This is almost a carbon copy of the G0HIO occurrence. I won’t go into
the explanation again as you have clearly failed to read and
understand it before.
On the contrary, Les, I understood your previous, equally patronising, posting perfectly. Evidently you did not trouble to read the other views expressed in this thread. The fact remains that Sotawatch users are now required to amend their procedures as a result of the advent of a third party application. Whether this is acceptable is a matter of opinion.
I suggest that you just ignore RBN spots altogether Walt - they’re
obviously just too technical for you!
Not too technical. Just misleading. Excellent advice, none the less.
Because that’s the summit he set in his alert!
It,s quite simple. GIGO.
The comments in his three alerts could not have been clearer.
There is actually an alert for 09:45 UTC specifying OE/DK7MG/P in OE/TI-670. This was ignored by RBNGate.
No confusion here. To me it is simple to determine whether an automated RBN spot has got it right or not. And it is also simple for me as an activator to configure my alerts to avoid possible ambiguity. It is simple for me as an activator to edit and update my alerts during a multi summit day using my Android phone if timings go awry. It is simple for me as a chaser to listen to the reference being sent by an activator.
The web facilities being provided are fantastic, and with my participant’s hat on I can only express my appreciation for them.
My original alert was to show chasers of my intention to activate 12 summits over the next 3 days
44 posts and still no one points out that my error was to omit putting RBNN somewhere in the comment field to prevent an automatic spot. This could be added as information on the alerts page where you are told the correct format for the summit and date etc.
I rarely post on here because its always hassle and never help.
44 posts and still no one points out that my error was to omit putting
RBNN somewhere in the comment field to prevent an automatic spot.
This could be added as information on the alerts page where you are
told the correct format for the summit and date etc.
Some common sense at last!
Although, arguably, it would be even better if RBNGate did not generate spots at all unless the activator has put “RBNY” in the comments field of their own alert or spot.
It will run and run and as soon as it has run its course a newb will restart it! Of course the answers to most questions will be covered in the FAQ I expect.
As the RBN seems controversial to some it might be best to have to opt in as you and others have suggested. I would prefer a more global “top level” opt in as part of the SOTAwatch user settings myself which would then allow me to choose settings for individual alerts on a case by case basis.
I’m a big RBN fan BTW but I can see why some might not want to use it.
44 posts and still no one points out that my error was to
Sorry Mike, but I don’t see you as having made any errors at all. At worst, an automated system took an alert and info from some CW skimmers and spotted you. It happened to spot you on the wrong summit for various reasons given. There are comments you can put in a spot to help this spotter but it doesn’t matter if you don’t.
It’s hardly the end of the world, someone was spotted on the wrong summit, a number of chasers will not have heard the ref and will blindly assume the spot is valid and log the wrong summit (their loss), a number of chasers will see the spot and try and work you even though they can’t hear you, some chasers will see the spot and read the alert and confirm the summit ref with you. You got chasers chasing you and so will qualify the summits you activated.
Meanwhile there’s approx 1 thread a week where an activator announces they were giving out the wrong ref, apologises and asks people to change their logs. This is hardly different apart RBNgate got it wrong.
I would suggest the latter, as it was from that angle that the complaint first arose. And the RBN will spot you on the DX Cluster even if you have opted out of RBNgate as an activator.
It strikes me that there is no great demand for opt-in from either activators or chasers, so we should stay with opt-out for both. Activators simply put the code in the comments line, while chasers notice that a spot has originated from ‘KU6J’ and ignore it/listen and verify it/blindly work it as preferred.
chasers notice that a spot has originated from ‘KU6J’
Aye, I like the RBN spots because they give me objective information about the signal from activator. Arguably, since KU6J also occasionally posts his own spots and alerts, it might be nice for the RBN spots to come from “RBN” or somesuch instead, but that’s a minor matter.
the RBN will spot you on the DX Cluster
even if you have opted out of RBNgate as an activator.
Is this true?
If so, where is it documented? I am not convinced that DX-ers worldwide will appreciate the DX Cluster network being flooded with spots of common-or-garden G, DL and OK portable stations.
the RBN will spot you on the DX Cluster
even if you have opted out of RBNgate as an activator.
Is this true?
ONLY if the DX Cluster is connected to the RBN network AND only if the user specifically requests RBN spots. By default, RBN spots don’t go out on the dx cluster.
Indeed, sorry if I gave any other impression Walt. Yes, of course, you have to configure your cluster settings to receive RBN spots. I guess the point I was making was that the automatic spots are out there, whether or not they are filtering through to SOTAwatch.
RBNGate is sometimes a mite too reluctant to acknowledge changes in summit reference; examples being M1EYP/P’s activations yesterday (mentioned in another thread, but this thread has a more appropriate subject line) and DF2GN/P’s activations today (in which Klaus self-spotted by SMS, but RBNGate didn’t take the hint).
Fri 16:26 DF2GN/P on DM/BW-015 (Posted by KU6J) 18.0941 cw
Fri 16:19 DF2GN/P +3] on DM/BW-284 (Posted by SMS) 24.955 ssb
RBNGate is sometimes a mite too reluctant to acknowledge changes in
summit reference; examples being M1EYP/P’s activations yesterday
(mentioned in another thread, but this thread has a more appropriate
subject line) and DF2GN/P’s activations today (in which Klaus
self-spotted by SMS, but RBNGate didn’t take the hint).
I wasn’t aware of this issue until I saw your post Rick, but I believe I know what went wrong: RBNGate is not always recognizing a self-spot as being a self-spot. The problem is with spots that come in via SMS and say “Posted by SMS” instead of “Posted by DF2GN”.
This used to work fine, but has apparently not been working correctly for many months. When I did my emergency v2 release to switch from reading the spots via the Twitter feed to RSS, part of my parsing code didn’t make it into the new RSS spot-reading function (the part that parses the “*Spot[DF2GN]” part of the comment to get the spotter’s callsign in such a case). I’ve re-integrated that code back into the RSS spot-reading function so things should again work properly in a few hours when I roll out the new version.
By the way, does anyone know what “(rrt)” means when it appears in the comment of a some spots that are posted via SMS?
73,
Eric KU6J
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Free SOTA Spot Monitor Software + RBNGate FAQ: http://www.ku6j.com
