Which summit did GW6DTN/P activate this morning? Half the spots say GW/NW-027 and the other half say GW/MW-027, even though they are all placed by the same person.
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
In reply to G3NYY:
Hi Walt,the spotter is the same person,Dave using his other call, all mine are listed as MW.73 Don.
In reply to G3NYY:
Specsavers? They all look like MW here.
In reply to G3CWI:
Thank the MT [edit] facility Richard, I pulled the bad spots once it was confirmed as MW not NW.
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to G3NYY: I can confirm that I was on GW/MW-027 (Moel Y Golfa). Apologies for the confusion. It doesn’t help that my old Nokia mobile now says ‘No Gateway Reply’ instead of bringing up the new spot. WHY CAN’T THE SOFTWARE TYPES LEAVE THE @@@@@y SYSTEM ALONE!!!
I’ll post about routes on MW-027 later.
Regards, G6DTN, Dave
In reply to M0DFA:
WHY CAN’T THE SOFTWARE TYPES LEAVE THE @@@@@y SYSTEM ALONE!!!
Because the old server ran out of horsepower.
So what address are you trying to use?
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to M0DFA:
Thanks for clearing that up, Dave. Hope you had a good activation.
P.S. I have never been able to understand why anyone needs more than one callsign of the same class! Hi hi!
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
In reply to G3NYY:
P.S. I have never been able to understand why anyone needs more than
one callsign of the same class! Hi hi!
It’s all down to the developement of the call class syatem, Walt. I took the (limited choice - but don’t tell the older licencees) RAE and got my Class B licence a long time ago. I then started learning CW, but other things (house, family, work, road running, moving location and lack of real dedication) got in the way. Then came the changes in the licencing requirements, the old C&G RAE and somewhere along the way the morse recognition test (5wpm and, IMHO, absolutely useless) got me an M3 licence with limited power on some of the hf bands. This got converted to my M0DFA ticket with a morse test (or was that the recognition test? I don’t remember. At no time was I asked to give up my G6 ticket. Not long afterwards, the morse requirement was ditched so my original G6 became a full licence.
I used M0DFA to gain a goat and a sloth exclusively on VHF. Looking for the next challenge I started using G6DTN on HF to get sloths for HF SSB and HF CW, and working towards a goat on HF (Next year?)
Looks as if OFCOM and the RSGB may pull the plug on holding multiple calls, then I’ll have to decide which one to relinquish.
Best regards
Dave, G6DTN and M0DFA
In reply to MM0FMF:
Because the old server ran out of horsepower.
(Gently, to avoid a barely converted computer Luddite upsetting Andy) - but why did using a newer (bigger, better, more complicated etc) server necessitate removing a usefull facility?
So what address are you trying to use?
An old one - not knowing any better - because it worked.
Summits on the Air
Oh, and this phone is on Vodafone (or whatever they’ve become now)
Please come back to my personal email if this is going off-topic, but I suspect there may be others who would appreciate some update info.
Best Regards, Dave, G6DTN
In reply to M0DFA:
necessitate removing a usefull facility?
It’s not been removed, it’s working fine. I can see it from my phone (3), a computer in Switzerland, a computer in Reykjavik, a computer in Los Angeles, a computer in San Diego and this computer in Scotland.
What you are seeing are DNS problems. DNS is the method that converts www.sotawatch.org into 88.80.186.8 and that number is what is used to route the traffic to the server. There are DNS servers that list every website/server on the net and give its IP address. When you type a website name a chain of DNS servers are queried to find out what the address is. When you change a DNS entry it takes time for the new info to propagate around the DNS servers, up to 48hrs I think.
All this DNS traffic can become expensive in load on the DNS so DNS info gets cached to save it being looked up all the time. Sometimes cached values are used when the cache is old and needs updating. So either your DNS was not yet updated or your were seeing stale DNS cache data. If you try it now it will probably work. It’s almost like it knows you’re no longer on a summit!
The DNS was changed to point to the new server. One way you can change a server is to remove the old computer and fit a new computer in its physical place. Apart from the new one being faster nothing changes. The downside is you can’t have both on at the same time. Moreover, you don’t often get physical access to the server anyway, you simply rent space on a server, or rent a server or buy a server and someone puts in a rack in a datacenter and you pay for space, power and traffic. Most likely you buy/hire a bigger server and tell DNS the new server is where to send the data.
Ain’t computing fun!
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to M0DFA:
Congratulations on all your SOTA achievements, Dave. Most impressive!
It’s all down to the development of the call class system, Walt.
Looks as if OFCOM and the RSGB may pull the plug on holding multiple
calls, then I’ll have to decide which one to relinquish.
Read with interest. Yes, I’m not sure that “development” is the right word! The amateur licensing database is littered with legacy callsigns … old Class B calls, superseded Novice, Intermediate and Foundation calls - all of which have been kept active. There are even oddities such as a few M5xxx calls and a very small number of G5xxx calls. There is much duplication. If licence fees were still payable for each callsign, I venture to suggest that there would be far fewer multiple callsigns! One result of all this confusion is that neither the RSGB nor Ofcom have the remotest idea how many individual licensed amateurs there are in the UK.
