additional questions you may have //
/

/73s Irad 4Z1AC/

/
/

73 Kin EA3CV


El 07/12/2022 a las 9:44, Joaquin escribió:
>
> I have sent a couple of emails to the Spanish developer EA5HVK and to 
> the Israeli 4Z1AC indicating that the VarAC software is making 
> improper use of the spots and the possible discomfort of the network 
> sysops, and advising them to use the cluster chat.
> So far I have not received a response from any.
> We will wait for news...
>
> Kin EA3CV
>
>
> El 06/12/2022 a las 23:27, Laurie, VK3AMA via Dxspider-support escribió:
>> A brief history lesson on ROSMODEM and its developer.
>>
>>   * The ROS software would post spots to DXSpider nodes pretending to
>>     be a human using a number of different inbuilt message types to
>>     give the impression the spots were human originating. The volume
>>     of spots and the repeated spot formats gave that away.
>>   * While running the software, monitoring activity only, no QSOs,
>>     the software would be posting spots giving the impression that
>>     the spot was for an actual QSO when there was no QSO.
>>   * As nodes started to implement registration to block this behavior
>>     the ROS software would be updated with differing lists of
>>     unsecured nodes to auto-spot to.
>>   * When the ROS author was called out about the auto-spotting he
>>     started to include hard-coded list of the callsigns reporting
>>     this behavior, a blacklist of callsigns that were prevented from
>>     running the software. I know because I ended up on the blacklist
>>     because of calling him out about his software activity. It was
>>     easy to see the hard-coded blacklist, DXSpider nodes and
>>     auto-spot message formats by simply doing a hex-dump of the ROS
>>     executable.
>>
>> Just a warning.
>>
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