W1AW/7 CW spots not SOTA

The W1AW/7 CW spots are not W7A/MN-142. Operator K7TEJ will be SSB only. 14.342.

Pete
WA7JTM

Yep, I just got up and noticed all the spots. RBNGate ignores the portable designation and mode, so it assumed those were from K7TEJ’s alerted activation in which he will use the W1AW/7 call. I just added W1AW to my excluded activators file, so no more spots of W1AW or any portable variant of the call should appear.

73,

Eric KU6J

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Free SOTA Spot Monitor Software + RBNGate FAQ:
http://www.ku6j.com

Might be worth reviewing the strictness with which RBNgate matches alerts to RBN spots, as this sort of mis-spotting isn’t that uncommon. If RBNgate only accepted exact matches (including all “/” delimited parts) between alerts and RBN spots then it might miss a few, but the ones it did spot would be much less likely to be mis-spots.

73, Rick

I’ve considered that Rick, but I think that doing exact matches on callsigns would cause more problems than it solves. It wouldn’t even have helped very much in this W1AW case since W1AW/7 and W1AW/1 are each being used by many different stations on many different frequencies and modes all at the same time. The W1AW and W1AW/1 spots would be excluded, but my software log shows that there were 19 spots of W1AW/7 (exact match) that would have been passed through to the final dupe check and on to SOTAWatch (if not a dupe) had I not woken up in time to put the W1AW’s on the exclusion list. Whew! :slight_smile:

Dupes are one of the areas where exact matches would do more harm than good. Here in the U.S. we aren’t required to use a portable designator, but may if we wish. Activators will sometimes make a CQ without one, then later do a CQ with one. Each of those would end up getting spotted and most of us would consider the second one to be a dupe.

Spots from chasers and even the RBN skimmers can be inconsistent as well, for a number of reasons. For example, one of our well known and skilled chasers (W4DOW) is even ‘consistently inconsistent’. Dow appends “/P” to all of his spots, even though in most cases he knows that isn’t what the activator is actually sending. It is not unusual for him to hear and spot the activator before the RBN skimmers hear them. Each of these instances would result in a dupe spot on SOTAWatch if exact matching were used: Dow’s /P spot, followed later by RBNGate’s spot of the callsign that the activator is actually sending (no /P).

Increased dupes aren’t the only issue with exact matching, there are others, but that issue alone sufficiently justifies not changing to that method of callsign processing.

73,

Eric KU6J

===========================================
Free SOTA Spot Monitor Software + RBNGate FAQ:
http://www.ku6j.com

W1AW is an obvious candidate for an exclusion list, given its simultaneous use from multiple locations.

The “/P” side is fairly minor irritation, though you could argue that if RBNgate was more selective then it’d produce fewer spots, and only produce spots which matched alerts (or self-spots). However, even now, at least when RBNgate spots a call it reports the call as actually heard, without any invented trimmings.

There have, however, been cases where RBNgate mis-handled cross-border calls. That gets particularly confusing when the summits are ones actually on borders, where the time difference between one activation (on one side of the border with one prefix) and the next is short. Using my own call as an example, if I were (say) travelling from home to Germany, I might well activate summits as M0LEP/P (in UK), F/M0LEP/P (in France), ON/M0LEP/P in Belgium, PA/M0LEP/P in the Netherlands, and DL/M0LEP/P in Germany. It’d be hard work to do summit activations in all those countries in one day, but activations in two countries only an hour or so apart wouldn’t be much work. Unless it’s been fixed recently, RBNgate could (given a little leeway on alerts, or a self-spot to throw a spanner in the works) mis-spot (say) F/M0LEP/P on a UK summit, PA/M0LEP/P on an Belgian summit, or similar. Exact matching between RBN spot and the alerts should significantly reduce that sort of confusion.

73, Rick

The cross-border situation actually provides a great argument for NOT using exact callsign matching.

All the activator has to do to prevent confusion is enter a single alert using any one of the callsign variants they intend to use (or just enter their base callsign such as M0LEP), enter an indefinite summit reference such as XX/XX-XXX, and extend the spotting window for how ever many hours, days, weeks, etc. they will be on their cross-border trip. The activator always gets spotted with the callsign they actually send (including the portable designators), and no one gets confused because chasers will know to get the actual summit reference over the air.

If I were to change to exact matching, the activator would need to (as a minimum) enter an alert for each and every one of the callsign variants they intend to use on this cross-border activation trip. For a long trip, that could be a lot of alerts. And, if their timing didn’t match their alert ETAs, they wouldn’t be spotted at all during those activations.

73,

Eric KU6J

===========================================
Free SOTA Spot Monitor Software + RBNGate FAQ:
http://www.ku6j.com

I, for one, won’t be using long-lasting indeterminate alerts; they become impossible to edit once they drop off the list, and cause trouble when you decide to take a break from SOTA and operate elsewhere.

73, Rick M0LEP