But then … does it matter?
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
In reply to G3NYY:
The amateur licensing database is littered with legacy
callsigns … old Class B calls, superseded Novice, Intermediate and
Foundation calls - all of which have been kept active.
In short it’s a disaster. And the 5 year renewal cycle is equally flawed.
In short it’s a disaster.
Give over!
It is probably not the most efficient administration of the UK’s licences, but it’s not really a “disaster” is it?
The 5 year renewal cycle is only flawed for those that don’t keep on top of things or who are inactive in the hobby (in which case it hardly matters).
I voted against the “Free licence for life” concept when that consultation process took place. However, democracy won the day (as Ofcom perfectly well knew it would) and the majority of my fellow licencees approved the proposal.
That said, I really don’t think the situation is the mess or disaster you G3s keep grumbling about. I have used the online systems to update my own licence, apply for NoVs, help my students get licensed etc in recent times, and find the processes pretty smooth and robust. There is the occasional niggle or irritation in dealing with Ofcom, but not enough to summarise the status quo as a “disaster”.
Tom M1EYP
In reply to M1EYP:
It’s not the online system that is a disaster, or dealing with licencing people at Ofcom who are polite and pleasant and helpful.
A real disaster is the actual licence database. It was a humungous mishmash of badly formed records and out of date info. The 5 year verification is a joke too as the period between verifications is too long. Yearly would make sense as it is done online and has marginal costs. You’d have a more accurate record of licencees.
The final disaster is Ofcom’s policy failure of announcing assorted dictats regarding holding multiple licenses and then failing to act. Ofcom’s customers rightly can draw the conclusion that Ofcom doesn’t care and so neither should they. That’s bad and is all down to Ofcom dithering.
(For the record, holder of multiple calls)
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to MM0FMF:
Thanks for you explanation, Andy.
I tried it a few minutes ago.
To start with, I’m on PAYG, but I’ve no idea if that makes any difference.
On accessing PAYG WAP(01), I now get the reply ‘Services: No Gateway Reply’, and this is a very recent change. SOTAwatch Spotlite comes up when accessed, with a list of the most recent spots, and I can add a spot. When I post the spot, I again get ‘Services: No Gateway Reply’ and have to log out of PAYG WAP and log back in to check if my alert has appeared.
It doesn’t seem if it’s a change in SOTA stuff (for want of a more precise term) but its still (if the moderator will forgive the expression) a right PITA when all you want to do is to get an alert out, and check if there are any potentially chaseable S2S out there.
Regards, Dave, G6DTN
In reply to MM0FMF:
Ive held my call unchanged for 50 years come September. Ive said variations of “This is G8ADD” so often that it has become part of my identity. I can`t help feeling that holding multiple calls would feel like multiple personality disorder! For all that, though, if people want to hold a portfolio of callsigns they should be allowed to - for a price! If Ofcom made money out of us they would value us more highly.
Brian G8ADD
-
It’s not a disaster. Plane crashes and big earthquakes are disasters.
-
We had the opportunity to stop Ofcom from going down this path, but too many of us were seduced by the concept of “free”. Not me, but I was in a minority
Tom M1EYP
In reply to M0DFA:
WAP? There’s your problem. The Science Museum would like your phone as an exhibit of stone age technology!
OK, seriously, WAP is, to be polite, a little behind the times. In fact I’m surprised the providers still have their WAP gateways running. The fact you get error messages before you access Spotlite indicates things are not right with your WAP provider.
I think I can translate what “Services: No Gateway Reply” means however. It means time to buy a modern phone. As Wikipedia says “As of 2013, WAP use has largely disappeared.”
Yeah I know… “it’s worked fine for years”.
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to M1EYP:
We had the opportunity to stop Ofcom from going down this path
A good point apart from the fact the database was already a train-wreck when we stopped paying for a licence!
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to MM0FMF:
It’s not the online system that is a disaster.
It is an unmitigated disaster, Andy.
I try to update my registration on an annual basis. Each time I’ve tried to access the online system, I have had to give up and ring through to ask for my password to be reset. Also, after several years of online updating, one STILL cannot update club callsign details online; why not?
Many, many radio amateurs either cannot, or choose not to, use the internet. It is extremely difficult for these people to keep their details updated. I know an alternative method does exist, but it is cumbersome, poorly documented and awkward to use.
The final disaster is Ofcom’s policy failure of announcing assorted dictats
regarding holding multiple licenses and then failing to act. Ofcom’s customers
rightly can draw the conclusion that Ofcom doesn’t care and so neither should
they. That’s bad and is all down to Ofcom dithering.
Indeed! Probably attributable to the few remaining staff in the amateur radio licensing department having only a very limited understanding of the records they have to work with - and their history.
I never thought I would see the day I would say this … but it would be much better if they contracted the whole thing out to the RSGB!!!
73,
Walt (G3NYY)