Ash, 3V/KF5EYY, who is an operator at 3V8SS and 3V8BB, put the first RBN node in North Africa on the air today (November 19), from his home. He is using an SDR-IQ receiver, CW Skimmer by VE3NEA, W3OA's SkinScan, and a simple dipole antenna. We're excited to see what he hears differently from more northerly stations, while still being close to Europe..
As many readers may be aware, for a couple of months a few of us have been testing RTTY Skimserv, a new programming effort by Alex, VE3NEA. He has evolved the callsign detection and other aspects of the program considerably, and while public release hasn't yet been scheduled, it looks to me to be ready. The prospect of adding a major new community to the RBN family is very exciting, particularly in the context of major RTTY contests.
One other key contribution deserves special mention. Petr Paryzek, software maven at OL5Q, has developed an extension of his CWSL series freeware to permit using the same QS1R receiver simultaneously with both CW Skimserv and RTTY Skimserv. Broadband simultaneous decoding of RTTY takes a substantial amount of computer power, but during ordinary (non-contest times) it should be routinely possible to run both at once, providing a big assist to RTTY DXers. See OL5Q's web site for CWSL_Tee.dll. For the moment, you'll need to ask Petr for the CWSL_SkimSrv.dll, but we're sure it will be available on the website soon. In the meantime, you can e-mail him at PetrParyzek@seznam.cz .
We're also happy that DL4RCK's pioneering RCKSkimmer will continue to be available and supported, providing BPSK spots for users of that mode to the RBN and also distributing them on his RCK - Digital-Cluster-System. The whole story is at his website
Now if only NSA would declassify their SSB Skimmer, we'd be all set!
73, Pete N4ZR
