[Skimmertalk] Reducing the number of "false positive" spots - stations that aren't really CQing

[Pete Smith N4ZR]

Have you seen multiple stations spotted on the same frequency by the 
RBN, gone there, and discovered that only one of them is really there?  
If so, you've encountered what may be the last major problem with CW 
Skimmer, the tendency to spot calling stations as if they were the one 
CQing.

There was a bug in versions of Skimmer prior to 1.71, and in Skimmer 
Server prior to version 1.30, which caused stations that had been 
calling CQ to continue to be spotted as such even if they had left their 
run frequency and begun to search and pounce. This was fixed in the 
current versions of the programs, and I think I have written to everyone 
still using an earlier version to request that they get current.

So, what else can you do to reduce your individual contribution to this 
problem?  The biggest thing is never to use "minimal" validation (set on 
the Telnet tab of either program).  Instead, use at least "normal" or, 
even better, "aggressive".  Each of these levels requires progressively 
more iterations of a callsign before it "believes" it, so if we use the 
higher levels the number of "false positive" CQ spots should be much 
reduced.

How about giving it a try this weekend?

-- 
73, Pete N4ZR

The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at www.conteststations.com
The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net, blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com,
spots at telnet.reversebeacon.net, port 7000