New Features in Aggregator 2.3, now on the web site

W3OA has released Aggregator 2.3, after a series of beta tests.  It has a number of new features that will be of interest, particularly as we begin also providing digital spots from stations using DL4RCK's RCKskimmer.  The new release is now on the web site, under Downloads.

The big change in the new Aggregator is the addition of a new Combine Skimmers tab, illustrated below:





As usual with Dick's programming, the new tab is self-explanatory.  It will take a stream of combined Skimmer spots from multiple Skimmers, coming from wintelnetX or AR Cluster Serve,r and feed them to the "mother ship" under a single callsign, substituting what you fill in here for the information normally provided separately by each instance of CW Skimmer or Skimmer Server.

The other big change is that Aggregator 2.3 now supports RCKskimmer by DL4RCK for digital modes by accepting mode and speed information from it and forwarding the information to the server.  From there spots, in a new format are distributed via our two Telnet servers.  They look like this:

DX de KM3T-#:    21016.5  SM7YIN         CW    09 dB  25 WPM  CQ      1233Z
DX de EA4TX-#:   21016.6  SM7YIN         CW    22 dB  25 WPM  CQ      1233Z
DX de KQ8M-2-#:  21071.4  RA3PS          BPSK  08 dB  31 BPS  CQ      1233Z
DX de LA5EKA-#:  14028.1  OZ3NP          CW    11 dB  22 WPM  CQ      1233Z

The format is compatible with all standard DX clusters, since all of the data - from mode through CQing status - is contained in the Comment field size set by the basic spot format.

It is our intention to support any further digital Skimmers that emerge, so long as they deliver their spots by Telnet and their output conforms with that provided by CW Skimmer, Skimmer Server and RCKSkimmer.

We urge all Skimmer operators to update to Aggregator 2.3 as soon as possible.

73, The RBN Development Team