RBN Spots ?

Activation Reports Pre-Planning
1

For clarification please ?, my understanding is if I post an Alert and the RBN picks up my CW CQ it will post a spot on Sotawatch via RBNHole, very useful if no phone coverage to self spot.

Do I have to CQ on the exact frequency I Alerted in advance, say 14.064 (which might be qrl) for this to work or will the CQ anywhere in the 14mhz range get posted ?

Declan
ei6fr

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2

No, if RBN picks you up on any band during the alert window, it will spot you…

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3

No, you will be picked up by the skimmers if you CQ somewhere in the CW part of the bands.

73 Heinz

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4

Hi Heinz,

thanks for that clarification.

Declan

5

You just need to give the band or bands for example the alerts might be 14-cw, 18-cw, 21-cw.

The automatic RBN Hole spot will show the exact frequency you transmit on.

There is a time criteria, from memory plus or minus something like 60 minutes of your alert. Outside this window you will be ignored but it is possible to change this.

6

Thanks for that, so the Alert time frame is also important ? Is there a +/- minutes on the Alert window?

Declan

7

No, any CQ on any band during the alert window will cause a spot to be generated.

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8

Yes, you can set the window by adding stuff to your alert comment. See the RBN-Hole documentation for the full information. Hint, it’s linked from many posts here on the reflector - try searching for it.

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9

Thanks everybody, have the picture now

Declan

10

There is a user guide and I can’t find the link for that now, typical.

You must place an alert on Sotawatch.

RBNhole listens to the CW Skimmer traffic. It sees all the “spots” from RBN CW Skimmers and tries to match what has just been heard via RBN with what it has seen in the Sotawatch alerts. When it finds a match, it posts the spot with the frequency the Skimmer reported.

RBNhole looks at your alert time and applies a window of -1 hour to +3 hours on that. If you alert for 1100Z then RBNhole will spot you if it sees you on RBN from 1000Z to 1400Z.

You can extend the time by putting S- or S+ and numbers in the comment. S-2 extends the window to 2 hours before the alert. S+8 extends to 8 hours after the alert time. Must be a capital S not s.

If you spot yourself then RBNhole wont spot for another 10mins. Every time something else spots you the window is reset. If you change band or move a few kHz you will be spotted by RBNhole when it hears you.

If you are doing multiple summits then you can screw up RBNhole’s view of what is happening by being on the wrong summit according to alerts. So use the wildcard feature. Place your alert for something like GM/SS-??? and extend the window to cover all activations. Then when RBNhole hears you it spots that, the chasers will ask for the ref and always one of them spots the real ref.

I do wish I could find that link but my reflector search-fu is poor today.

Oh, and nothing works if the Skimmers don’t hear you. Send good CW or it wont decode you.

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11

Awesome , thanks

Declan

12

There is the guide :nerd_face:

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13

Hi,

BTW Declan send very nice CW always :wink: :+1:

73, Éric

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14

It isn’t too fussy. It spots me.

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15

It is not always so Andy :wink:
I try to make proper space between my callsign and /P, despite on it about 60% beacons decode me as SP9MA/P, other 40% decode as SP9MAX.

73, Jarek

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16

There’s only a single inter-character space between the A and /, so 3 dits.

I noticed that hand sending CQ CQ SOTA DE MS0TA/P was not being picked up. I started using the memory keyer and it I was picked up every time. ergo my sending has become poor/sloppy because I used to picked up all the time when hand sending.

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17

I try to use hand sending so far :wink:
I treat it as exercise.

73, Jarek

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18

Thank you! Very usefull info!

73s
Ingo

19

That’s one of the main cons of using memorized messages: the hand sending gets quickly rusty.
Another problem is the operator’s attention decreases and may even start doing other things while the automatic keyer keeps sending CQ calls, thus missing or even ignoring some possible very weak incoming calls.
It’s comfortable, but there are associated risks, like driving a car using the cruise control…
73,

Guru

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20

But when I put JĂĽrgen in charge of my car, he gets significantly better mpg (l/100km) than I can. Easily 10-12% better than I achieve.

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