| KB2EOQ |
Rating:     |
2011-12-23 | |
| Performs well |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I would have given a 5 rating but I think the $75.00 is a bit high. In 2010 I used a trial version and was not too impressed. In 2011 I tried it again, the author is generous enough to allow another trial whenever a new version is released . I decided the $75.00 investment was worth it after getting to understand the software some more. The software is not really a CW decoding application. It does a fairly good job of decoding CW , but I will guess that the vast majority of users are people who are competent at CW and do not need software to decode what their ears are hearing. This application is really a super CW signal collector. When used with an SDR this software will monitor an entire band or several different bands (depending on the SDR) and rapidly display the callsigns of stations calling CQ . If you chose, it will also display anytime the letters "QRL" are heard. So, for me, the very useful function is the ability for me to have a list of lots of stations calling CQ and ALL on the list are stations MY antenna has heard. I do not need to wonder if the "spot" is from a station a few hundred miles away. All the CQs are stations my station is hearing.
The software is a little demanding on the CPU but you can throttle back on how many decoding streams are in use...if you have a slower computer. The audio drivers seem a little picky and you can get some nasty distortion if you have a slow computer, lots of decoding streams, AND want audio at same time. My laptop has a very fast CPU but even that "drags" at times.
I use the application in tandem with my Kenwood TS-2000, SDR-IQ, Microkeyer, and DX Lab Suite. When I desire, the Kenwood serves as a transmitter and is synchronized so that a click on the CW Skimmer software waterfall causes my TS-2000 to follow and be precisely on frequency.I can also feed my CW Skimmer "spots" to my Spotcolletor software and can log to DX Keeper. I have also established a way to use The SDR-IQ, TS-2000, CW Skimmer, Commander , and N1MM for contesting applications.
After a while you will find CW Skimmer works so well for CW rag chews, CW DXing or CW contesting, that you begin to wish CW Skimmer had some magical way of detecting digital signals across an entire band or even Phone CQs.
Andy K3UK
ex KB2EOQ
----------------------
Earlier 3-star review posted by KB2EOQ on 2010-01-02
I find the decoder not as good at weak signals as the CW "qrp decoder" within Multipsk. Also, anyone else have poor audio ? It my be a driver issue at my end but I have tried CW skimmer with three different sound devices and all three give me jerky audio with QRN-like static crashes even when radio is off.
Overall , "ok". |
|
| STAYVERTICAL |
Rating:      |
2010-03-15 | |
| Blind no longer |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Whenever a contest or pile up occurred over a rare station, I was usually only able to pick out a few stations from the morass. Now with CW Skimmer I have a birds eye view of the action. I am not a contester, nor do I chase every dx station, but I like to do CW. I used to think my 38 WPM was good enough to decode pileups, but for me anyway, that's not true. Now using CW Skimmer makes pileups a fascinating exercise, as by looking at the callsigns displayed, I am able to focus on that transmission. The price is high, a bit too high in my opinion, but I paid it as I get lots of enjoyment from pileups, which were once frustrating. Alex is adding functionality, so the development is proceeding, unlike some programs.
In addition, I like the adjustable filtering, and the decoding is pretty good for a program. Rig control via omnirig works fine for me as well.
If you are not a big CW affacinado, you may as well save your money, but if you are, there are worse things you could spend your money on.
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|
| K3ROJ |
Rating:      |
2010-01-13 | |
| A Must for CW |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I was recently asked if I ever tried CW Skimmer by a club member during a meeting. I had heard of it and the next day downloaded the trial. I use a Flex Radio 5000A and after setting it up using virtual audio cables and Com0Com port emulator, we were amazed how well it decoded CW. After reading more on the Flex site, I discovered by using my second built-in R2 receiver, I was able to view a huge bandwidth. CW is my main mode and although can operate using 30 wpm, CW Skimmer allowed me to pick out stations without concentrating too much. On 40 metres there are some high speed operators where I can now catch every word while busy at the computer desk. Using the Flex 5000A is the greatest experience we've ever had in amateur radio and am now awaiting delivery of the VHF/UHF modules which will open up even more doors. |
|
| N2TU |
Rating:      |
2009-12-17 | |
| Unreal functionality! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| What a fantastic program and integrating it with BandMaster is awesome. With BandMaster as an add-on, you can minimize the Skimmer screen and watch the Bandspread on BandMaster. It allows me to get the full benefit of the 192kcs of my SDR-IQ. Simply amazing! |
|
| N8FNR |
Rating:      |
2009-07-16 | |
| Skimmer was a game changer for me |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
For years I tried off and on to relearn the code but I never kept up with it. Spent most of my time In the past few years on PSK and most recently on JT64A.
