DX
spots share important information about amateur radio stations such as their
callsign, operating frequency, date, time and an optional comment. This information is valuable for amateurs
chasing rare countries or operating in contests. DX Spots are shared across the various DX
clusters and any user connected to the clusters. By being connected into a DX Cluster you will
get DX spots in real-time as they are spotted.
You can also query the database for past DX spots. Note if you have user filters activated,
they will also be applied to both the real-time spots and spot queries of the
database.
Additionally,
you can add DX spots into the network.
Remember, the cluster network depends on spots, so please spot.
Please
use DX spots to spot information relating to real propagation reports of
operating stations. Questions and
comments are usually passed using the Announce function. If you do have to use a DX spot to pass a
comment, make sure its listed on a frequency on the very bottom of the band.
As
soon as you connect into a DX Cluster you will automatically start receiving DX
spots. These spots can be furthered
filtered based on individual user preferences.
The Filter section of this manual described
the various filtering options available.
If
there is room in the comment field, ARC nodes also show the country
abbreviation (CTY), for the spot. The CTY display is optional and controlled by
the following commands:
Examples:
set/nodxscty
set/dxscty
ARC
nodes also show the country(CTY) or state of the spotter at the end of the
spot. The display of the spotter’s
state or country at the end of the DX spot may cause parsing issues with certain
logging and contest programs. It can be
turned on and off with the following commands.
Examples:
set/nodxsqth
set/dxsqth
The
display of real-time DX spots can be controlled with the following commands.
Examples:
set/nodx_announcements
set/dx_announcements
You
may also wish to check on spots posted in the past. The general command to do this is SHOW/DX. Without any other arguments, this command
will output the last few spots posted.
Example:
show/dx
If
you want to see more spots than this you can also add an optional number to the
end of the command as in SHOW/DX/nn. This will allow you to look at the last 20 or
30 spots.
Examples:
show/dx/20
show/dx/30
You can filter the displayed spots by band by
adding a band in either wavelength or frequency.
Examples
show/dx 14 OR show/dx 20show/dx/20 21 OR show/dx/10 15show/dx/20 28 OR show/dx/20 10
It is also possible to check for certain spotted
callsigns.
Examples:
show/dx v73aqshow/dx/10 k5k
It is also possible to check for spots in a
particular country. The “*” character at
the end of the command tells ARC to display all spots from the country
extracted from the callsign. To show all
spots from the
Examples:
show/dx v73*show/dx/20 V73AQ*
You can also check for DX spots across a specified
frequency range.
Examples:
show/dx 21000-21050show/dx 80 (3490 <> 3600)
show/dx 75 (3600 <> 4010)
show/dx 3 (3490 <> 4010)
You can also check for DX spots by a specific band
and callsign.
Examples:
show/dx 12 vk0hi You can also check for DX spots by a specific band
and country.
Examples:
show/dx 12 vk*
If you logged off the cluster for a few minutes and
then got back on, the SHOW/DX MISSED command can be used to display a
list of spots since your last logout.
Examples:
show/dx missed
The SHOW/ZONE command can be used to display
a list of spots in a particular CQ Zone.
Examples:
show/zone 18
The SHOW/ITU command can be used to display
a list of spots in a particular ITU Zone.
Examples:
show/itu 32 The SHOW/DX STATS command will display a
list of the DX spot totals for selected intervals from the last hour to the last
month.
Examples:
show/dx
stats
The SHOW/VLF command can be used to display
a list of VLF spots.
Examples:
show/vlf The SHOW/IOTA command can be used to display
a list of IOTA spots.
Examples:
show/iota
The SHOW/4MTR command can be used to display
a list of 4 meter spots.
Examples:
show/4mtr
The DX spot format varies based on the spot being a
real-time spot or a queried spot with e SH/DX command. This feature is by design and allows you to
tell the new real-time spots from older spots you just queried.
The SH/FDX (Formatted DX) command can be
user to replace the SH/DX command and the output will be in the
real-time format. This is useful if you
want to input queried spots into a contest program that only processes spots in
the real-time format.
