Discarding Incoming Spots by Band, Mode Family, Spotting Station Location, or Spotted Station Location

SpotCollector Online Help Contents

 

The checkboxes and selectors on SpotCollector's Pre-filtering window control its ability to discard certain incoming spots without adding them to its Spot Database. This can be used to eliminate CPU time and memory consumed when processing spots of active stations in which you have no interest, e.g. on a band for which you have no antenna, or using a mode family that you do not employ. Pre-filtering can be helpful in reducing the computational load from high-volume spot sources - like DX Cluster configured to convey spots from RBN Skimmers. However, Spot Database Entries populated by spots of nearby active stations not needed for awards can be used to identity propagation openings with stations with whom a confirmed QSO would advance your award progress; thus pre-filtering should be used carefully, and often episodically.

Spotting Station suffixes

Spots submitted by the DX Summit web cluster have -@ appended to the callsigns of spotting stations.

Spots submitted by an RBN Skimmer have -# appended to the callsigns of the spotting stations.

You can configure SpotCollector's Pre-filtering window to

  1. discard spots submitted from the DX Summit web cluster

  2. discard spots submitted from an RBN Skimmer

  3. only pre-filter spots submitted from an RBN Skimmer

Note that #2 and #3 are mutually exclusive.

Pre-filtering settings

Enable when checked, the "discard" options are active; when not checked, no incoming spots are discarded, no matter how the "discard" options are set
Pre-filter Skimmer spots only when checked, settings in the "Discard incoming spots ..." panels only apply to spots submitted by stations whose callsigns end in -#; this suffix is used to identify spots submitted by an RBN Skimmer
Discard incoming spots of NCDXF beacons when checked, NCDXF beacons spotted within 200 Hz of an NCDXF beacon frequency are discarded
Discard Skimmer spots when checked, spots submitted by stations whose callsigns end in -# are discarded; this suffix is used to identify spots submitted by an RBN Skimmer
Discard DX Summit spots when checked, spots submitted by stations whose callsigns end in -@ are discarded; this suffix is used to identify spots submitted from the DX Summit web cluster
Discard incoming spots on selected band panel checking a band's box in this panel will cause spots on that band to be discarded
Discard incoming spot in selected mode families panel checking a mode family's in this panel will cause spots in that mode family to be discarded
Discard incoming spots from stations in selected continents panel checking a continent's box in this panel will cause spots submitted by a station on that continent to be discarded
Discard incoming spots of stations in selected continents panel checking a continent's box in this panel will cause spots of stations on that continent to be discarded
Discard incoming spots of stations in selected DXCC entities panel setting one of this panel's selectors to a DXCC entity's prefix will cause spots of stations in that entity to be discarded; clicking the Clear button beneath a selector clear's that selector

 

Mode families

Family

Members

SSB

SSB

AM

AM

FM

FM

CW

CW, CCW

SSTV

SSTV

RTTY

RTTY, RTTYM

PSK

PSK, PSK10, PSK31, PSK63, PSK63F, PSK125, PSK220F, PSK250, PSKAM10, PSKAM31, PSKAM50, PSKFEC31, PSKHELL, QPSK, QPSK31, QPSK63, QPSK125, QPSK250

FT4

FT4

FT8

FT8

JTx

JT44, JT4A, JT4B, JT4C, JT4D, JT4E, JT4F, JT4G, JT6M, JT65, JT65A, JT65B, JT65C, JT9

Other Digital

ALE, AMTOR, AMTORFEC, ASC, ASCII, ATV, CHIP, CHIP64, CHIP128, CLO, CLOVER, CONTESTI, CONTESTIA, DOMINO, DOMINOEX, DOMINOF, FAX, FELDHELL, FMHELL, FSK31, FM441, GTOR, HELL, HELL80, HELLSCHREIBER, HFSK, ISCAT, JS8, MFSK, MFSK8, MFSK16, MFSK144, MT63, OLIVIA, PAC, PAC2, PAC3, PACKET, PACTOR, PACTOR2, PACTOR3, PAX, PAX2, PKT, Q15, QRA64, QRA64A, QRA64B, QRA64C, QRA64D, QRA64E, ROS, SITOR, THOR, THRB, THROB, THROBX, TOR, VOI, WINMOR, WSPR

 

Continents

Origin Geographic Location
  NA-E the North American east coast
  NA-M the North American mid-west
  NA-W the North American west coast
  SA South America
  EU Europe
  AF Africa
  AS Asia
  OC Oceania
? unknown

 

Spots of Stations for which an Override is Defined

With Pre-filtering of any DXCC entities or continents enabled, each incoming spot is checked for the presence of an override. If an override is found for a spotted callsign, the spot is pre-filtered or not as a function of the DXCC entity and continent specified in the override. If the override specifies a continent of NA, the spot will only be discarded if the NA-E, NA-M, and NA-W boxes are all three checked in the Discard incoming spots of stations in selected continents panel.

 

Determining if Pre-filtering is Enabled and Active

If in SpotCollector's Pre-filtering window, the Enable box is checked, and pre-filtering governed by at least one checkbox or selector is enabled, then

 

Displaying SpotCollector's Pre-filtering window

SpotCollector's Pre-filtering window can be displayed by