Another idea:
Creating new areas just for border summits with new distinctive references saying something like for instance E-F/BD-001, which would mean Number 1 border summit shared by España and France (alphabetical order to be applied). Or EA2/BI-SS-001, for number 1 summit shared by BI and SS association of EA2 area.
The new areas may be jointly managed by the area managers of each concerned border summits.
I know this represents a lot of programming work and redefinition of probably too many rules, as well as potential problems with having 2 different nationality managers working together for managing their shared summits, but isn’t it an interesting challenge?.
Sorry for that. It was just an idea…
Best 73 de Guru - EA2IF
There are quite a few activators credited with a good number of activations who have an average points-per-activation significantly less than 1, so they’re clearly not in the activating game primarily for the points… 
73, Rick M0LEP
2 Likes
Rob, good idea altogether! From the standpoint of a “hunter and gatherer”, it might even help bringing some of the lower summits “on air” which are (at least in some regions) rarely activated if there were no extra points for height. But that’s got nothing to do with resolving the problem of duplicates.
I’ve also thought a little about Guru’s idea: While it seems to me that the idea of “border areas” may be easier to implement than the “linked summits”, it still feels rather artificial to me. If I may be permitted to take it further, I’d like to propose another radical solution (not that I expect much coming from it as it is really drastic for most countries participating in SOTA):
Let’s change from associations defined by political boundaries to associations corresponding to physical-geographical or geomorphological regions or physiographic sections where this has not been done yet. These regions appear to be well defined by geographers, their borders rarely seem to run along mountain chains, and the British and French associations seem to have followed geomorphological patterns rather than political ones from the outset. Of course, we would then have cross-border regions between countries (such as Erzgebirge between DM and OK) or subdivisions (Harz shared between DM/NS and DM/SA), but we would avoid the apparently major problem of duplicate summits as far as I can see, and would also avoid future questions regarding “overspilling” activation zones (a lesser problem). And yes, I know I am shooting with cannon at sparrows here …
As a compromise, and to keep in line with existing referencing formats, maybe we could prefix cross-border associations or summits with a suitable letter combination for the continent that cannot be confused with a radio prefix, such as QA for Africa, QS for South America etc …?
73, Jan-Martin
Why is it that when the MT embark on a minor tweek to the rules, so many people start to put forwards ideas that would totally change SOTA? Ideas, furthermore, that would take many hundreds of man-hours of work to bring about? Are you guys so dissatisfied with SOTA that you want something else completely?
Look, spare us the big sweeping changes, SOTA is what it is, it has thousands of happy participants around the world and is busily expanding to cover more and more countries, and believe me, that expansion is as much as can be handled by volunteers! The basic unit of SOTA is the Association, except for the largest countries Associations are based on DXCC entities, where the boundaries are not along DXCC lines they follow familiar boundaries, concepts familiar to all hams. There is no likelihood that any change will be embarked on that will throw this basic structure into the melting pot and throw our world-wide participants into chaos and confusion!
Brian
6 Likes
Hear, hear Brian. Keep up the good work!
73 Marc G0AZS
3 Likes
I didn’t know you could insert GIF’s on the reflector- a new world opens 8)
Mike
[quote=“G6TUH, post:66, topic:9677”]a new world opens[/quote]…though that one, at least for me, is only actually showing anything if I ask it to show me the full-sized image, so I’m guessing it’s probably just too long…
…a bit like this tread.
Indeed Rick.
My average is 0.65 points per activation. My last point was on the 16th May. My last 38 activations have given me exactly zero points. However, I’ve enjoyed every second of it!
…except the logging of course
73 Mike
2E0YYY
That’s easily fixed!
The forum seems to have spotted the long winded nature of the thread and now offers a summary complete with an estimated reading time. Anyone care to speculate on how it summarises the thread?
Correct Richard, just learn to touch type and do copy-transcription and it wont take much to type it in. I find that the database response time is noticeable compared to the typing time. An average typist should be able to maintain 4 QSOs entered a minute.
Brian, for my part, I can claim only the desire to create ripples in the pond. Simply because I like ripples, and not because I expect to be taken seriously - that almost never happens… And a good job too.
“Tweek” : a minor change made, on average, every seven days?
R
Indeed, though after the first year it gets a bit boring!
Brian
I like that idea Mikel - it appeals to my natural disposition to support the underdog!
I like SOTA just as it is and the anomalies about dual and triple summit activations just add to the fun of it all. Recently I was told by a ham friend that SOTA is supposed non competitive and I agree with him. The dual and triple summits are there for us all if we are prepared to travel. There are none on the border between England and Wales that score double points so if I want a double score I travel to mainland Europe. There are also lots of interesting thoughts about degrees of difficulty. For example many of the DM/BWs are very easy 10 pointers in comparison to the G/LD 10 pointers but does it really matter as they are open to us all if we have the right documentation?
73
Nick G4OOE
I guess that’s because some proposed “tweaks” just invite to create ripples, as DM1CM put it, and this one just does. I do not really expect a total revamp of the references, and I believe I made it clear above. Still, just because something works in some way, there might nevertheless be another way in which it might work better, even if the latter is not followed. I just like thought experiments …
73, Jan-Martin
Proximity analysis indicates that there may be 329 duplicate summits, i.e. summits which have two or more references. but this will need to be checked.
Jim
I agree, those 2- or 3-reference summits do have a “bad reputation”, because primarily it is mentioned that activators are receiving the points for the second (or third) SOTA reference as a gift (without additional effort).
But, at least in my opinion (being someone who is not particularly interested in doubling or tripling SOTA points during a single activation of one summit), this border summits offer some other nice opportunities e.g.:
-
On a joint activation, both activators get an equal chance for logging a high number of contacts if each of them activates the opposite SOTA reference. Whereas on a single reference summit, the second activator often gets a significantly lower number of contacts.
-
For someone like me, who enjoys mountain hiking, often a summit is worth to be climbed even a second or third time in the same year. The conditions and challenges e.g. for a summer hiking tour or a winter skiing tour to the same summit are often completely different and of course have a different fascination. And, let’s face it, whether you get for a 3-4 hours hiking tour, with maybe 1300m elevation gain, only the 3pt winter bonus or the full 8 or 10 points for the, not yet activated, second SOTA reference of this summit, makes a significant difference in motivation to drag up the additional weight of all the HF equipment.
After having overcome the initial shock, that resulted from my misconception, that summits will be eliminated (after interpreting Brians first statement literally) it is still my opinion that it was not and is not worth to spend effort into solving such a minor problem.
Nevertheless it is as it is. And even, if I expect that, based on the typical topology of our border mountains, at least the DL association will loose a number of fascinating summits, I’m looking forward to the fun and pleasure of future SOTA activations.
A final wish would be, that in the future our community will be involved earlier. Since presenting accomplished facts has the implicit risk to disgruntle somebody.
73 Stephan, DM1LE
1 Like
Gentlemen, let me add my five pennies worth:
We are also one of the countries that has a number of duplicate summits and we have the additional “complication” that in some cases the other association’s reference is worth more points than ours.
Calling a summit your own is a matter of national pride and I think it may sometimes be difficult to give up a summit but - let’s face it - the number of available summits will not decrease, no summit will be lost as they can still be activated from both sides.
Doing away with duplicate summits will only clarify the situation and eliminate an unfair advantage over other summits.
However, I would also like to see an earlier involvement of the associations whenever rules need to be changed or new rules are introduced.
73, Sylvia OE5YYN
5 Likes