[Skimmertalk] qs1r sharing?

Mark n2qt n2qt.va at gmail.com
Fri Jan 9 11:24:42 EST 2015


I ran RTTY only during roundup on hex core FX6100 (passmark 5424, 8 G RAM). Only
aggregator was running in addition. I ran 48 khz bands as that seems to help the loading. 
I used ini rotation to put two 48 khz windows on the open bands as needed.  I purposefully 
used a limited active antenna so I did not hear as many signals (Rtty or not) as perhaps I 
could.  

My max observed decoders was 374 with 566 signals.  This was with throttling of 66%
(Or else the decoders would equal signals). CPU was at 83%, flashing to 90%.  The number
of signals is a measure of how good your antenna is. The number of decoders/throttling
measures how good your cpu is. 

There is a possible issue if you allow the OS to Park underutilized cores in your cpu.  As 
activity increases the OS will hand off some processing to these idle cores, but the
latency of this changeover delays processing in  RTTYSKIMSERVER so that it throws 
out those packets and displays that it is throttling.  You can see this affect if you open 
performance monitoring and watch cpu utilization by core.  This will cause an otherwise 
competent cpu to throttle much earlier than necessary.  As the load increases the OS 
will not try to park cores so this effect disappears.  You can manually shut off core parking 
to stop this. 

I found 48 kHz was far more efficient for cpu loading and was adequate for covering the 
RTTY activity, so long as a second 48 kHz could be rotated in as needed.  It worked 
better than trying 96 kHz. This would  keep me from running CW decoding  concurrently.  
CPU cycles are expended on any detected signal, which puts a real burden when 
covering 40M where the rtty/Cw bands overlap and there is a lot of cw/SSB activity. 