Earlier this year I decided to give Skimmer a try with my Flex-5000A. Because soundcard modes integrate so well (no interface is needed) with my rig I found that I was getting 75-95%
good copy with CW. Using the waterfall in Skimmer and the panadapter in my 5000A are killer apps. Also, my rig has a built in CW program that lets you set up preprogrammed memory keys and also lets you type via the PC keyboard.
Making radio VISUAL changes everything. And it was not long before I was spending 100% of my time on CW.
I was amazed how well it would copy even with fairly weak signals. If the copy was well below 75% I could usually figure out what the other guy was sending anyway. Once the trial period expired I bought a license for it because I could not do without it.
The fastest copy I have seen it decode was around 40+ WPM, not that I see much on the bands faster than that.
Skimmer is used by me in contests but I only use it to increase my DXCC, VUCC and WAS count. BTW I never submit any scores because it is against the rules and I am mainly a DX'er anyway.
Lately I have been doing a lot of CW on 6M as there has been a lot of eskip. It is fascinating to see how quickly signals will appear and just as quickly fade. And I can see 12khz all at once so
lots of times I get to make the contact before most others would even tune across the DX.
Now I know a lot of CW purists would like to yell at me for using Skimmer, saying it is somehow "cheating". Is it cheating if you copy CW by ear and use a word processing program to transcribe the copy? How about using an iambic keyer or a dedicated CW keyboard? If my radio only uses transistors is that cheating. After all real radios glow in the dark don’t they? Does that mean I need to get a spark transmitter instead?
Skimmer is just a tool that makes my hobby easier. Just like how my Flex-5000A is easier to use than Drake twins.
I admire those who can TX 50 wpm per minute with a straight key and copy everything in their head. However, I am not one of those people. On the other hand I am now actually spending a lot more time on the radio since I discovered Skimmer. I find operating CW with it is more interesting than PSK.
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|
| WZ7I |
Rating:      |
2009-07-03 | |
| CW Skimmer for the rag chewer |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
This program was originally conceived as a tool for the DXer, not the contester. For me it is a great tool for the Rag Chewer.
After trying it with my Orion, I assembled one of the very inexpensive SoftRock SDR receiver kits. This was one of the best experiences I have had in the hobby. I learned to work with SMD components, and got a feel for SDR circuits. I purchased a USB soundcard for about $80 for my slow laptop. When I loaded Afeet Software's freeware Rocky SDR package I was amazed at the performance of this tiny receiver!
Then I purchased the CW Skimmer software. The old laptop and the SoftRock RX sit in the basement where the temperature is constant. They are connected to a fan dipole a couple hundred feet from my TX antennas through an ICE Model 172 RF Limiter to protect the receiver from my transmitted signal. Skimmer detects every CQ on the 40M band, sends the call by telnet to my shack computer, which displays it as it would a DX cluster spot on my logging program, the DX Lab suite. A double click and my transceiver is tuned to his frequency, often before he finishes his CQ call. Unlike cluster spots, every one of these spots can be heard at my QTH and the spot display gives me the signal/noise ratio at my receiver. One feature of DX Lab I appreciate is that if I especially enjoyed a QSO, I can write a “Tag” comment for that call. When that station calls CQ anyplace on the band, the spot pops up on my screen with my Tag reminding me that this is someone who I would especially enjoy working again.
All of my spots also go by telnet to the web site “reversebeacon.net”. If you wonder if your CW signal is getting to the East Coast, bring up this web site and call CQ a few times and see where it is spotted.
I never want to be without this infrastructure again. My ham project for the coming months is to acquire a more capable SDR receiver, purchase a new computer, install a multi-band receive antenna, and try Alex’s new Skimmer Server beta software which can decode calls on 7 bands simultaneously.
I am having fun. |
|
| VK6VZ |
Rating:      |
2008-12-13 | |
| Use with a PC and a SoftRock tapped off a transceiver's IF |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
If you want to take true advantage of CW Skimmer and turn it into the world's best DXing aid, then you need to use it how its inventor Alex VE3NEA and a growing group of DXers - including myself - use it. What this means is purchasing a SoftRock receiver kit for under $20 (available from Tony KB9YIG) that can be tuned to an IF frequency of your transceiver that is in the HF range (such as the 8.215MHz second IF of an FT-1000 or 8.215 first IF of an Elecraft K3), building the kit and (maybe) doing some minor modification to your transceiver to enable an IF feed from it to the SoftRock.
