Uproar In Contest Ranks Swells On CW Skimmer; Contest Rulemaking Efforts Not Resolved

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted April 28, 2008

While the back and forth over VE3NEA's CW Skimmer crackled this week with more life than a rare DX contest pileup, there were fresh signs that contest committees of all stripes were taking note of the issue.

"I have been following the thread closely," said Andy Blank N2NT, the new director for the CQ160 contests, who is currently going through a full review of the CQ160 rules.

"And yes, skimming will be addressed," Blank told radio-sport.net, adding, "I think ARRL, CQ and others will be addressing the skimming issue sooner than later."

As Blank kept quiet on his own evaluation of the Skimmer software, so too did the Chairman of the ARRL Contest Advisory Committee.

"I don't have any news for you on that front," Dick Green WC1M told radio-sport.net about the Skimmer issue.

A few days earlier, Green had been trolling for information about the Skimmer on the CQ-Contest reflector.

"I'm not entering the debate (yet)" Green wrote, inquiring whether the Skimmer is "smart enough to distinguish between an operator who is CQing and the stations being worked?"

"No consensus has been reached on the skimmer," said ARRL Contest Branch Manager Sean Kutzko KX9X earlier this month. "Discussions are ongoing."

The CQWW Contest Committee continues its work as well, which began even before the first public post on the Skimmer in early February.

Like the ARRL review, several hams contacted by radio-sport.net who were familiar with the CQWW discussions refused to comment on the record, other than to acknowledge that the Skimmer is being reviewed in terms of rulemaking.

"The CQ Committee is definitely discussing Skimmer and other high technology approaches," said one well known contester, raising the specter that other items are being reviewed, not just use of the Skimmer during contests.

No one would provide an estimate to radio-sport.net on when new rules might be announced or what might be altered.

Meanwhile, the Skimmer was a prime topic for contesters this past weekend in the Contest Forum at the 59th Annual International DX Convention in Visalia, California.

"I believe that single-ops should be allowed to use CW Skimmer as long as it is completely local to the station, and not a remote skimmer like DXWatch," said Bob Wilson N6TV.

Wilson gave a presentation on software defined radios that touched on the Skimmer debate and has made the copies of his PowerPoint slides available for viewing.

"I don't think we need any more categories," Wilson told radio-sport.net.

"I think the categories should continue to be based on the number of people doing the operating and spotting, the power level, and the number of signals on the air."

"The opinion about the Skimmer was very ambivalent," said Eric Rosenberg W3DQ, who was also in Visalia.

Rosenberg said he agrees with those who see the Skimmer as a logical technological advance in the shack and made that point in his own comments.

"I can show up on the Skimmer all over the world, but if I can't hear you call me, so what?" said the District of Columbia ham, who gave a presentation on how city noise slows his 160 contest efforts.

Rosenberg predicted that the debate will get even more animated in coming weeks.

"Visalia is not the crowd for it," he said by phone with the din of the convention in the background, "Dayton is the crowd for it."

In the contest forum, Ward Silver N0AX professed himself to be an "agnostic" about the Skimmer software, saying the technology is here already and "you can't stop technology."

The forum discussions covered everything from just having one single operator category (with no Assisted) to a single op "Classic" category where the Skimmer would not be allowed.

As for official rulemaking on the Skimmer, nothing is cast in stone yet, though the momentum still seems to be on the side of classifying any Skimmer use by a Single Op entry as Assisted, or even Multi-op in some contests where there is no Assisted category.

That opinion is held by a number of influential contesters.

"The contest sponsors have to step up to the plate," said Jim George N3BB. "I think the CQ Committee will do the right thing. Hopefully so will the ARRL."

For those unfamiliar with the CW Skimmer software developed by Alex Shovkoplyas VE3NEA, when tied into a radio properly, the program can basically offer you a bandmap full of stations, without being connected to any packet cluster site, as it automatically decodes and identifies CW signals (see photo on the right.)

One question that many have is how complicated is the process to integrate the Skimmer into your contest setup.

"Not hard, but not trivial either," says Skimmer alpha/beta tester Pete Smith N4ZR.

"The easiest way to do it is to couple an all-band SDR (something like the SDR-IQ) to the RX antenna loop of your second radio, so that it shares whatever antenna you have on the second radio, or else connect it to a separate antenna."

"Radios like the SDR-IQ aren't cheap (~$400)" said Smith. "I am currently using a SoftRock for 20M, connected to my second radio's receive antenna. It costs $13 in kit form."

Smith says an all-band version will soon be available as well.

"My tentative plan is to use one of those, connected to a vertical receive antenna about 400 feet from my tower, and devise a way to have one-switch control of the band the SoftRock is on," Smith said.

Smith says you also need either splitters or some kind of transmission buffer to protect the Skimmer-fed radio from interference.

"The SDR-IQ feeds substantial white noise back into the radio; the SoftRock has a very loud local oscillator that is in-band. Both, particularly the SDR-IQ, seem to affect the sensitivity of the host," Smith added.

The CW Skimmer program and more can be found at VE3NEA's DX Atlas web site.