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16 <H2><A NAME="s10">10.</A> <A HREF="usermanual_en.html#toc10">Filtering (From version 1.45)</A></H2>
18 <H2><A NAME="ss10.1">10.1</A> <A HREF="usermanual_en.html#toc10.1">General filter rules</A>
21 <P>Upto v1.44 it was not possible for the user to set their own filters. From
22 v1.45 though that has all changed. It is now possible to set filters for just
23 about anything you wish. If you have just updated from an older version of
24 DXSpider you will need to update your new filters. You do not need to do
25 anything with your old filters, they will be renamed as you update.</P>
27 <P>There are 3 basic commands involved in setting and manipulating filters. These
28 are <EM>accept</EM>, <EM>reject</EM> and <EM>clear</EM>. First we will look
29 generally at filtering. There are a number of things you can filter in the
30 DXSpider system. They all use the same general mechanism.</P>
32 <P>In general terms you can create a 'reject' or an 'accept' filter which can have
33 up to 10 lines in it. You do this using, for example ... </P>
43 <P>where ..... are the specific commands for that type of filter. There are
44 filters for spots, wwv, announce, wcy and (for sysops) connects. See each
45 different accept or reject command reference for more details.</P>
46 <P>There is also a command to clear out one or more lines in a filter. They are ...</P>
55 <P>There is clear/xxxx command for each type of filter.</P>
57 <P>and you can check that your filters have worked by the command ... </P>
67 <P>For now we are going to use spots for the examples, but you can apply the same
68 principles to all types of filter.</P>
70 <H2><A NAME="ss10.2">10.2</A> <A HREF="usermanual_en.html#toc10.2">Types of filter</A>
73 <P>There are two main types of filter, <EM>accept</EM> or <EM>reject</EM>. You
74 can use either to achieve the result you want dependent on your own preference
75 and which is more simple to do. It is pointless writing 8 lines of reject
76 filters when 1 accept filter would do the same thing! Each filter has 10
77 lines (of any length) which are tried in order. If a line matches then the
78 action you have specified is taken (ie reject means ignore it and accept
81 <P>If you specify reject filters, then any lines that arrive that match the filter
82 will be dumped but all else will be accepted. If you use an accept filter,
83 then ONLY the lines in the filter will be accepted and all else will be dumped.
84 For example if you have a single line <EM>accept</EM> filter ...</P>
88 accept/spots on vhf and (by_zone 14,15,16 or call_zone 14,15,16)
92 <P>then you will <EM>ONLY</EM> get VHF spots <EM>from</EM> or <EM>to</EM> CQ zones
95 <P>If you set a reject filter like this ...</P>
103 <P>Then you will get everything <EM>EXCEPT</EM> HF CW spots. You could make this
104 single filter even more flexible. For example, if you are interested in IOTA
105 and will work it even on CW even though normally you are not interested in
106 CW, then you could say ...</P>
110 reject/spots on hf/cw and not info iota
114 <P>But in that case you might only be interested in iota and say:-</P>
118 accept/spots not on hf/cw or info iota
122 <P>which achieves exactly the same thing. You should choose one or the other
123 until you are comfortable with the way it works. You can mix them if you
124 wish (actually you can have an accept AND a reject on the same line) but
125 don't attempt this until you are sure you know what you are doing!</P>
127 <P>You can arrange your filter lines into logical units, either for your own
128 understanding or simply convenience. Here is an example ...</P>
132 reject/spots 1 on hf/cw
133 reject/spots 2 on 50000/1400000 not (by_zone 14,15,16 or call_zone 14,15,16)
137 <P>What this does is to ignore all HF CW spots and also rejects any spots on VHF
138 which don't either originate or spot someone in Europe. </P>
140 <P>This is an example where you would use a line number (1 and 2 in this case), if
141 you leave the digit out, the system assumes '1'. Digits '0'-'9' are available.
142 This make it easier to see just what filters you have set. It also makes it
143 more simple to remove individual filters, during a contest for example.</P>
145 <P>You will notice in the above example that the second line has brackets. Look
146 at the line logically. You can see there are 2 separate sections to it. We
147 are saying reject spots that are VHF or above <EM>APART</EM> from those in
148 zones 14, 15 and 16 (either spotted there or originated there). If you did
149 not have the brackets to separate the 2 sections, then Spider would read it
150 logically from the front and see a different expression entirely ...</P>
154 (on 50000/1400000 and by_zone 14,15,16) or call_zone 14,15,16
158 <P>The simple way to remember this is, if you use OR - use brackets. Whilst we are
159 here CASE is not important. 'And BY_Zone' is just the same as 'and by_zone'.</P>
160 <P>As mentioned earlier, setting several filters can be more flexible than
161 simply setting one complex one. Doing it in this way means that if you want
162 to alter your filter you can just redefine or remove one or more lines of it or
163 one line. For example ...</P>
167 reject/spots 1 on hf/ssb
171 <P>would redefine our earlier example, or </P>
179 <P>To remove all the filter lines in the spot filter ...</P>
188 <H2><A NAME="ss10.3">10.3</A> <A HREF="usermanual_en.html#toc10.3">Filter options</A>
191 <P>You can filter in several different ways. The options are listed in the
192 various helpfiles for accept, reject and filter.</P>
194 <H2><A NAME="ss10.4">10.4</A> <A HREF="usermanual_en.html#toc10.4">Advanced filtering</A>
197 <P>Once you are happy with the results you get, you may like to experiment. </P>
199 <P>The previous example that filters hf/cw spots and accepts vhf/uhf spots from EU
200 can be written with a mixed filter, for example ... </P>
206 acc/spot 2 on 50000/1400000 and (by_zone 14,15,16 or call_zone 14,15,16)
210 <P>Note that the first filter has not been specified with a number. This
211 will automatically be assumed to be number 1. In this case, we have
212 said <EM>reject all HF spots in the CW section of the bands but accept
213 all others at HF. Also accept anything in VHF and above spotted in or
214 by operators in the zones 14, 15 and 16</EM>. Each filter slot actually
215 has a 'reject' slot and an 'accept' slot. The reject slot is executed
216 BEFORE the accept slot.</P>
218 <P>It was mentioned earlier that after a reject test that doesn't match, the
219 default for following tests is 'accept', the reverse is true for 'accept'.
220 In the example what happens is that the reject is executed first, any non
221 hf/cw spot is passed to the accept line, which lets through everything
222 else on HF. The next filter line lets through just VHF/UHF spots from EU.</P>
224 <H2><A NAME="ss10.5">10.5</A> <A HREF="usermanual_en.html#toc10.5">A Filtering Tutorial</A>
227 <P>There is now an excellent primer/tutorial on filtering written by Jim
228 Samuels, W3BG with an introduction by Dave Hawes N3RD that I strongly
229 suggest you read. You can read it here
230 <A HREF="filtering_en.html">The DXSpider User Filtering Primer</A></P>
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