I have been using CW Skimmer in this manner with an FT-1000 (and lately, an Elecraft K3) for some time. The SoftRock receiver feeds a M-Audio Delta 44 soundcard, with a 96KHz sampling rate/bandwidth which provides the analogue to digital conversion, which in turn is attached to my Pentium IV PC, running CW Skimmer under the MS Windows XP operating system.
Using CW Skimmer in this manner gives me a 96KHz-wide view of the CW portion of any band, with an ability to 'see' signals that are barely above the noise level and decode them.
My favourite band is 1.8MHz, where DX openings and sunrise and sunset may often last only a few minutes. If rare DX comes on the band, CW Skimmer gives me the chance to see that they have arrived within a few tens of seconds of them starting to send - well before anyone has had a chance to tune onto them or spot them on a DX cluster.
In my opinion, the bandscope that CW Skimmer and this set-up provides me with is way beyond anything that a top-of-line HF transceiver with a built-in bandscope (and costing many thousands of dollars) is able to provide.
My FT-1000 has relatively poor RS232 interfacing capabilities (even with a you-beauty homemade interface), so getting CW Skimmer to interface with my PC, in terms of signal tracking, is not the best, but still workable. However, when coupled with the Elecraft K3, CW Skimmer works amazingly - spot the signal, put the mouse pointer on it, click and you are on frequency, all ready to go. If a DX station is working split, I simply switch the VFO from A to B on the K3 (which has identical twin receivers) to put B (my Tx frequency) on the last frequency where someone worked the DX station.
Using this method, I have found I can even break European pileups on DX that is far more local to Europe than to me - which was virtually impossible to do without CW Skimmer unless there was a world-class operator at the DX end.
There is plenty of information available on using SoftRocks in this manner on the internet - and interfacing them with HF transceivers.
This kind of approach is really for those with some expertise in home-brewing or on modifying radios. That being said, if you have an Elecraft K3, there is a nifty device called the LP-Pan which is available from N8LP built for about $227 and plugs straight into the K3. I don't have a LP-Pan, but have several acquaintances who are delighted with them.
Have fun!
Vy 73, Steve, VK6VZ |
|
| KG6TT |
Rating:     |
2008-09-22 | |
| Can be a great tool |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Like DX Atlas, Morse Runner, and DX Bulletin Reader, CW Skimmer is a truly inspired application for the serious CW DXer and Contester looking for that needed edge.
With a less than average antenna farm and a very tired old Alpha 76A, it is hardly possible for me to generate that 'commanding signal' that pushes holes through pileups. After many, many frustrating hours of waiting or not getting through I realized that I needed to 'work smart' and not so hard. That was when I determined to train myself as a DX Detective... therefore looking to what I could learn and what tools I could employ (under the roof) to provide that edge to either get me to the needed DX station before it became a DX Spot statistic (or worse yet history) or if too late and a part of the pack myself having the quick ability to tail-end the last station the DX responded too. DXLabsSuite of 'DX Detective' tools helps me get there before the spots... NOW CW Skimmer gives me the edge to break the pileups!
With CW Skimmer at work at my station, my transceiver's (Ten-Tec Orion) main receiver remains on the DX Station with its filters locked down as tight as necessary to pull it from the surrounding noise. CW Skimmer's lower decode window provides a steady, reasonably verified (through redundancy and probability), decoded stream of the key info the DX station is sending. The actual decoding is better than any software decoder I have personally tested (a lot of them) and works as a great assistant jogging down calls responded to. At the same time CW Skimmer's main window displays a waterfall that is quickly filling with replying signals. The replying stations create an easily recognizable 'dit/dah' stream for easy mouse positioning in the waterfall, but better yet Skimmer performs user selectable levels of decoding and verification immediately to the right of the waterfall. I set mine to only display highlight details such as '5nn', '599', 'TU', 'QSL, 'QRZ', 'de' and their callsigns. I also ask mine to compare each decoded callsigns a couple of times before displaying the result to eliminate many decoding errors. I also use the 'Check Partial' option so that Skimmer compares the incoming decoded calls to a known database of anticipated callsigns. CW Skimmer also has a cool optional window to list out the received calls for quick identification and easy selection. Skimmer can also output via its own Telnet server localized spots that you can pick up in your own spotting program (very useful when you are away from the rig).
