[Dxspider-support] Hamclock connections
Dirk Koopman
djk at tobit.co.uk
Thu Mar 2 19:01:14 GMT 2023
I am struggling to understand why HamClock requires a "keepalive"
timer. It's a TCP based connection that will have ICMP turned on (unlike
certain TCP connections in day$ job). This means that he *will* get
notified if his connection goes away ("connection reset by peer"). But,
in any event, if there is no output for a user for more than 11 minutes
(extremely tight filtering perhaps), the he will get a prompt.
But, getting traffic - by itself - *should* reset his "keepalive" timer.
This has reminded me that I needed to have a method of changing this
"idle timer" prompt interval from 11 minutes. This will appear in a
release RSN.
Dirk G1TLH
On 02/03/2023 13:17, Stephen Carroll via Dxspider-support wrote:
> David,
>
> Thanks for the detailed information you provided regarding HamClock.
> Based on your description and the reply email Michael received from
> the author (Elwood), it's clear that nothing has changed since he and
> I exchanged emails last year. I brought up the same concerns with him
> that Michael shared with examples and got the same overall response.
> Yes, HamClock is really cool and displays lots of information on your
> monitor screen. However, it gets all that data by querying whatever
> cluster it's connected to. Elwood's reply confirms these facts of this
> intense "resource hog" in action, especially when multiple node users
> are running this software. I read through the HamClock manual last
> year to get familiar with it, especially the user settings. It was
> then that I decided not to allow HamClock anywhere near my nodes. I
> don't need to run HamClock myself, since I can see it in action on the
> cluster window.
>
> Thanks again for sharing your insight.
>
> 73, Steve - AA4U
>
> On Thu, Mar 2, 2023, 5:36 AM David Spoelstra <davids at mediamachine.com>
> wrote:
>
> I use HamClock. In HamClock, there are three panes that can
> display different information like SFI, images of the sun,
> POTA/SOTA activations, VOCAP, Current DXpeditions, and DXSpider
> spots among many others (see pages 5 & 6
> https://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/HamClock/HamClockKey.pdf).
> You can also set the panes up to rotate through that information
> if you want to display more than three pieces of information.
>
> Unfortunately, DXSpider spots is not one I run since my logging
> program, CQRLog, is always displaying a window of my spots.
>
> I did look at the settings for you and the only settings are the
> address, port, login, and up to four custom commands. The custom
> commands default to blank, so it could be that your users are
> adding commands that take a lot of bandwidth. I'm not currently
> running a cluster so unfortunately I can't look at the traffic for
> you.
>
> One last thing. You can run HamClock on any linux machine. You do
> not have to have his hardware. I'm not running his hardware, only
> the software on an old netbook I had laying around running Puppy
> linux. You too can run it on any linux box in a window and test
> the traffic yourself.
>
> Here are some quick instructions if you want to quickly run it on
> your local linux box.
> 1. Download the zip or tgz file from
> https://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/HamClock/
> 2. Unzip/untar into a local directory.
> 3. cd into that directory.
> 4. Run "make -j 4 hamclock-800x480" where you substitute one of
> the supported sizes (800x480, 1600x960, 2400x1440, 3200x1920).
> That will be the size of the fixed window it will run in.
> For example, on my big Ubuntu 22.04.02 machine, I did "make -j 4
> hamclock-1600x960"
> 5. Then run the executable you created. On my Ubuntu machine it
> would be: "./hamclock-1600x960"
> 6. If you want to create a .desktop file so you can have it
> integrated into your apps with an icon you can click on, just let
> me know and I'll give you those instructions.
>
> It's actually a neat app that I'll run when I'm away from my shack
> to see what's going on in the ham world since it has news,
> propagation maps, and a ton of other things.
>
> Lastly, if I ever bring my node back up I'd be happy to test.
>
> -David, N9KT
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 2, 2023 at 5:51 AM Stephen Carroll
> <aa4u.steve at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> David,
>
> I'm curious, since you are apparently a HamClock user. Do you
> run a cluster node and does it feed your HamClock? If so, have
> you experienced firsthand how much this software is a
> "resource hog"?
>
> I'd like to find a node SysOp who runs HamClock that can
> explain what their experience has been and if that person sees
> what I see with all the inquiries from the software. Maybe
> it's a user settings issue.
>
> 73, Steve
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 2, 2023, 4:30 AM David Spoelstra
> <davids at mediamachine.com> wrote:
>
> Mike-
> Try elwood.downey at gmail.com
> -David, N9KT
>
> On Wed, Mar 1, 2023 at 10:03 PM Michael Walker
> <va3mw at portcredit.net> wrote:
>
> I emailed him and the email bounced.
>
> Mike va3mw
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 1, 2023 at 9:53 PM Stephen Carroll via
> Dxspider-support <dxspider-support at tobit.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I've already brought this up with the author
> (Elwood) last year; with no resolution in sight
> yet. It's not a DXSpider issue (or any other
> cluster software or website), but rather excessive
> requirements by HamClock and/or users that don't
> have it configured correctly.
>
> On Wed, Mar 1, 2023, 7:53 PM David Spoelstra
> <davids at mediamachine.com> wrote:
>
> Maybe someone who understands the DX Spider
> software could contact the HamClock author,
> Elwood Downey, WBØOEW, at
> ecdowney at clearskyinstitute.com. He is very
> responsive (he's added two features I
> suggested) and can probably easily fix the
> issue if someone can clearly explain it to him.
> -David, N9KT
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 1, 2023 at 5:25 PM Stephen Carroll
> via Dxspider-support
> <dxspider-support at tobit.co.uk> 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
>
>
>
>
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