Hi Pete:
Thanks for the very thoughtful and thorough response. At least you
didn't say "Life is too short for QRP - get a REAL rig" etc, which is
what several folks say when I mention QRP.
The F1 Key on my N1MM logger was set to send
CQ CQ TEST {MYCALL} {MYCALL}
I'd generally set the speed at 24 WPM, and the skimmers who heard me
would say I was sending at 22 to 23 WPM. (They always seem to report
slightly lower speed than the speed for which N1MM is set). Sometimes,
out of sheer exasperation, I'd hit F1 twice and it would repeat the
routine back to back. And, sometimes I'd speed up to 26 WPM or higher,
though 24 wpm seems more comfortable to me.
I got the above from the N1MM hamdocs page, and also from K0RC, who is
one of my "Elmers" who tolerate stupid questions from a "wannabe
'mediocre' contest op" who is stupid (stubborn) enough to run <5 watts.
I suspect your analysis that folks in my skip zone might have been on,
or very near, my frequency, but I never heard anyone coming back to
them. I tried calling >14060 KHz where the cacophony of CQ's seemed a
mild roar, as well as a "clear spot" down around 14025 (and on other
bands in the similar areas within and above the din of running
stations.) And, I had a "usually fairly quiet" site in a rural area
with a good takeoff angle in three directions. It's efficacy was been
proven in the recent Michigan QSO Party where runs of as many as 5 or
more were not uncommon after a few CQ's. And, as I said, my S&P rate
was similar to past years. This is the first year that I've tried
"running" fairly often because I had a nice setup for the "tri-band
wires" subcategory. In the past I had only a fairly low wire antenna.
Note that WQ8RP provided a unique multiplier in the past 5 or so CQ WPX
contests, which is one reason I use it. Several ops tell me that a
unique call can add as much a 10 dB to the effectiveness of the
radiation :) If I had been using my "blah n8xx" call with a very common
prefix, that might have contributed to the lack of responses.
72/73 de n8xx Hg
QRP >99.44% of the time
Operated WQ8RP during CQ WPX 2013
On 5/28/2013 8:16 AM, Pete Smith N4ZR <n4zr@contesting.com> wrote:
11. Re: Can Reverse Beacon Network skimmers get overloaded?
(Pete Smith N4ZR)
Message: 11
Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 07:43:12 -0400
From: Pete Smith N4ZR<n4zr@contesting.com>
To:cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Can Reverse Beacon Network skimmers get
overloaded?
Hi Hank - to the best of my knowledge there is no such "desensing" phenomenon
with CW Skimmer or Skimmer Server. During the contest, there were both a large number of
six-band-at-once Skimmers (using QS1Rs, mostly) and a large number of one-band-at-a-time
Skimmers using everything from Softrocks to QS1Rs to Perseus receivers. The
single-banders consume relatively little computer power, as you can imagine, while the
multi-banders use much more. In theory, if a Skimmer has too many decoders working at
once, so that its CPU utilization hits 100 percent, it will not decode them all until the
rush subsides. It is also possible that something as yet undiscvered may have caused not
all spots to be passed on to the RBN's Telnet servers, but we have had no indication of
this, and the sheer volume of spots that*were* forwarded suggests this is unlikely.
There are a couple of other possible explanations for why you were not successful in triggering
more spots. You*must* use either "CQ" or "TEST" in your CQs, with no more
than one other word between the keyword and your call, or else Skimmer doesn't know if you are
CQing. QRM could have reduced the number of spots, simply because stations that you couldn't hear
at your QTH were QRMing you in places like Europe, where there is the greatest concentration of RBN
Skimmers. Or possibly, the times when you were trying to run were ones where you did not have
propagation to large numbers of Skimmers.
I'm sorry, I know probably none of these answers is satisfactory. I'd love to
hear other possible explanations, if anyone has them.
73, Pete N4ZR
Check out the Reverse Beacon Network at
http://reversebeacon.net,
blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com.
For spots, please go to your favorite
ARC V6 or VE7CC DX cluster node.
On 5/27/2013 11:21 PM, Hank Greeb wrote:
I had a terrible time trying to make a "run" when I tried now and then during the recent
CQ WPX contest. I'd call CQ for as long as 10 minutes, and only once did I get more than one or
two contacts in a row from trying to "run." I figured that propagation was weird, but
couldn't figure out what the deal was.
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