[Skimmertalk] Number in suffix

[N4ZR]

I agree with a couple of your points - and disagree with some others.  
First, it is true that a pattern's not appearing on the list does make 
for more stringent repetition requirements before a string of characters 
is recognized as a callsign. IIRC, the difference is between 4 and 2 
repetitions - while 4 repetitions is probably more than usual, it 
certainly is not impossible, if the objective is to be spotted by 
Skimmer Server.  Moreover, this is not 4 repetitions in a single CQ 
call, but 4 repetitions within 256 characters in a single 50-Hz decoder 
channel.

You might be interested in the callsign's registration.  While the 
Google translation is less than great, and a few points of ambiguity 
remain, take a look at 
<https://www.tele.soumu.go.jp/musen/SearchServlet?pageID=4&IT=E&DFCD=0000445890&DD=1&styleNumber=50>. 
It appears that 8N3G20 is limited to no more than 50 watts and only one 
frequency per HF band, except for 80 meters.  Many of the specified 
frequencies are in phone sub-bands.

There's certainly no reason why individual node-ops couldn't update 
their pattern files, but I am personally leery of setting the precedent 
of modifying the patt3ch.lst file to cover any and all special event 
calls.  There are a lot of them being issued, used briefly and then 
shelved every year, and the impact on the accuracy of decoding of real 
calls could be serious if we included them all. In the JA case alone, 
there are 5 special calls currently active, along with 9 EA special 
calls, and heaven knows how many others.  How do we pick and choose?

With regard to my typo, you are right on one count - it *is* 3N, not 3G, 
but the last character is definitely a zero, from the official 
government licensing document. Moreover, 8N324A is not covered by the 
pattern 8N3@@@, because the @ denotes an alphabetic character. The 
pattern for that call would have to be 8N3##@.

73, Pete N4ZR
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On 5/13/2019 1:04 PM, Bob Wilson, N6TV wrote:
> First, the callsign is 8N3G2O (not 8G3, and the last letter is "oh" 
> not "zero" I think) .  It is being incorrectly spotted as 3G2O/3 per 
> Dai's message.
>
> http://reversebeacon.net/dxsd1/dxsd1.php?f=0&c=3g2o/3&t=dx
>
> Perhaps because that is because the closest pattern that matches is:
>
>   3G2@
>
> and the "8N3" is being miscoded as "/3".
>
> As for 8N324A, perhaps those JA nodes have updated their private 
> copies of patt3ch.lst.  Or perhaps this "preferred" pattern (+) is 
> considered a match:
>
> + 8N3@@@