Examples:
show/fdx/20
show/fdx/30 v73aq
The SH/FZONE and SH/FITU can be used to display CQ zone and ITU zone
spots in the real-time format.
Examples:
show/fzone 18
show/fitu 32
AR-Cluster also allows the user to program his own
DX spot queries using SQL. SQL queries
are very powerful and allow you to build custom commands to query the DX spot
database. With some simple examples, is
not too hard to pick up some SQL basics.
The SH/DX query commands can be ran against any of the fields in the DX
spot database. Note, DTS is
date-time–stamp.
Examples:
sh/dx/10 where dx = 'XZ0A'
sh/dx/50 where freq > 50000.0 and freq < 54000.0
sh/dx/50 where cty = 'V7'
sh/dx/50 where spotter = 'N5CQ'
sh/dx/50 where FromNode = 'WU3V'
sh/dx/50 where CqZone = '23'
sh/dx/50 where ItuZone = '64'
sh/dx/50 where Bnd = '12'
sh/dx/50 where Mode = 'CW'
sh/dx/50 where SpotterCty = 'VE'
sh/dx/25 where SpotterSubCty = 'TX'
sh/dx/30 where Comment = 'RTTY'
sh/dx/50 where DTS > #2/1/00# AND DTS < #5/1/00#
sh/dx/50 where DTS > #2/1/02
11:00am# AND DTS < #2/1/02 12:00pm#
You can also use the LIKE operator and the
wildcard character "%" to do partial matches. To show spots with the word "QSL"
anywhere in the comment field use the following example.
Example:
sh/dx/50 where comment LIKE '%QSL%'
You can use the SQL ORDER BY operator to
order the spots by date and time.
Normally you would not specify an ORDER BY operator since, you want to
see the most recent spots shown first.
If you want to see older spots, you can use the ORDER BY ASC operator.
Example:
sh/dx/30 where DX = 'XZ0A' ORDER BY DTS ASC
Compound SQL queries can be generated by combining
two or more operations into one query.
Examples:
sh/dx/50 where Mode = 'CW' AND Bnd = '10' AND spotter = 'N5CQ'
sh/dx/50 where dx = 'FO0AAA' AND DTS > #2/1/00# AND DTS <
#5/1/00#
sh/dx/50 where dx = 'FO0AAA' AND comment LIKE '%QSL%'
The database fields that are available for Advanced
DX Spot Queries are:
|
Dx |
Callsign of the spotted DX |
|
Cty |
Country of the spotted DX – follows ARRL.CTY file |
|
Freq |
Frequency of the spotted DX – Example 14195.0 |
|
Comment |
Comment in the spotted DX |
|
Spotter |
Callsign of the spotter |
|
FromNode |
Callsign of the spotting node |
|
DTS |
Date-Time-Stamp |
|
CqZone |
CQ zone for the spot |
|
ItuZone |
ITU zone for the spot |
|
Src |
AR-Cluster tag indicating the spot source for
spot suckers, UserSpot = 0, PC26Spot =
1, OH2AQSpot = 2, and MIRCSpot = 3 |
|
Bnd |
Band for the spot – Example 20 |
|
Mode |
Mode for the spot – Example SSB |
|
SpotterCty |
Country of the spotter – follows ARRL.CTY file |
|
SpotterSubCty |
State of the spotter – from the AR-Technology
callsign database |
|
SrcStation |
Node/Station that we received the spot from |
To post a DX spot, use the DX command. The
syntax options are shown below.
Example:
dx frequency callsign (optional comment)dx callsign frequency (optional comment) The frequency parameter can be in megahertz or
kilohertz and is the frequency that the station is operating on. The callsign is the callsign of the station
you have worked or heard. The maximum length of characters in a callsign is
twelve. The optional comment can be user
to tell the stations name, location or QSL information. Don’t worry if you forget whether the
frequency or callsign comes first, ARC will sort that out for you.
Example:
dx 14088.8 ja1bndx ja1bn 14088.8 Once posted, the DX spot will be send to all
stations in the network. It will also be
echoed back to you as a confirmation.
If you need to do a test spot from your contest
software, spot the station TE1ST. That
is a reserved call that will not be sent throughout the network. It will be echoed back to you for
confirmation.