WRTC Chase Gets Added Intrigue as Single Ops Flex CW Skimmer Muscles in 2008 IARU HF Test

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted July 7, 2008

With the controversial CW Skimmer wide band decoding software okay for use by single ops in this year's IARU HF Championships, the program will get a workout in the race to qualify for the 2010 World Radiosport Championships.

"I will forgo my commentary about the appropriateness or not for using Skimmer as a SOAB unassisted entrant and use it full-bore during the contest," said Scott Robbins W4PA, who has made clear his opposition to Skimmer in the past.

"My original position on the Skimmer was 'I'm not happy about this, but I'll use it to my advantage if I need to,'" Robbins told radio-sport.net.

Robbins will be at the well-equipped station of Rick Walker K4TD in Alabama, where Walker has set up what might be a dream Skimmer station.

"In addition to all the usual gear for SO2R, Rick has a computer network set up with a bank of 6 receivers, each connected to CW Skimmers and receive antennas," said Robbins.

"Both of us are interested to see what will happen with a bunch of serious hardware going all out using the multi-Skimmer network as the primary spotting function for the second radio on CW during the IARU," Robbins added.

Robbins has only four scores so far in the WRTC qualifying process, which has him in 20th place in the NA #2 region that covers W8, W9 and part of W4. Two team leader slots are available and currently are in the hands of W9RE and K9NW.

Meanwhile, Skimmer developer Alex Shovkoplyas VE3NEA has tweaked his program to better copy callsigns during contests.

"Alex has introduced, in version 1.2, a user-selectable 4-level validation scheme, ranging from 'minimal to paranoid," says Pete Smith N4ZR, who has done extensive beta tests of the Skimmer.

"The "paranoid" level does not post a callsign unless it matches one in a master.dta file, known among contesters as Super Check Partial," said Smith.

Smith says a test showed Skimmer is not perfect, "but I think they clearly show that Skimmer is now at least comparable in accuracy to the average human op who posts spots on the DX cluster network."

As for those who want to use the Skimmer in this year's IARU contest, ARRL officials are asking for some extra data from those competitors.

"To make sure the results are generated properly, we require that all Single Operator stations using Skimmer make that statement in the Soapbox field in their Cabrillo header," says ARRL Contest Director Sean Kutzko KX9X.

"For the 2008 event, any Single Operator station that uses Skimmer (and does not use spotting assistance) will be placed in the Single-Operator category," Kutzko wrote on his ARRL Contest blog.

Kutzko though made clear that the ARRL has not decided yet how to classify use of the Skimmer by single operator entries.

"This accommodation of Skimmer technology for the 2008 IARU HF Championship does not imply in any way the permanent acceptance of Skimmer's use in Single-Operator category operation in ARRL Contests."

"I'm still not happy about the prospect of this being included in the SOAB unassisted category," said Robbins W4PA.

"But trying for a WRTC position is a bigger fish for me than worrying about the 2008 rules for CW contests and if I'm allowed to use it in IARU HF and it's available, then OK," he added.

"And besides, I'm kinda interested just to see what happens with the Skimmers.