SOTA

[vk3il]

Thanks Terry and Daniele. I'll look forward to it.

73

David.

[G4POP]

I am surprised that there has not been one comment about the ability to click on a summit reference to display the fantastic Summits Mapping Project!

Look for the underlined reference which indicates there is a hyperlink

[vk3il]

Terry,

I have certainly used that feature and it works really well - thanks for that!

I've also managed to use the cluster functions to connect to the SOTA cluster, so the combination is now working really well. It would be fabulous if you could populate the summit details from the cluster automatically...

One possible bug though: when I've updated the grid locator manually from the SOTA mountain details, the distance and beam headings are not updated. Is this supposed to happen ? How can I trigger an update of the distance and heading fields and what are they based on if not the locator ?

73

David
VK3IL

[G4POP]

Terry,

I have certainly used that feature and it works really well - thanks for that

The mapping project is a credit to its author and we love it.

I've also managed to use the cluster functions to connect to the SOTA cluster, so the combination is now working really well. It would be fabulous if you could populate the summit details from the cluster automatically...

I am surprised that you have not received a broadside from Andy the guy that owns the SOTA cluster, you must be one of his chosen few because he was extremely rude when I approached him about linking to his cluster!

One possible bug though: when I've updated the grid locator manually from the SOTA mountain details, the distance and beam headings are not updated. Is this supposed to happen ? How can I trigger an update of the distance and heading fields and what are they based on if not the locator ?

That's strange! Let me check and get back to you

[G4POP]

One possible bug though: when I've updated the grid locator manually from the SOTA mountain details, the distance and beam headings are not updated. Is this supposed to happen ? How can I trigger an update of the distance and heading fields and what are they based on if not the locator ?


That's strange! Let me check and get back to you

I can see what happens!

When the call is entered the lookup is done and the locator is used to calculate the distance and heading and it seems that this information is retained even though the locator is edited manually.

I am not sure what, if anything, Daniele could do about this but he will probably comment.

[vk3il]

Thanks Terry.

Just found the thread with the comments from Andy. I understand what you mean. Reading the original thread I suspect he's concerned about the load on the cluster as I gather it's fairly experimental and hence the acerbic comments on keep-alive rates. BTW, what is the keep-alive rate now for Log4OM?

Overall, I've found Andy's comments to be usually constructive in our local VK SOTA reflector, but he may not be the most patient. He's done a lot for SOTA over the years, so I for one will give him the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe worth another private email to see if he can suggest an approach that is satisfactory as it would be very useful for all us chasers out there. It may be that a full cluster node needs to be created as the original thread discussed to handle the load having it integrated into a logging program would likely generate.

73

David.
VK3IL

[G4POP]

Hi David,

Just found the thread with the comments from Andy. I understand what you mean. Reading the original thread I suspect he's concerned about the load on the cluster as I gather it's fairly experimental and hence the acerbic comments on keep-alive rates. BTW, what is the keep-alive rate now for Log4OM?

If it's experimental and can't stand the strain he only needed to say so, we don't get any issues with any other cluster and Ian of GB7MBC cluster has worked closely with me for many years.

Maybe worth another private email to see if he can suggest an approach that is satisfactory as it would be very useful for all us chasers out there. It may be that a full cluster node needs to be created as the original thread discussed to handle the load having it integrated into a logging program would likely generate.

I tried that without even receiving a response from him, probably consigned my mail to his junk folder!

Had we been able to work with him we would have considered providing automatic upload and download of the SOTA CSV files and there would have been a link to his cluster in our list.

We were determined to support SOTA for the benefit of the chasers and the activators that put in so much effort and we have had very good support and advice from all of you SOTA guys that's why we persevered with the feature.

[G4POP]

BTW, what is the keep-alive rate now for Log4OM?
David.
VK3IL

Keep alive is when we send a message to the cluster to make sure the connection has not been lost, also some clusters will log users out after a period of time so in that case it's like saying "I am still here"

Keep alive interval in some programs is adjustable by the user, we decided not to provide that because there have been instances of users polling clusters every few milliseconds which will cause undue load on the cluster!

[vk3il]

Thanks Terry.
Oh, well, let's see if the cluster gets picked up by others in time and maybe then revisit.

I certainly appreciate the efforts you have gone to support SOTA chasers and activators!

The question on the keep alive was actually to understand what the keep-alive interval is - hopefully now around 15min ? Just want to make sure I don't incur Andy's ire by hitting the cluster too often!

73

David
VK3IL

[IW3HMH]

KeepAlive is set to 90 seconds and it's send only if nothing is received from Cluster. When something is received, counter is reset to zero seconds.
Normal clusters usually reports activities at high rate, and rarely remanin silent for more than 1 minute.

Anyway we can make this parameter customizable, if needed, but i have doubts about "normal" users can understand how to deal with this parameter...