Mark. N2QT

> On Jan 9, 2015, at 10:51 AM, Chad WE9V <chad.we9v at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Dave,
> 
> I'm running an i3 with 4GB RAM.  It's grossly underpowered for a RTTY
> contest, but does great for CW 7x192 on CW contest weekends (without
> running RTTY).
> 
> I'm currently running 7x96 with both CW and RTTY, but I have the RTTY
> subbands set from the equivalent of xx.080 to xx.100, but it's cut off at
> about x.091 due to the 96 bandwidth and my center freqs to cover all the
> way down to xx.000.  This is, IMO, fine for non RTTY contest times.  People
> pretty much stick to 080-090 for RTTY during non-contest times, maybe with
> rare exceptions.  (The WARC bands are even narrower.)  I'm running at
> around 25% CPU.  CW is set to use 1 thread, RTTY all 4 threads.
> 
> When I ran with this during Roundup, I was pegged at 100% CPU and RTTY
> Skimmer was employing throttling, meaning it wasn't decoding everything.
> 
> Durning non-contest time, I also tried 7x192, but was running about 75% CPU
> (was decoding more of the RTTY subbands because it wasn't cut off at
> xx.091).  Since I use this server for many other tasks (HTPC, RAID Server),
> I decided that 7x96 is fine for everything other than RTTY contests, and
> can still do 7x192 for CW contests.
> 
> I agree with others...for a RTTY contest, nothing less than an i7 (or as
> close as possible with an AMD) would be recommended.
> 
> Chad WE9V
> 
> FYI, my non-contest RTTY Segments:
> RttySegments=1800000-1820000,3580000-3600000,7025000-7050000,7080000-7100000,10130000-10150000,14080000-14100000,18095000-18115000,21080000-21100000,24910000-24930000,28080000-28100000,50250000-54000000
> Contest:
> RttySegments=1800000-1840000,3550000-3600000,7020000-7125000,10130000-10150000,14060000-14112000,18095000-18115000,21060000-21150000,24910000-24930000,28060000-28150000,50250000-54000000
> 
> 
>> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 2:48 PM, David Robbins <k1ttt at arrl.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Is anyone running 7 bands at 192khz with both skimmer servers?  If so,
>> what are the specs on your computer?  I can get 6 at 96khz with this quad
>> core, but just barely.
>> 
>> David Robbins K1TTT
>> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
>> web: http://wiki.k1ttt.net
>> AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://k1ttt.net
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Skimmertalk [mailto:skimmertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf
>> Of David Robbins
>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 20:35
>> To: skimmer at dxwatch.com; skimmertalk at contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] qs1r sharing?
>> 
>> Ok, got both running now... I was grabbing the wrong ini file because I
>> restarted cwskimmer from the desktop icon instead of from the aggregator
>> edit button.
>> 
>> David Robbins K1TTT
>> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
>> web: http://wiki.k1ttt.net
>> AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://k1ttt.net
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Skimmertalk [mailto:skimmertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf
>> Of David Robbins
>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 20:19
>> To: skimmer at dxwatch.com; skimmertalk at contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] qs1r sharing?
>> 
>> Yeah, I did that… I copied the 3 lines for center freqs and also for
>> selected segments from the cw skimmer to the rtty skimmer ini file again
>> just to be sure, and still get the same message.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> David Robbins K1TTT
>> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
>> web: http://wiki.k1ttt.net <http://wiki.k1ttt.net/> AR-Cluster node:
>> 145.69MHz or telnet://k1ttt.net <telnet://k1ttt.net/>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: W3OA [mailto:w3oa at roadrunner.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 19:50
>> To: David Robbins; skimmer at dxwatch.com; skimmertalk at contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] qs1r sharing?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Hi Dave -
>> 
>> The center frequencies must also match.
>> 
>> 73 - Dick, W3OA
>> 
>> On 1/8/2015 2:03 PM, David Robbins wrote:
>> 
>> Well, I think I am getting closer… I downloaded the latest cwsl_tee, and a
>> bunch of other tools from the ol5q repository… and I get different error
>> messages now.  instead of telling me it can’t get the usb port now I get a
>> cut off message about SetRXFrequency not being able to change L0 from
>> 28091399 to 28091281 for… and there it gets cut off.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I did go through and make sure the cw and rtty skimmer ini files have the
>> same segments and rate selected… what else is there???
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> David Robbins K1TTT
>> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
>> web: http://wiki.k1ttt.net <http://wiki.k1ttt.net/> AR-Cluster node:
>> 145.69MHz or telnet://k1ttt.net <telnet://k1ttt.net/>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: Felipe Ceglia [mailto:felipeceglia at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 17:30
>> To: David Robbins
>> Cc: skimmer at dxwatch.com
>> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] qs1r sharing?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Hi David,
>> 
>> I dont really know, I never used it, as my skimmer pc is a bit slow for
>> that.
>> 
>> Maybe you can try contacting OL5Q guys directly.
>> 
>> 73,
>> 
>> Felipe
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 3:24 PM, David Robbins <k1ttt at arrl.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Ok, I tried the old cwsl_tee, which doesn’t appear to be on the web site
>> any more… which one do I need and how to set it up for both the skimmers??
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> David Robbins K1TTT
>> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
>> web: http://wiki.k1ttt.net <http://wiki.k1ttt.net/> AR-Cluster node:
>> 145.69MHz or telnet://k1ttt.net
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: Felipe Ceglia [mailto:felipeceglia at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 13:42
>> To: David Robbins
>> Cc: skimmer at dxwatch.com
>> 
>> 
>> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] qs1r sharing?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Hi Dave,
>> 
>> You must use a software from these guys:
>> 
>> http://ol5q.nagano.cz/soft.php?page=Software
>> 
>> It creates a tee and will let both softwares run.
>> 
>> 
>> 73,
>> 
>> Felipe
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:03 AM, David Robbins <k1ttt at arrl.net> wrote:
>> 
>> how do you set that up, if I have skimmerserver running and I try to start
>> the rtty server it complains about not getting the usb port.  The same
>> going the other way.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> David Robbins K1TTT
>> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
>> web: http://wiki.k1ttt.net <http://wiki.k1ttt.net/> AR-Cluster node:
>> 145.69MHz or telnet://k1ttt.net
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: Prasad VU2PTT [mailto:vu2ptt at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 12:45
>> To: David Robbins
>> Cc: skimmertalk at contesting.com; skimmer at dxwatch.com
>> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] qs1r sharing?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> David
>> 
>> Yes, both run seamlessly using the same QS1R - my RBN node is doing that
>> right now. In effect we can run 7 x CW and 7 x RTTY receivers on one QS1R
>> with more CPU power required of course.
>> 
>> 73 de Prasad VU2PTT
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 6:10 PM, David Robbins <k1ttt at arrl.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Is it possible to share a qs1r between cw skimmer server and the new rtty
>> skimmer server?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> David Robbins K1TTT
>> e-mail:  <mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net> mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
>> web:  <http://wiki.k1ttt.net/> http://wiki.k1ttt.net AR-Cluster node:
>> 145.69MHz or  <telnet://k1ttt.net/> telnet://k1ttt.net
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 73 de Prasad VU2PTT, W2PTT (ex-AF6DV)
>> 
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>> 
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>> 
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