At this point in the Skimmer setup I see the DXer's sending below and the respondents to the right. I hear who the DXer is responding to and then quickly look at the growing list of respondents. As soon as I see the respondent's call (remember they are calling and calling and calling... few get through the very first time... so the current respondent is most likely already in the list) I click on it and CW Skimmer quickly moves my transceivers SUB Receiver and Transmitter to that exact frequency. A moment later I toss out my callsign zero-beat to the station the DX just said 'TU' to. I now have a far greater chance of getting through than if I just sat on what I thought was an open frequency (is it open at the DXer's location?) or if I madly tuned around with the XIT or second VFO hoping to find and tail end the responded to station's frequency in time.
There is far more to CW Skimmer's abilities, especially if you have a wide-band capable SDR or perhaps a SoftRock receiver tied to your transceiver's IF, in which cases you can 'skim' as much audio bandwidth as your soundcard can support and your computer has the processing power to decode. However, according to CW Skimmer's choices I was forced to set decoding to the standard 3 kHz audio produced by most transceivers, while my Ten-Tec Orion's SUB receiver can do a very good job producing up to 8 kHz of bandwidth.
Knowing I could easily do more with CW Skimmer and my Orion but not being able to due to programmer's 'choices' became increasingly annoying... hence my rating of 4 (almost a 3)for what could be an even better program.
What is missing from CW Skimmer?
1) Allowing the user to select more than 3 kHz decoding bandwidth when they use a transceiver (not an SDR) capable of greater bandwidth. I wrote Alex, VE3NEA, many times requesting and justifying. My emails were seldom responded to and when they were there was little sense of curiosity but always a 'Even though I could do what you suggest, I don't really see the need to provide special care for Orion users' attitude.
2) CW Skimmer must talk to your transceiver via Alex's OMNIRig rig control application. Understand you really can't get the full benefit of CW Skimmer unless you can give it keys to the car! And although multiple OMNIRig enabled applications (mostly Alex's programs) can talk to the same transceiver at the same time, once OmniRig from any application touches your transceiver the majority of contest loggers... and in my case DXLabs Commander are locked out. So I could give CW Skimmer control of the Orion but only at the expense of isolating the Orion from my contest or DX logging applications or my spotting applications. This soon became a show stopper for several months.
3. CW Skimmer, via OMNIRIG, assumes that you only want to control VFO-A and gives you no option to Control VFO-B instead. Depending on your transceiver and other programs you are using, this may or may not work for you. Once again I found that everything else would work better for me if I could get CW Skimmer to use VFO-B. I wrote Alex, VE3NEA, asking if he would consider adding this VFO selection as an option and the answer, when it came, was another no. Eventually I hacked the code in the OmniRig Orion.ini file to trick CW Skimmer into using VFO-B... fairly easy thing to do actually.
Support after the sale.
CW Skimmer is NOT free. In fact it is rather pricey at $75, still I did not hesitate to register it due to the programs potential. Since I was one of the first registered users I thought Alex would be more open to my observations and feature requests. I was very wrong. For whatever reason (life being too busy, etc.), I have found Alex to be less approachable than most of the other programmers addressing the ham radio market I have communicated with. A complete opposite of what I have experienced from Dave, AA6YQ (DXLabs) and Carl, N4PY (Orion control software).
In Summary.
Today, with the help of AA6YQ, N4PY, and N8VB (N8BVvCOM) and my own OmniRig hacks, I finally have an 'almost' great CW Skimmer solution running in concert with DXLabsSuite and N4PY's Orion control program. Now I'm about to try and work out the kinks using N1MM (another day). CW Skimmer, even when restricted to 3 kHz bandwidth like it currently is when using a traditional (not SDR) transceiver can be an amazing tool to help level the pileup playing field.
Naturally a day will come when all the 'BIG GUNS' are using CW Skimmer, effectively reducing CW Skimmer's benefit to us little pistols, but until that day... enjoy.
-- Jerry, KG6TT |
|
| K9IUQ |
Rating:   |
2008-09-21 | |
| Not Ready For Prime Time |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have been trying the 30 day trial with a Icom Pro III. There is much hype on the internet about this program and I wanted to see what it is all about. With a 3khz rx it is much ado about nothing.. I found little to like. The progam seems unfinished, kinda like a beta program. I saw nothing to warrant a $75 price tag. Perhaps it is more useful with a wide range RX. For the average Ham contester - save your money.....
Stan K9IUQ |
|
| DO9ST |
Rating:     |
2008-09-15 | |
| good |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| The older Version 1.0 decodes better than the new Version 1.2 . |
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