Skimmer and the K3S

[Peter W2IRT]

From: Tony Estep [via Elecraft] [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2016 12:27 AM
To: Peter W2IRT
Subject: Re: Skimmer and the K3S

 

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As many have posted here,  it's not hard to do. But even though it's easy
enough to set up and use, I didn't find it to be an enhancement to my
normal operation.

[pjd] I have finally gotten it working but it’s NOT simple and is pretty limited given my hardware.

Is it the best option? Maybe not, but it’s one more tool in my shed. Because of the limitations of LP-PAN, however, I found it pretty well useless in ARRL-CW this year and I just stuck to straight RBN spots. But with that said, I’d prefer to have a full local skimmer running to cut down on “false positives”—stuff the big RBN guys can copy but I can’t.

It's true that some find Skimmer advantageous. Bill, W4ZV is a super-op who
has posted some favorable commentary about the use of Skimmer, and some
clever ideas about how to get the most out of it.

[pjd] I look forward to reading these.

If you have a two-receiver radio and a panadaptor, you can succeed in any pileup.

[pjd] I think that fits into the YMMV category, Tony. If you can hear the guys the DX station is calling you can see who gets the 5NN and the pattern he’s working (if any) within a call or two. In a 20kHz CW pileup that can be huge—again, provided there’s prop to you and other callers as well as the DX. It helped me bag FT4JA on CW a couple of times and South Sandwich earlier this year.
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[Peter W2IRT]

From: Bill Frantz [via Elecraft] [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2016 12:53 AM
To: Peter W2IRT
Subject: Re: Skimmer and the K3S

 

Peter - Thanks for your comments. I knew that ham radio was a
very big tent, but I didn't know that building a station was a
goal in and of itself for some hams. My view of the tent has
gotten bigger.

[pjd] You’re quite correct about the big tent and yes indeed there’s a place for everybody. In my younger days I enjoyed kits to some degree but not anymore. I prefer to buy high-end gear, good antennas so on, then combine all that hardware with functional software and squeeze every scrap of performance out of my station that I can.

I’m not an emcommer at all, and I treat Field Day like any other contest (i.e. one (small) step short of a blood sport). I love CW although I’m not particularly good at it. I dislike SSB due to the lid factor and those few times I’m on digital it’s usually RTTY for HF DX or JT-65 for 6m VUCC grids or new DXCC entities. I love the thrill of the chase and running in a contest. To me, any Q longer than about 5 seconds is too long <grin>, and Rate Is King. CQWW and ARRL-DX are the highlights of my ham radio year, as are the ARRL And CQ 160m contests and DXpeditions to top-10 entities.

My K3S allows me to do *almost* anything I want, but the limitations I’ve put forth earlier in this thread are also pretty substantial and something I was hoping to overcome. My understanding is now a lot clearer, and some kind of true SDR like a QS1R or similar will need to be added to give me the true versatility I’m after. And for as much as a Flex 6700 appeals to me, I think I’m going to stick with what I have until I end up losing too many pileup battles or I find I’m at too much of a disadvantage in CQWW/ARRL-DX.

- pjd