[Dxspider-support] Hamclock connections

[Michael Walker]

Hi All

This is what I received back from the author.

Essentially, his set/qra command is what he uses for a heartbeat.  Would
this command also cause a write to an SD Card driven PI?  (I run on a
RPI4).  He does this once very 15 seconds/user.

Every spot requires a show/heading, increasing the calculation load.

Mike va3mw




Thanks for reaching out with your concerns. All your observations are
correct and by design. I will go through each of them and explain why they
occur.



>> *This is a partial log from VA3CW-1 and it seems that HamClock asks for
a show/heading on ever dxcluster spot.*

This is the only way I know of to get the lat/long of the spotted station.
I need this in order to show it on a map in real time.



>> *As well, every 15 seconds, HamClock sends a set/qra to the cluster.*

This is just a command chosen pretty much at random to avoid having the
connection timed off. I have found the required period varies greatly on
different clusters so I use 15 seconds as the longest I have found that
seems to work everywhere.



*>> As well, I would gather that all these commands to the DXCluster must
be processed not only by the DX Cluster but also the HamClock.  This would
be a lot of extra load. *

I admit I don't know what the load is on the spider side, but the load on
HamClock is absolutely negligible. HamClocks runs easily on a tiny embedded
ESP8266 single core processor running at 160 MHz, glacial by modern
standards.




I am certainly open to further discussion for more efficient means of
accomplishing what I am trying to do.

73, Elwood, WB0OEW

On Thu, Mar 2, 2023 at 6:08 AM Dirk Koopman via Dxspider-support <
dxspider-support at tobit.co.uk> wrote:

> And I am even gladder <sic>
>
> Can we start to collect some data on errant programs that users "use"? I
> have discovered that a rather prominent contester appears to be using a
> program that, from time to time splurges out what appears to be a binary
> dump of a text window on his (Windows) machines. In 32/64 bit "wide
> characters". Perl just swallows it and DXSpider logs it (in html encoded
> form).  Fills up the logs (and disconnects the user) but otherwise is
> "harmless".
>
> Dirk G1TLH
>
> On 01/03/2023 22:24, Stephen Carroll via Dxspider-support wrote:
>
> I'm glad you brought this topic up. I have been planning to voice my
> opinion. What you tolerate as a SysOp is completely up to your individual
> threshold level. But, I have basically outlawed any user on my nodes from
> connecting if using HamClock. At one point, I had 6 users running the
> software 24/7. I refer to this software as a "resource hog" because of how
> much data it requests for every spot, then resends the users Name, QTH and
> QRA every 15-30 seconds (which is probably the default). I have a modest
> computer and cable modem setup for the cluster and home network usage. If
> the connected user callsign appears like this (AA4U), they are probably
> using HamClock. I will usually ask the user to connect to a larger scale
> node, after explaining why it's a resource hog.
>
> YMMV !!!
>
> 73, Steve - AA4U
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 1, 2023, 3:59 PM Michael Walker via Dxspider-support <
> dxspider-support at tobit.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Hi Guys
>>
>> Since I am digging into a few things, one of my users was sending a
>>
>> set/location about every 15 seconds
>>
>> and then a show/heading for every spot.
>>
>> It turns out it was HAMCLOCK which seems really chatty.
>>
>> Mike va3mw
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Dxspider-support mailing list
>> Dxspider-support at tobit.co.uk
>> https://mailman.tobit.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/dxspider-support
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dxspider-support mailing listDxspider-support at tobit.co.ukhttps://mailman.tobit.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/dxspider-support
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dxspider-support mailing list
> Dxspider-support at tobit.co.uk
> https://mailman.tobit.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/dxspider-support
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.tobit.co.uk/pipermail/dxspider-support/attachments/20230302/8db5b5e1/attachment-0001.htm>