Nog even wat meer informatie delen....
Hi all
Just RX this E-Mail from Ton 30IR030 about a cluster with DX Spider
73`s de Ben 15SD101
We all know IR-DX always wants to be on the latest technology and be innovative. IR-DX did it again! Yesterday a new cluster initiative for 11m was born.
I am assuming that eveybody knows what a cluster is, so no need to explain this. Now, the way we know clusters in 11m are not really clusters. Most of them (all of them?) like cluster.dk are merely just websites where you can send and read spots. A cluster in reality is a network of interconnected nodes where every user of a node can send and receive spots and those spots are replicated between the nodes.
Yesterday i worked with 30RC222 Ricardo on setting up the first node for IRDX, 30IR000. I installed DX Spider (see
http://www.dxcluster.org/) customized for 11m on a dedicated server and connected it to Ricardos node 30RC000. So we really have a cluster now!
Why is this a good thing?
- At the moment there is only 1 11m cluster website run on a domain in Denmark. Everybody knows which cluster that is. In the past years the owner of that famous website has put more and more restrictions on who and how we can use that website. I would like the 11m community to not depend on just one website for spots.
- Because of the point above many 11m groups, among which also IRDX, started to build their own cluster websites. The result is that there are hundreds of websites out there, all cluster islands with limitd amount of information since spots are not shared between websites.
- 11m in this cycle is not what it was in the last cycle. Activity is low, groups have changed, many operators have gone and very few new operators have joind the 11m community. So we need all the collaboration between groups we can get. A cluster initiative can be a good driver for that. After all we are a small group of operators. Let's not fight each other and work together to keep 11m alive.
So how does it work?
There are basically two ways to use this cluster. One is a web interface you can use by pointing your browser to
http://30ir000.no-ip.org where you can log in to the cluster and use it. Registration is automatic, passwords are not needed.
But the most interesting and convenient way is to use one of the many DX Cluster clients available. Personally i use Ham Radio Deluxe (
http://www.ham-radio-deluxe.com). In Ham Radio Deluxe you can configure which cluster node you want to connect to. Ham Radio Deluxe is a very useful piece of free software for radio use and the only thing you have to do is configure the cluster in HRD Logbook and add the 11m band.
Now you can use HRD Logbook for electronic logging of QSO's, controlling your radio by using your computer, sending and receiving spots, using digital modes, etc, etc.
You can configure 30IR000 in HRD (or any other software) by selecting protocol telnet, host 30ir000.no-ip.org and port 8000. If anyone from the 11m community wants to set up their own node and connect to the cluster, please let me know and i will help setting up the node.
Please forward this message to other 11m mailing lists and let's see if we can get this initiative going and build one general real cluster network for 11 meter operators
Regards and good DX,
30IR030 Ton.