RTTY Skimmer Server
Contents
1. Hermes Vasiliy K3IT Angelia Griffin Metis N1GP RTL dongle Afedri HermesIntf 3 Skimmer Listener 4 USRP Petr OLSQ SDR Bridge 5 Flex 6000 series Ed W2RF The third party driver DLL s should be placed in the program folder where RTTY Skimmer Server is installed The program loads all of the DLL s on startup Use the SKIMMER SDR command as described in the Configuration Files section to get a list of loaded drivers INSTALLATION AND UNINSTALLATION To install RTTY Skimmer Server run Setup exe in the download and follow the on screen instructions Accept the default directory and other settings when asked To uninstall the program open Control Panel click on Programs and Features Windows 7 right click on RTTY Skimmer Server and click on Uninstall USER INTERFACE Since RTTY Skimmer Server is a server it has only the minimum user interface required for its operation Normally the only visible indicator of RTTY Skimmer Server running on your system is a rectangular yellow icon in the System Tray as shown on the picture below Click on the icon to open the Status Window If you see either a yellow or red marking in a lower corner of the icon there is an error of some sort which must be corrected gt Bw 4 Fig 1 The icon in the System Tray Status Window The Status Window has four panels that show the status of the built in Telnet server and SDR radio system resources and signal dec2. The port can be set to anything above port 1000 so long as it does not conflict with ports in use by other programs In general entering 0 in the case of a yes no setting means no In this example no password is required for access to the Telnet server although it will always ask for the callsign of the user who connects to it If you want to password protect the server change PasswordRequired to 1 and enter the password at Password The CqOnly setting determines whether RTTY Skimmer Server will spot all RTTY stations it decodes or only those determined to be CQ ing The AllowAnn and AnnUserOnly settings permit you to decide if anyone can send SKIMMER commands to your RTTY Skimmer Server and if so who AllowAnn 0 allows anyone who can connect to send those commands while 1 requires you to enter a callsign in AnnUserOnly and only someone logged on with that callsign can command the server The Validation Level is a term familiar to CW Skimmer 7 and Skimmer Server 8 users The settings are 0 Minimal 1 Normal 2 Aggressive 3 Paranoid 11 The higher the value the more rigorous the filter that determines what is accepted for posting by Telnet and the fewer spots that are generated Currently the RBN recommends a value of 1 Skimmer Contest DX This first setting tells the program which set of contest parameters it should use when interpreting the decoded messages These ar
3. After a separator the relative frequency of coccurrence of that phrase is denoted by a decimal percentage e g 0 4 means 40 percent The total of the values of all CQ keywords should add up to 1 0 The best way to determine these probabilities is to copy 100 stations in the contest and count the number of each format but if you don t have the opportunity to do that you can make an educated guess The lines starting with Exchange describe the format of the expected exchanges 14 The specified exchange for JARTS is to include RST and the callsign holder s age and so these are described as Exchangel 599 nn lt nn gt 0 95 Exchange2 5NN nn lt nn gt 0 05 The exchange formats are specified using the following notation a b either a or b optional lt gt one or more occurrences separator space dash or comma n digit letter Again every pattern must be followed by its relative frequency of occurrence between 0 and 1 separated with l 15 TELNET COMMANDS There are only a few Telnet commands that are recognized by RTTY Skimmer Server They are e SH DX displays recently posted spots e SKIMMER SETT displays the bands currently being decoded by RTTY Skimmer Server and some other settings e SKIMMER SDR displays the list of SDR radios whose drivers are available to the program The driver with the asterisk is the one currently configured in RttySkimServ
4. ini any others can be selected by changing the DeviceName entry above SKIMMER RESTART reloads the RttySkimServ ini and Contests ini files and restarts decoding with the new settings This command can have an optional argument that specifies the location of the ini file to be loaded For example Skimmer RESTART C another ini would find an ini file in the root of your C drive when the command is sent via Telnet 16 OTHER FEATURES Additional Filtering Options RTTY Skimmer Server comes with a copy of the Master dta file located in appdata Afreet Reference this file is used to determine the plausibility of the callsigns decoded by the program The latest version of Master dta is available at the Super Check Partial web site 9 and you should plan on keeping up to date You may discover a need to be sure you do not spot certain callsigns For example if high RF levels from your own transmitter cause erroneous spotting of variations on your callsign you may want to blacklist them To implement blacklisting use Notepad to add the callsigns one per line to the text file titled Black Ist located in appdata Afreet Reference You may also want to make sure that you get the quickest possible spots of certain calls such as DXpeditions To do this use Notepad to add those callsigns to the Watch Ist file located in appdata Afreet UserData This will give the listed calls higher priority requiring fewer rep
