DX Cluster - N7XG

N7XG’s CC Cluster, distributes World-Wide DX and CW Skimmer spots as well as WWV Solar Activity announcements via telnet at telnet: N7XG.no-ip.org AX/IP, AX/UDP and AX/TCP access using BPQ32 is also available. You may connect via a logging program or a simple telnet client; however the preferred method is VE7CC’s free CC User program:

CC-Cluster commands can be found here

More information about CC-Cluster can be found at CC Cluster

CW SKIMMER SPOTS

CW Skimmer spots are available on the N7XG CC Cluster. They can be recognized by the '-#' symbol appended to the 'spotters' call. Because the volume of Skimmer spots can be huge, especially during contests, it is essential to make use of spot filtering. The recommended system is to have the CC User program connect to N7XG and have CC User feed the spots to your logging program. CC User provides a way to set the otherwise complex filtering capabilities of CC Cluster using the Settings, Country, State and Bands tabs. If you do not wish to use CC User, an example minimum set of filters is as follows:

set/skimmer	enables skimmer spots
set/noskimmer	disables skimmer spots

While additional filtering will depend upon your location and activity, a US station during CQWWCW would likely add:

set/filter dxcty/reject K	to eliminate the overwhelming number of spots from US run stations
set/filter dxcty/reject K,VE	to also eliminate VE run stations
set/filter dxcty/off	to turn off DX Country filters (caution—stand back!)
show/filter dxcty	show which DX Countries you are rejecting.

A typical US/VE HF DXer’s settings:

set/nofilter	to get a clean starting point
set/filter dxbm/pass hf	show HF including 12, 17 and 30 meter spots
set/skimmer	enables skimmer spots
set/filter k,ve/pass	receive spots made only by K or VE spotters (including skimmers)
set/filter dxcty/reject k,ve	reject spotted stations in K or VE.

The best way to solve the complex filtering issues is to use CC User for your telnet access!