Anyone else having issues with VE7CC…

NO changes have been made to the setup under “SpotCollector/Config/Spot Sources” : 

SpotCollector has been unable to connect to VE7CC for the last 24 hours or so.

Keep getting this msg:

Winsock Error # 10060 - The attempt to connect timed out @ 16-Oct-20 1119

Host Address: dxc.ve7cc.net

Port: 23

Caption: VE7CC

Plus my user name and password 

Why is anyone interposing the "VE7CC user" program between SpotCollector and spot sources?

       73,

            Dave, AA6YQ

It is en easy program to create filters which can be sent to the cluster. That limits bandwidth.

Also useful when spotcollector is not used. Most of the time during contests, which is 95% of my operating.

I use Spotcollector for award chasing.

73 Henk PA5KT

It is en easy program to create filters which can be sent to the cluster. That limits bandwidth.

+ SpotCollector provides the ability to pre-filter cluster spots. See

<https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxlabwiki/SpotDatabasePrefilter>

+ With SpotCollector running, the VE7CC user application adds no value, but forces incoming spots to be processed twice, unnecessarily increasing CPU loading and memory consumption.

           73,

                   Dave, AA6YQ

+ AA6YQ comments below

It is en easy program to create filters which can be sent to the cluster. That limits bandwidth.

+ SpotCollector provides the ability to pre-filter cluster spots. See

<https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxlabwiki/SpotDatabasePrefilter>;

+ With SpotCollector running, the VE7CC user application adds no value, but forces incoming spots to be processed twice, unnecessarily increasing CPU loading and memory consumption.

* More AA6YQ comments below

It is en easy program to create filters which can be sent to the cluster. That limits bandwidth.

+ SpotCollector provides the ability to pre-filter cluster spots. See

<https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxlabwiki/SpotDatabasePrefilter>

+ With SpotCollector running, the VE7CC user application adds no value, but forces incoming spots to be processed twice, unnecessarily increasing CPU loading and memory consumption.
That's not really accurate - (AFAIK - it's been years since I've used
it) filters configured by the (VE7)CC User program are effected *on
the cluster node*, so the spots don't even traverse the network
(internet). This may make a significant difference to someone with
limited bandwidth, and would not consume CPU/memory on the client PC.
Those filters can be configured using commands/macros, but the CC User
tool provides a nice GUI. 

* The CPU and memory consumed by running the CC User app significantly exceed the cost of conveying ~100 byte spots over the network every few seconds. 

* Is there something wrong with SpotCollector's pre-filter GUI? There's a screen shot in the article cited above.

       73,

              Dave, AA6YQ

* More AA6YQ comments below


It is en easy program to create filters which can be sent to the cluster. That limits bandwidth.

+ SpotCollector provides the ability to pre-filter cluster spots. See

<https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxlabwiki/SpotDatabasePrefilter>;

+ With SpotCollector running, the VE7CC user application adds no value, but forces incoming spots to be processed twice, unnecessarily increasing CPU loading and memory consumption.
That's not really accurate - (AFAIK - it's been years since I've used
it) filters configured by the (VE7)CC User program are effected *on
the cluster node*, so the spots don't even traverse the network
(internet). This may make a significant difference to someone with
limited bandwidth, and would not consume CPU/memory on the client PC.
Those filters can be configured using commands/macros, but the CC User
tool provides a nice GUI.

* The CPU and memory consumed by running the CC User app significantly exceed the cost of conveying ~100 byte spots over the network every few seconds.

* Is there something wrong with SpotCollector's pre-filter GUI? There's a screen shot in the article cited above.

% more AA6YQ comments below

Curious how you quantified the cost of each, and what the actual results were?

I would have guessed that the network consumption would be more than
"~100 bytes every few seconds", especially if skimmer spots are included.

I'm very lucky to have gigabit fiber internet to my home. I'm guessing that some DXLab users have somewhat less than that, and some of those users may have PCs with adequate capacity to run the CC User client (I don't really it being especially bloated (but again, it's been years since I used it).

% A DX spot is 75 bytes. At this moment, telnet.reversebeacon.net is reporting 8600 spots per hour, which is 2.4 spots per second, which is 180 bytes per second. No one's internet connection will be strained by this. No one's internet connection would be strained by 10X that bandwidth.

% With CC user running, every incoming spot that survives the cluster filters must be received, processed, and retransmitted to SpotCollector. These tasks consume CPU and memory resources, but add no value. I don't know whether the added time delay on incoming spots is significant.

% At most, CC user should only be started when there's a desire to modify cluster filter settings; then it should be terminated so that SpotCollector can interact with its spot sources directly. But I doubt that the internet bandwidth savings achieved by "filtering at the cluster" will be noticeable.

% A DX spot is 75 bytes. At this moment, telnet.reversebeacon.net is reporting 8600 spots per hour, which is 2.4 spots per second, which is 180 bytes per second. No one's internet connection will be strained by this. No one's internet connection would be strained by 10X that bandwidth.

% With CC user running, every incoming spot that survives the cluster filters must be received, processed, and retransmitted to SpotCollector. These tasks consume CPU and memory resources, but add no value. I don't know whether the added time delay on incoming spots is significant.

% At most, CC user should only be started when there's a desire to modify cluster filter settings; then it should be terminated so that SpotCollector can interact with its spot sources directly. But I doubt that the internet bandwidth savings achieved by "filtering at the cluster" will be noticeable.

$ more AA6YQ comments below

% A DX spot is 75 bytes. At this moment, telnet.reversebeacon.net is reporting 8600 spots per hour, which is 2.4 spots per second, which is 180 bytes per second. No one's internet connection will be strained by this. No one's internet connection would be strained by 10X that bandwidth.

Is that really true? Maybe it is, and I'm way behind the times. It used to be that there were lots of remote areas where broadband service is not available, so choices (still) included options like dial-up and satellite. Maybe that's all changed. Interested to hear from others on this.

$ 1800 bytes/sec would not strain a dialup connection. When SpotCollector was first released in 2001, many users employed dialup connections.

% With CC user running, every incoming spot that survives the cluster filters must be received, processed, and retransmitted to SpotCollector. These tasks consume CPU and memory resources, but add no value. I don't know whether the added time delay on incoming spots is significant.

I would imagine that the delay would be measured in milliseconds. I know that you're quick to jump on the spots, but I'd be surprised if milliseconds makes a difference :)

$ Without a network analyzer or access to source code, there's no way to know how much delay is being inserted.

% At most, CC user should only be started when there's a desire to modify cluster filter settings; then it should be terminated so that SpotCollector can interact with its spot sources directly. But I doubt that the internet bandwidth savings achieved by "filtering at the cluster" will be noticeable.

It's been too long since I used it to recall if there are any settings that are only effective for the session in which they are selected.
Even if they are, if someone wants to make frequent changes, it's convenient to have the client running all of the time.

I'm not saying that everyone should be using this model - I'm just not convinced that there aren't cases where it does make sense.....

$ The addition of "pre-filtering" to SpotCollector is relatively recent. I suspect that anyone still using CC User with SpotCollector is doing so because they aren't aware of SpotCollector's new capability, not because they've determined that CC User's CPU and memory consumption are justified by the small reduction in internet bandwidth.