RBNHole

Wow! The RBN Hole sure worked nicely today! I was sitting on several feet of snow at 10,013 feet, with the wind absolutely roaring across the mountaintop, my antenna wire dancing in the tree limbs, even my radio gear moving across the snow - and there were piles of chasers!

Thank You!

KX0R

I’ve just pushed a quick-tested fix that should eliminate dupes and small QSYs[*]. I’ve tested it briefly, but it was less of a change than anticipated, so I think it should be fine. Once again, the MT can kill it if need be.

Cheers,
Andrew

[*] This is implemented as a 10 minute lockout on respotting on a particular band.

Excellent. Just a reminder that Andrew’s machine puts up spots if the perceived CW signal is within a window plus or minus two hours from the alert, and alerts are gathered at the rate of about four per hour. If an activator changes his/her mind and does not go on the climb, that station still will be dutifully spotted as an activation if it operates CW from home during that window. Changing or deleting the alert does not help, just as was the case with Eric’s machine.

A month ago, Eric’s widow promised a mailed disc with Eric’s source, but it hasn’t arrived. To be fair, she also said she didn’t yet have the password to access his software and that she was heavily involved in the transition at his company.

Elliott, K6EL
Sota MT

Thanks for all you’ve done Andrew.
I’ve been greatly appreciative of RBNHOLE over the last few weeks!

Pete

Any idea why RBNHOLE has not been spotting since Tuesday this week?

Last SPOT on SOTAWatch, Tue 1203z

Cheers
Pete

It’s on sympathy strike with the junior doctors? :wink:

If it’s not been spotting for sometime and there’s no message saying it’s offline then it’s fairly likely that nobody with the access to fix this knows there is a problem.

@VK3ARR is the man to contact.

Well it does work 24/7, and few appreciate what it does until they need it :grinning:

I have spent the week in Singapore on a work conference where WiFi was banned and sleep optional. I would have fixed it earlier but I crawled into bed at 6pm yesterday and haven’t surfaced since.

Singapore does have some very restrictive restrictions.

Glad you can communicate with us again :slight_smile:

73, Mark G0VOF

Singapore restrictions are bad enough, but these were definitely work enforced :smile:

RBNHole is back up and running. I will be pushing a few changes this weekend in a bid to increase reliability of the service long term (most of the problems now are on the hosting provider side, not in the software)

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I’ve moved RBNHole to a different hosting provider which will hopefully provide a more reliable service.

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Dr OM Andrew,
Many thanks for all your Good Work. I work with my Elecraft KX1 with 3 W output and RBNHole is a Big Help!
vy 73 de geert pa7zee

I have just pushed out a new version of RBNHole - one that should in theory be a lot more supportable, and has so far proven to not require me to reboot it every few days. In addition, I’ve implemented most of the functionality from RBNGate now:

  • The RBNGate 1 hour same-frequency-no-re-spot lockout is now in place, rather than the 10 minute lockout RBNHole originally used.
  • The “S+XX S-XX” syntax in comments will now work
  • Activators not wishing to participate can be excluded from being spotted
  • A particular activation can be excluded using the 'RBNN" or “NoRBNHole” syntax in your comment. (“NoRBNGate” also will work)
  • I’ve also done a bit of logic to spot the activator on the most common frequency that they are heard on, rather than just the first one that comes through from the RBN (to handle slightly offset skimmers). I also report the skimmer with the strongest SNR rather than just the first one.

There may well be teething issues as the weekend rolls around: there’s not a hell of a lot of traffic during the week to exercise the thing with real world data. I will try to fix them as soon as possible.

I encourage everyone wishing to use RBNHole to read Eric’s FAQ as this is still largely relevant: RBNGate by KU6J - Automatic SOTA Spotting

The only feature that Eric had implemented that I have not (as yet) is stopping an RBNGate spot if a self-spot is present.

Please note that we do NOT have a list of the activators that were excluded under Eric’s system: if you want to be excluded, you will need to let me know. If having to do this again annoys you, then I suggest a small dose of perspective :slight_smile:

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Bravo… The disc we got from Eric’s widow did not include the latest version, and the RBNGateway was missing. Looks like we are in business. A very big thank you.

Elliott, K6EL
Sota MT

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THANK YOU for your efforts!!!

Thanks indeed!

You may say so, Andrew, but this morning RBNHole spotted DL6FBK/P on 40m CW 4 times between 0911 and 0919 UTC. Also HA5AZC/P on 40m CW 3 times between 0941 and 0944 UTC.

I am sure many activators will find RBNHole useful and we are all grateful for your efforts. However, I should be obliged if you would exclude G3NYY/P and GW3NYY/P from being spotted. (I was indeed on Eric’s original exclusion list.)

Many thanks,
Walt (G3NYY)

Actually, the frequency was varying 1KHz between successive spots in the examples you cited.

Where can I down load what I need to run the new RBNHole?

That was most likely because the calibration of the spotting receivers varied by about 1 kHz.

BTW, also it posted the incorrect summit reference for HA5AZC/P at 1029 UTC.