I need to correct a spot from yesterday. If you worked me (N0DET) yesterday - Saturday - please note:
From 1549z to 1608z I was on Square Top Mtn (W0C/PR-018);
From 1835z to 1845z I was on Argentine Peak (W0C/SR-019)
All HF contacts were on 30M CW. I did not activate my 3/3 Mt. Wilcox (W0C/PR-024) on HF due to time, so it should not have spotted via the RBN, yet the spot showed up anyway. These are three high alpine summits, and as it went, my time estimation was off. Additionally, on the first summit I ended up talking to a bunch of Boy Scouts on 2 meters at a Boy Scout Camp which also contributed to putting me off schedule, hence the eventual incorrect spot by the RBN. At least maybe it sparked the interest in some of the kids to pursue this wonderful hobby.
My apologies if this screwed up anyone’s logs. Time to learn to self-spot with my Garmin InReach!
hi Dave,
sorry to say that I was not one of your contacts!
However I have learned a bit about the RBNHOLE functions and think I can help you avoid that problem in future. If possible, delete the alert for the third summit that you didn’t activate.
What happened was that RBNHOLE matched the RBN spot from your CQ on the 2nd summit, with the alert found for the same approximate time on your 3rd summit. This is why you were spotted on the 3rd summit, because the alert was still up.
Apparently RBNHOLE reloads the alerts frequently so if you delete the alert before the alert time, it is very unlikely to generate incorrect spots. There is a tolerance of up to several hours for each alert, so if you are still on summit #2 a few hours after your alert for that summit, RBNHOLE will continue to generate spots saying you are still on summit #2.
If I am doing a multi-summit day I work out the range of times for each summit that RBNHole will generate a spot. This way I can be sure that the spots will be correct. This has always worked for me but if I wasn’t confident of the timings then I would use wildcards.
By default RBNHole regards an alert as valid between 1 hour before and 3 hours after the alerted time. If two alerts are valid then it uses the one nearest in time. You can modify this in the alert comment.
Thanks for the advice, everyone - I haven’t had much trouble with a 2-summit activation, but three summits was a lot to manage time-wise. I did try to follow the -1 and +3 hour rule, but I apparently ran into my 2nd summit time ‘zone’ while still on #1, and the same happened on summit #2 (spotted on #3).
I like the idea of the wildcard - haven’t used that yet but I have seen those posted. I now see the value in that approach - thanks for the tip! That would also be handy if you change your summit destination enroute due to weather, access issues, or other circumstances.
I recently started using the wildcard method on my multiple-activation days and it is AWESOME. Better than having to find cell service somewhere to adjust S+ numbers in alerts and/or making changes due to weather/time/access.
As a chaser, I look for those on SOTAWatch3 and create spots for the activators; it makes it easier to log straight from that page and helps other chasers in the process.