5. is full that is when more signals are being presented for decoding than it can handle given your computer s CPU capacity In that situation the program automatically and randomly reduces the number of signals being decoded until CPU use returns within normal limits In addition to the messages in the status panels some extra detail is available on the mouse over hints If you place your mouse cursor over the Telnet panel you 1l see on the mouse over hint information about any connected Telnet clients If the mouse cursor is over the Signals panel you ll see a band by band breakdown of the number of signals being decoded The Edit Settings button allows you to open the RttySkimServ ini file see Configuration Files below in your default text editor Once the editor is closed the server automatically restarts with the new settings Clicking on the red x button in Status Window closes the window but does not stop RTTY SkimServer To stop the program click on the Terminate Program button or right click on the icon in the System Tray and click on Exit in the pop up menu Band Scope iftieg SE le 21100 Click on the BandScope button and you will be shown a spectrum of the covered portion of each band you are receiving The RTTY segments set in your ini file as explained below are shown in light green as above 21080 21100 KHz in this example Click the up and down buttons next to the RX legend to ste
6. 00 28100000 50250000 54000000 contest RttySegments 1800000 1820000 3550000 3600000 7020000 710 0000 10130000 10150000 14060000 14140000 18100000 1811500 0 21060000 21150000 24910000 24930000 28060000 28150000 5 0250000 54000000 13 Contests ini This file is also located in appdata Afreet Products RttySkim Serv Its contents define the CQ synonyms and exchange patterns that are likely to be encountered in a number of different contests Upon installation Contests ini file contains definitions for a number of RTTY contests plus the DX entry that should be used outside of any contests You can add definitions for other contests to this file using Notepad and following the instructions below Just be sure to make a backup copy before you begin The profile of each contest has two portions the first that describes the CQ equivalents and the second that describes the exchange For example here is the profile for the Japanese RTTY contest JARTS CQ1 CQ 0 4 CO2 TEST O 4 CQ3 QRZ 0 1 CQ4 JARTS 0 1 Exchangel 599 nn lt nn gt 0 95 Exchange2 5NN nn lt nn gt 0 05 The title is enclosed in square brackets and to use this profile the title must be entered without the brackets in the RttySkimserv ini file as Contest JARTS The next four lines describe how operators may be expected to solicit callers Each of these lines must start with CQ and have a unique name Next in the line is a keyword
7. 011010101 You need to tell the program which band segments to use out of those that are defined above You need to count left to right in the CenterFreqs table for the bandwidth you are using and accept or reject segments using O for reject and 1 for accept In the example above using 48KHz bandwidth the receiver will listen on 80 meters the upper 40 meter segment 20 meters 15 meters and 10 meters Using 192 KHz bandwidth the example above would listen on 80 meters 40 meters 20 meters 15 meters and 10 meters At most you can have a maximum of 7 segments selected at one time depending on your receiver and your computer s capability The next section tells the program which frequency segments may contain RTTY signals and instructs it to attempt to decode anything it finds there This helps to decrease the computational load by limiting the number of CW and other digital modes that the software attempts to decode as RTTY signals Because frequency usage varies between normal and contest situations there are two different sets of frequencies The line that is not in use at any given time should be disabled by placing the comment symbol in the first position The example below shows RTTYSegments set up for normal non contest operation normal RttySegments 1800000 1820000 3583000 3600000 7025000 7050 000 7080000 7100000 10130000 10150000 14080000 14100000 1 8100000 18110000 21080000 21100000 24910000 24930000 2808 00
