Contest Filters

Whilst DX Spider does have filtering, they seem not to work all the time. I am not sure why.... so I decided to write my own.

Structure

I create a Folder(Directory) per contest, inside it there are two files

• cluster.ini
• filter.ini

Cluster.ini

Here we specify which clusters we want to connect to. This is necessary as some Ham software packages only allow you to connect to 1 cluster (yes Skoomlogger I am looking at you).

However - at the moment TLog is not using this .... but create the file any way ... this is a good example of a cluster.ini.

[General]
myip=127.0.0.1
mypassword=
myport=6060
myusername=du3tw


[clusters]
1\call=du3tw
1\filter=clear/spots all@accept on hf/cw and (on contesthf) 
1\ip=zl2arn.ddns.net
1\port=7300
1\trigger=login
2\call=du3tw
2\filter=set/skimmer@set/noft8@set/own@set/nobeacon@set/noft4@sh/dx
2\ip=dxc.ve7cc.net
2\port=23
2\trigger=login
3\call=du3tw
3\filter=clear/spots all@accept on hf/cw and (on contesthf)
3\ip=jh1rfm.ddo.jp 
3\port=7300
3\trigger=login
4\call=dv3a
4\filter=sh/dx
4\ip=127.0.0.1
4\port=7300
4\trigger=Please
size=4

We have two sections General and clusters.

General

This will be the name/ip that the Cluster Server (different program) will use .

clusters

This is list of all the DX Clusters that a telnet connection will be attempted to make. They are have 6 fields per cluster definition

• call
  • What callsign will be connect as
• filter
  • The Cluster filtering command to use.
• ip
  • The IP Address (Or DNS Name)
• port
  • Which port (usually 7300 but not always)
• trigger
  • What String - "triggers" to send our callsign to log in.

Filter

It will greatly reduce the load on your local processing if you can filter as much as possible on the incoming records.

For example - it makes NO SENSE to connect to the RBN when you are in an SSB contest - especially if there is (and there often is !!, a CW contest running at the same time).

So filter #1 - connect to a relevant DX Cluster.

Filter #2 - use a rule like accept on hf/cw and (on contesthf).

The less data that hits your filtering processor the less work you need to perform. Plus it saves on bandwidth etc...

At the bottom of the list of clusters we need to specify the size i.e. the number of records - I think this is a QT thing... not sure if it is enforced or not however.

Filters.ini

These are the rules - to accept a record.

A Dx Spot has to match one of these rules ... if it does not ... it will fail.

[filters]
1\filter="Friends"
1\calls=DU3TW,4D3X,DU3LA,G3YBO,N0QM
2\filter="Local Sensible Country"
2\bands=80,40,20,15,10
2\modes=SSB,
2\countrys=Australia,Japan,Thailand,Philippines,Indonesia,
size=2

So I have 2 rules ... .

Rule 1: I would like to see where my friends are - So as soon as 4D3X is spotted - any band, mode, etc ... pass that spot on to my contest software.

Rule 2: For a contest when HF is bad - maybe I will ignore the far away stations (there are another ways to do this also) so this rule need

• SSB (This will be calculated from the Frequency in the spot).
• The DX Callsign needs to be in one of the listed Countries

Now this could also be written as

[filters]
1\filter="Friends"
1\calls=DU3TW,4D3X,DU3LA,G3YBO,N0QM
2\filter="Local Sensible Country"
2\bands=80,40,20,15,10
2\modes=SSB,
2\distance_under=5000
size=2

Which would mean

Rule 1: I would like to see where my friends are - So as soon as 4D3X is spotted - any band, mode, etc ... pass that spot on to my contest software.

Rule 2: For a contest when HF is bad - maybe I will ignore the far away stations (there are another ways to do this also) so this rule need

• SSB (This will be calculated from the Frequency in the spot).
• The DX Country distance is under 5,000 kms from my location.

This rule would mean Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam etc - would now appear.

Could I filter per band ??

Sure that you would use a rules like this

3\filter="OC triband"
3\bands=20,15,10
3\spotterconts=OC,AS
3\modes=SSB,

Here for rule 3 (Rules 1 & 2 omitted).... I would like any DX who is in OC (Oceania), or AS (Asia), on 20,15,10m bands - who is transmitting SSB.

And rule 4 could be

4\filter="JA 40m"
4\bands=40
4\countrys=Japan,
4\modes=SSB,

Here we only want JA (Japan) on 40m SSB for some reason.

Update

Pushed to Github so that I can keep these files synched across multiple platforms.