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CW Skimmer
Has anyone tried out CW Skimmer?
This looks like a product that could really change the way contesting and DX is done. http://www.dxatlas.com/CwSkimmer/ This software can be used with a wideband SDR radio such as one of the "SoftRock kits to read a band. It can also be used with your own radio if you care to do a little surgery. It will "read" the CW signals on a band, and sift through them to find the call signs, and display the same. It probably will not appeal at all to the purists out there, but at least for myself, I find it an intriguing bit of software. - 73 de Mike N3LI - |
#2
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CW Skimmer
Michael Coslo wrote:
Has anyone tried out CW Skimmer? I have to admit that I checked the calendar to be sure it wasn't April after reading about this. I did a little searching on the web and found the same sales pitch repeated several times. I did find an article by Pete Smith N4ZR at http://www.pvrc.org/~n4zr/Articles/Skimmer.pdf that had some real-world data. My question, based on limited experience with the ability of computers to copy CW in less-than-ideal conditions, is how many of the signals on a crowded contest band it would actually be able to successfully decode. Maybe this technology has made great leaps forward since I last tried to use it, but I just can't see it being effective enough to dig the signals out of the QRM and parse out the callsign. I didn't find any actual use in a contest, so such real-world experience would be most interesting. 73, Steve KB9X |
#3
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CW Skimmer
Steve Bonine wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote: Has anyone tried out CW Skimmer? I have to admit that I checked the calendar to be sure it wasn't April after reading about this. I did a little searching on the web and found the same sales pitch repeated several times. I did find an article by Pete Smith N4ZR at http://www.pvrc.org/~n4zr/Articles/Skimmer.pdf that had some real-world data. My question, based on limited experience with the ability of computers to copy CW in less-than-ideal conditions, is how many of the signals on a crowded contest band it would actually be able to successfully decode. Maybe this technology has made great leaps forward since I last tried to use it, but I just can't see it being effective enough to dig the signals out of the QRM and parse out the callsign. I didn't find any actual use in a contest, so such real-world experience would be most interesting. Hi Steve, I've been experimenting with some of the CW reading and sending software. due to my hearing issues. Background is that I have profound tinnitus, don't hear much of anything over 2KHz, and weirdly enough, my brain processes all sounds with equal weight. Noise is given equal importance to what I actually want to listen to. So I can work CW if condx are perfect, but most of the time I don't do very well. Enough of my whining... There is a new engine out there, of which I think Skimmer is using. I have another program called MRP (something)that looks very similar. It works very well indeed. It has that visual dot/dash display on a horizontal waterfall, (also a big help) and the interesting thing is that it seems to be doing something where it "looks behind" and will sometimes correct itself as it goes along. I think that the software is operating more akin to how humans decipher Morse. - 73 de Mike N3LI - |
#4
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CW Skimmer
Michael Coslo posted on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:28:37 EST:
Steve Bonine wrote: I didn't find any actual use in a contest, so such real-world experience would be most interesting. There is a new engine out there, of which I think Skimmer is using. I have another program called MRP (something)that looks very similar. It works very well indeed. It has that visual dot/dash display on a horizontal waterfall, (also a big help) and the interesting thing is that it seems to be doing something where it "looks behind" and will sometimes correct itself as it goes along. I think that the software is operating more akin to how humans decipher Morse. Well, I'm not going to re-interpret how the human brain works, but I think the operative phrase is "adaptive re-programming" (more or less). Some of that "adaptive" stuff has been operating in sonar electronics for over two decades. Sonar apparently used the first "waterfall" displays to interpret sounds under water...in order to separate 'fish from foul' (so to speak) of all those low frequency sounds. I look at this new product as a very nice peripheral to interpret on-off keying for those of us who don't really care to bother with audible on-off keying communications. Since my human brain is highly adaptive to visual input, I think of it as a good adjunct to 'see' what PARTS of the [HF] ham bands are doing. Also, radio contesting has no personal interest to me so my interest would only be in 'reading the mail' to find out what is going on in the low ends of the HF ham bands. I have a fondness for electronics aids to human senses and appreciate my Icom 746's audio filtering. The old BFO in superhets might be the very first 'aid' to hearing on-off keying signals...compared to the hiss and noise from old crystal sets! The 746Pro also includes a little 5-level ('Baudot') teleprinter reader, apparently included as an afterthought in Icom's control system. A single line tiny display, it isn't much, but their internal control micros probably had enough program code space to include it. Too bad (for me) that Icom didn't also add the 8-bit ASCII TTY decoder. :-) Personally, I LIKE to see these new aids to anything. About 35 years ago I got to use the equivalent of VNAs for RF measurement (HP Network Analyzer using an ancient HP 16-bit minicomputer) at work and thought it a FANTASTIC improvement over the grunge-work manual measurement on RF. Now I can get (if I want) reasonably-low-priced VNAs (with precise frequency control) from two amateur radio companies and Antenna Analyzers (with internal VNA) from at least six others. Antenna Analyzers beat the heck out of using a Noise Bridge and a scientific calculator to interpret the Bridge reads into meaningful complex quantities. :-) 73, Len AF6AY |
#5
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CW Skimmer
On Feb 16, 4:55 pm, AF6AY wrote:
The 746Pro also includes a little 5-level ('Baudot') teleprinter reader, apparently included as an afterthought in Icom's control system. A single line tiny display, it isn't much, but their internal control micros probably had enough program code space to include it. Too bad (for me) that Icom didn't also add the 8-bit ASCII TTY decoder. :-) at the risk of an OT digression who does this work, that is do you have an opion on how well the machine does as this sounds neat to me |
#6