8. RTTY Skimmer Server v 1 0 User s Manual http www dxatlas com RttySkimServ Copyright O 2014 Afreet Software Inc CONTENTS CONTENTS iia As 2 OVERVIEW creiran o E AA Oe 3 Computer i 4 Operas y oe aos 4 RRC A Seah bua east E E a E enna eas Aeneas 4 USER INTERFACE e a e o e 7 STATUS WINdOW irritan bea caia 7 ES ANNE COIS EAE EAEE A E E T 8 CONFIGURATION FILES tig 10 RUY SOS EVI A A A A A AA A A e 10 Contests lc a 14 TELNE FCOMMANDS Su ai cs 16 OTHER FEATURES al 17 Additional Filtering Options ds 17 Additional Piles seseina ii 18 TROUBLESHOOTING a Oe a ds a 19 REFERENCES said 20 OVERVIEW RTTY Skimmer Server is a Windows program that decodes large numbers of RTTY signals on multiple HF bands simultaneously The callsigns frequencies and signal strength of the decoded stations are available as DX spots on the built in Telnet cluster server These spots may be fed to other software such as contest or general purpose logging programs or posted to the Reverse Beacon Network 6 using the RBN Aggregator software RTTY Skimmer Server spots the stations received using your own radio Cluster spots may not be workable skimmer spots should be Another important advantage of RTTY Skimmer Server is that it spots all stations that it can decode while the stations spotted manually on a DX cluster are only those that someone considered worth spotting The appearance of stations on the air is typically reported before a traditio
9. e contained in the Contests ini file see below For general non contest use you should set Contest DX The next section gets to the heart of RTTY SkimServer s operation by specifying what bands it covers and which frequencies it decodes The settings in the next group are labeled by bandwidth Which one the program uses depends on whether the bandwidth is 48 96 or 192KHz For the narrower bandwidths there are multiple center frequencies for some bands where full coverage of RTTY frequencies is not possible with a single center frequency You will note that each center frequency is a little less than half the bandwidth above the bottom edge of the band This is technically necessary because the real decodable bandwidth of each possible choice is actually a little less than the full 48 96 or 192 KHz As a general proposition you should leave these frequencies as provided in the default ini file They are expressed in Hz CenterFregqs48 1822750 3605750 7047750 7102750 10152750 14 102750 18122750 21102750 24932750 28102750 50272750 50322 750 CenterFreqs 96 1822750 3575000 7065000 10175500 14105000 1 8145500 21105000 24955500 28105000 50295500 50345500 CenterFreqs192 1822750 3575000 7065000 10175500 14105000 18145500 21105000 24955500 28105000 50295500 50345500 The next piece is a little tricky SegmentSe148 0101010101 SegmentSel96 011010101 12 SegmentSel192
10. er Super Check Partial web site http www supercheckpartial com CeO Oe YRS 20
11. etitions before they are spotted for a given validation level 17 Additional Files TelnetSrv log This file found in appdata Afreet Products RttySkimServ logs events involving the built in Telnet server It can be useful for debugging problems with Telnet connections Spots txt This file found in the same location is a running record of all spots made by RTTY Skimmer Server 18 TROUBLESHOOTING Assuming that your receiver is operating normally with CW Skimmer Server 8 or another SDR program almost all problems result from the errors in the RttySkimServ ini file Whenever you make any changes in the ini file your fist step should be to make a copy of your existing ini file and store 1t somewhere safe just in case Double check your settings particularly in the Rate and CenterFreqs sections Even a punctuation mistake or an extra digit in one of the frequencies can cause an error Make sure you have specified a Rate and that it is either 0 1 or 2 19 REFERENCES Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 _ http en wikipedia org wik1 SSE3 Quick Silver QS1R Receiver http www srl llc com HermesIntf http sourceforge net projects hermesintf files CW Skimmer Listener http 015q nagano cz soft php page Software SDR Bridge _ http www qrv com sdrbridge htm Reverse Beacon Network http www reversebeacon net main php CW Skimmer _http dxatlas com CwSkimmer CW Skimmer Server http dxatlas com SkimServ
12. nal DX spot is made by a human operator SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Computer RTTY Skimmer Server is designed to simultaneously decode hundreds of RTTY signals This is a CPU intensive task that requires a fast computer The faster your machine the more RTTY signals will be decoded in parallel and the wider the bandwidths that can be covered On a Core 17 system RTTY Skimmer Server can run 400 500 decoders at the same time on 7 x 192 kHz bands Reducing the per band bandwidth or the number of bands covered or both can help manage CPU usage The SSE3 1 command set must be supported by the CPU This command set was introduced 10 years ago in Pentium 4 and now virtually all computers have it Systems that do not support SSE3 are not fast enough to run RTTY Skimmer Server anyway At least 8 GB RAM is recommended RTTY Skimmer Server consumes about 1Gb the rest is required for the operating system and other applications Operating System RTTY Skimmer Server was designed to work on Windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit It has been tested on Windows 8 and 8 1 machines without incident but this performance cannot be guaranteed SDR Receiver QSIR 2 is the only radio directly supported by RTTY Skimmer Server It offers the capability of monitoring up to 7 bands at up to 192 KHz per band Some other radios are supported via 3 rd party drivers At the time of this writing the following drivers were available Driver Supported Radios Author
