This article explains how to optimize SpotCollector's performance:

https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxlabwiki/OptimizeSCPerformance

       73,

               Dave, AA6YQ

The processor chip in your computer was discontinued in 2011.  It is now at least 10 years old.  Unless you have already upgraded the disk in that computer it likely is running a mechanical spinning disk drive.  Unless you have already replaced this drive you should seriously consider upgrading the original disk drive.  Otherwise, you are risking a catastrophic data loss when the mechanical drive fails.  Consider switching to/upgrading to a Solid State Disk Drive, SSD

 

One way to speed up any computer in near-time high load conditions is to switch to a Solid-State-Disk drive.  The Spots.mdb is on the disk where you loaded DXLabs.  A lot of DXLab users use the same disk drive where Windows is resident.  Switching this drive to a SSD will speed up all operations.  Choose a Name brand SSD that offers free Migration software**.  Then follow the directions for the migration software to copy your disk rotating disk drive to your new SSD.  Then shutdown the computer and disconnect the old drive and connect the new drive.  I have done this on five or so computers now—works like a charm.

 

** The free migration software will only work when you migrate to that manufacturer’s SSD.  And it saves you from buying yet another seldom used software package.

 

73,

 

From: DXLab@groups.io <DXLab@groups.io> On Behalf Of Earl Needham via groups.io
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2022 19:02
To: DXLab@groups.io
Subject: Re: [DXLab] Size of spots database when using RBN

 

On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 12:56 PM Dave AA6YQ <aa6yq@...> wrote:

+ AA6YQ comments below

I don't have a "fast" machine, although it was fast at some point in the past -- it's an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz with 16 GB RAM.  I guess I'll have to go to pre-filtering, although I really didn't want to. 

+ Why did you decide to use the RBN as a spot source? It's more appropriate for contesting than DXing, unless you're just starting out with the latter and need confirmed QSOs with pretty much everything. Despite its high spot rate, the RBN won't help you work P5 or VP8S. Currently active stations in Equatorial Guinea, the Marquesas, and Ogasawara will certainly be spotted to the DX Cluster network.

 

I was just curious and wanted to see what I would get.  It's a lot more than I expected!

 

I can use "wherever" for DXCC totals.

+ I don't understand what you mean by this; please explain.

 

I currently have 102 verified, 108 confirmed -- meaning "I'm a little pistol" and can use contacts from just about any continent, band, mode, etc. 

 

I'll probably go back to "normal" spots now.

 

Earl

 

+ AA6YQ comments below

Yes - it does.  If you look at the daily stats on the RBN web site, you can get a sense of it.  For example, on Oct 1, which was a little busy because of the California QSO Party, there were 484000 spots in 24 hours, or roughly 20K spots/hour.

+ That's more than 5 spots per second - continuously for 24 hours!

+ At that incoming rate, having SpotCollector query a Spot Database of significant size each time a new spot arrives requires a fast machine with a lots of free RAM. Pre-filtering spots in which you have no interest makes is possible to use the RBN as a spot source on lower-performance systems; see

https://www.dxlabsuite.com/spotcollector/Help/Prefiltering.htm

    73,

           Dave, AA6YQ

 

Yes - it does.  If you look at the daily stats on the RBN web site, you can get a sense of it.  For example, on Oct 1, which was a little busy because of the California QSO Party, there were 484000 spots in 24 hours, or roughly 20K spots/hour.

73, Pete N4ZR
Check out the new Reverse Beacon Network
web server at <https://reversebeacon.net>.
For spots, please use your favorite 
"retail" DX cluster.

On 10/2/2022 10:51 AM, Earl Needham wrote:

I've been experimenting with RBN (really, skimmer) and my spots database gets HUGE in a short amount of time.  For instance, this morning I used "set/skimmer" on two of my spot sources, and in about 30 minutes my spots database had ~6000 entries.

About six months ago I tried the same thing, and let Spot Collector run overnight.  At about 60,000 entries there was a spot queue overflow and I had to clear the spot database and restart Spot Collector.

I've now configured Spot Collector to prune anything over one day old and do this every hour. Even so, this database grows WAY fast and WAY big.

I really wasn't expecting this amount of traffic, does this seem about right?

Thanks,

Earl -- KD5XB

+ AA6YQ comments below

Yes - it does.  If you look at the daily stats on the RBN web site, you can get a sense of it.  For example, on Oct 1, which was a little busy because of the California QSO Party, there were 484000 spots in 24 hours, or roughly 20K spots/hour.

+ That's more than 5 spots per second - continuously for 24 hours!

+ At that incoming rate, having SpotCollector query a Spot Database of significant size each time a new spot arrives requires a fast machine with a lots of free RAM. Pre-filtering spots in which you have no interest makes is possible to use the RBN as a spot source on lower-performance systems; see

https://www.dxlabsuite.com/spotcollector/Help/Prefiltering.htm

    73,

           Dave, AA6YQ