[HBR] What would W6TC do?

[Shoppa, Tim]

>>   e.g. http://www.reversebeacon.net/genn.php?a=skimmer
> That CW skimmer is at least interesting. Two things jumped right out of
> that article and bit me on the *ss. 1 - The CW skimmer is really still
> under development (maybe like MS Windows <g>). 2 - It's not as good at
> digging CW out of the noise as a "good" CW op (whatever a good CW op
> might be).

What's interesting about the Skimmer hooked to a Softrock SDR, is that
the Softrock is not the best radio ever, and the Skimmer is not the best
CW decoder ever (in fact both are primitive compared to an old but good radio
and an old but good op), but the combination of the two is spectacular and does
something that was not really imagined before. I mean on a good day I can listen
with a wide filter and sort of understand there's a couple QSO's going on above
me and a couple below, and that's a wonderful broad awareness that I like, but
the Skimmer takes that to the 12th power and decodes and shows activity all
up and down the band.

It doesn't replace any op, but it augments an op in a marvelous way.

Maybe the point is, to not try to make "the best" or "the ultimate" of anything,
but to do something new and neat and interesting and new using off-the-shelf parts.

Tim.