13. oding statistics ST RTTY Skimmer Server 1 0 Unregistered copy 29 days left m Edit Settings E Available Resources Band Scope gt The four panels each show the status of an important part of the program The Telnet panel tells you on what port the Telnet server is listening and how many users are connected The SDR Receiver panel tells you the state of the connection between the program and the radio the number of bands and the bandwidth per band Yellow type means that the program is in the process of connecting to the radio while red type means that there is something preventing connection to the radio In the latter case the panel displays the error message returned by receiver s driver In most cases these are caused by some problem with the hardware such as a firmware load from a previous use This can be remedied by briefly interrupting power to the receiver After power is resumed RTTY Skimmer Server will reload the correct firmware In the CPU panel yellow means the CPU load is over 70 percent while red means it is over 90 percent In the Telnet panel red means that there is something wrong in your Telnet settings In most cases a red message appears because the specified TCP port number is already in use by some other program Yellow in the Channel Info panel means that throttling is in effect This warrants explanation Throttling occurs whenever the program s input buffer
14. p up and down through the covered bands Band 0 is the lowest frequency band covered A yellow dot represents a signal that RTTY Skimmer Server has detected but whose callsign is not yet known These may not be RTTY signals at all A green dot represents an RTTY station whose callsign has been decoded Such stations may be CQ ing calling someone or in a QSO Depending on the validation setting and whether the program is set only to spot CQ ing stations some of these stations may not be spotted About Dialog This dialog opens when you click on the button in the Status window It displays the program version web site address author s contact information and has the Register button that allows you to enter your shareware registration key 1f you decide to keep the program after the free trial period CONFIGURATION FILES RttySkimServ ini RTTY Skimmer Server s configuration is controlled by the contents of the RttySkimServ ini file To find this file click on Start Windows 7 and enter the following in the search box appdata Afreet Products RttySkimServ When you press Enter Windows automatically replaces appdata with the path to the application data folder If RTTY Skimmer Server is running you can also edit the ini file and automatically restart the program by clicking the Edit Settings button Here is a section by section breakdown In each of the examples that follow the values shown are those provided by the au
15. thor when the program is first installed A semi colon at the beginning of a line means that the line is a comment or label and is ignored by the program User Call NONE Name Unknown OTH Unknown OTH Square Unknown Gridsquare Enter your callsign name QTH in general such as state province or department and 6 character Maidenhead grid square Be sure to enter correct values in this section these data are required for correct operation of the built in Telnet server SDR DeviceName 01 QuickSilver QS1R Rate 1 FreqCalibration 1 0 If you are using a radio other than QS1R you must change the value of DeviceName and enter its name exactly as it is defined in its driver DLL To list all valid names use the SKIMMER SDR Telnet command as described in the Telnet Commands section Rate determines the bandwidth to be covered per band Enter O for 48 KHz 1 for 96 KHz and 2 for 192 KHz 10 FregCalibration is an adjustment factor to bring your SDR exactly on frequency The easiest way to do this is to watch the Reverse Beacon Network 6 for spots of a station that you also spot Divide your spot s frequency by the frequency reported by the consensus of RBN stations spotting the same callsign The result is the adjustment factor Telnet Port 7300 PasswordRequired 0 Password CqOnly 0 AllowAnn 1 AnnUserOnly 0 AnnUser ValidationLevel 1 This section determines the settings for the built in Telnet server
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