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CW Skimmer
On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:39:13 -0500, Steve Bonine wrote:
My question, based on limited experience with the ability of computers to copy CW in less-than-ideal conditions, is how many of the signals on a crowded contest band it would actually be able to successfully decode. Maybe this technology has made great leaps forward since I last tried to use it, but I just can't see it being effective enough to dig the signals out of the QRM and parse out the callsign. I didn't find any actual use in a contest, so such real-world experience would be most interesting. W4LT tested it last night on 40 meters. After the contest is over I'll see if I can find & excerpt his post. He seemed fairly impressed. I wonder to what degree the improvement in Morse sending has made this kind of project more effective? The quality of transmitted Morse (in terms of spacing & element lengths being correct - and in terms of fewer errors) has improved considerably since I got my license in 1973. |
#7
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CW Skimmer
Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:39:13 -0500, Steve Bonine wrote: My question, based on limited experience with the ability of computers to copy CW in less-than-ideal conditions, is how many of the signals on a crowded contest band it would actually be able to successfully decode. Maybe this technology has made great leaps forward since I last tried to use it, but I just can't see it being effective enough to dig the signals out of the QRM and parse out the callsign. I didn't find any actual use in a contest, so such real-world experience would be most interesting. W4LT tested it last night on 40 meters. After the contest is over I'll see if I can find & excerpt his post. He seemed fairly impressed. I wonder to what degree the improvement in Morse sending has made this kind of project more effective? The quality of transmitted Morse (in terms of spacing & element lengths being correct - and in terms of fewer errors) has improved considerably since I got my license in 1973. Certainly the ascendancy of keyers has helped, but even then, older software had some issues with noise, signal level, and adjacent signals. I'm a real dilletente on the subject, but I think that the older versions of CW decoding software relied heavily on timing to try to emulate the human brain's decoding of Morse. Trouble is, I don't think our brains work that way, because humans can decode some Morse that is sent pretty badly. But the old software could have big problems when the sender didn't use the proper space timing, or when the dashes or dots were significantly long or short. The human just adapted in real time. I think that is what the new software is starting to tackle. - 73 de Mike N3LI - |
#8
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CW Skimmer
On Feb 18, 11:41 am, Michael Coslo wrote:
Doug Smith W9WI wrote: I wonder to what degree the improvement in Morse sending has made this kind of project more effective? The quality of transmitted Morse (in terms of spacing & element lengths being correct - and in terms of fewer errors) has improved considerably since I got my license in 1973. Certainly the ascendancy of keyers has helped, but even then, older software had some issues with noise, signal level, and adjacent signals. I'm a real dilletente on the subject, but I think that the older versions of CW decoding software relied heavily on timing to try to emulate the human brain's decoding of Morse. Trouble is, I don't think our brains work that way, because humans can decode some Morse that is sent pretty badly. But the old software could have big problems when the sender didn't use the proper space timing, or when the dashes or dots were significantly long or short. The human just adapted in real time. I think that is what the new software is starting to tackle. Available softwares for such time-related, adaptive programming have been aided by technology such as flash memory and larger memories in microprocessors (as stand-alone decoders). Adaptive programming has been known in computer programming for at least 50 years but hasn't had a resurgence until about a decade ago. The main thing about its 'non-use' for morse code is that there really isn't a big market for it outside of amateur radio. Elsewhere there is the speech decoder used with a very few telephone menu robots that can recognize numbers and certain letters or words. A bundle with my WordPerfect 8 upgrade word processor (slightly over 8 years old now) was 'Dragon Naturally Speaking' which would process word sounds and convert them to text. 'Naturally Speaking' would 'learn' the sound patterns associated with a particular voice (repetition required to have the adaptive programming do the 'learning'), then go to a look-up table in memory and do the conversion into speech. Outside of trying out, I found that my faster typing skills (learned over six decades) would serve me better...the little free microphone was useful for other things...:-) Adaptive programming is found in some higher-level visual graphics processors used in motion picture and television production around this corner of the USA. Those allow 'in-between' frame merging of movements similar to what was done in cartoon animation in the early 1930s. [lower-rank animators were assigned the tasks of making the 'in-between' drawings of major animator's drawings for the final inking and painting, hence the name 'in-betweeners'] There has been a MAJOR field of work in motion graphics software in the last couple of decades, but that is a niche activity, although a much more profitable one. The little credit-card-sized MFJ 'morse reader' is more of a toy since it has rather simplistic adaptive programming ('learning' involved only in setting the approximate rate of words sensed) but is somewhat successful in that. More advanced adaptive programming would require more memory and processing of relative space-dot-dash sensing on-the-fly to determine the 'bad fists' of certain morse senders. As of the end of 2007, Microchip has brought out several newer microcontroller models with much more memory and faster operating clock speeds for those wanting to experiment with useful adaptations. It is less of a 'softwares' comparison of 'old' v. 'new' but rather an intellectual experimentation project of applying adapative programming methods to such 'learned human' activities. It is probably NOT 'the way the brain works' (nobody is really certain of that anyway) but that is irrelevant in the task of determining the time-related sound patterns of on-off keying beeps and translating that back to some form of text that anyone (who knows the western alphabet) can read. It is an eminently POSSIBLE thing to do and I'm glad that some are willing to tackle the task. 73, Len AF6AY |
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