Monitoring the spots
Basically a DX Cluster is a sort of chat room, or BBS into which amateur DX hunters can post about DX either worked or simply heard.
Many DXers monitors web DX clusters just to learn what’s on the air in that particular moment, but many others use the cluster like as a watchdog, to get alarmed when a particular station get spotted on the air.
Here comes the utility to have an always-on PC application that can monitor spots continuously and promptly alert the operator as it happens, by applying filters and rules to address a particular condition. So it’s possible to get a notification when someone from ZD7 is on 20m CW.
Where the Internet is available, these DX Cluster clients can connect using the telnet protocol to DX Cluster servers, but many of them can even connect via serial port to a TNC connected to the packet radio network; there where originally everything started.
Nowadays that radio interfacing is even possible, it become convenient to the operator to connect the DX cluster client directly to the radio, allowing to jump into the spotted frequency with a simple click.
There are several DX Cluster Clients that run on MS Windows, we selected here the top seven free programs, but you may be interested also in checking out the full list of DX Cluster Clients that includes additional freeware and even shareware DX Clients that require registration and payment.
Software : DX Cluster
Check our list of DX Cluster applications for other operative systems and mobile devices.