Growth of SOTA in North America

Based on an observation of the growth of SOTA in North America on the NASOTA Yahoo reflector, I compiled the following “history” that might be of interest to the SOTA worldwide community:


Folks,

Actually it was Andrew/K1YMI (originally GM1YMI, then KC2EUS, then K1YMI) who introduced SOTA into NA with W2 in Mar 2007! It was Andrew’s experience in Scotland/Britain with SOTA that when he relocated to NA, he saw the huge potential here. Early on Tom/K2YTF worked with Andrew to add additional peaks in NY and then NJ before bringing on W1 in June 2009. It was a long 2 yrs before Stu/KI6J “seeded” AZ, UT, and Colorado with a starter set of 200 SOTA-qualified peaks that really provided visibility to the SOTA program in NA.

And we shouldn’t forget the VE2 efforts of JP/VA2SG that brought on VE2 in Sep 2009. JP’s early enthusiasm catalyzed a number of new Associations in NA!

However, behind the scenes were folks like John Kirk of ListsofJohn.com that provided 99.9% accurate Peak listings that catapulted the W2, W1, W7, W5, W4, W0, and recently the W6 Associations. Likewise, Les Allwood/G3VQO on the SOTA MT team was a real champion in “facilitating” the introduction of a number of ARM docs into the SOTA system.

Out of curiosity, I tallied the number of NA peaks currently qualified. This is astonishing!

W2 - 716 peaks
W1 - 1,103 peaks
W6 - 3,717 peaks
VE2 - 1,389 peaks
W3 - 223 peaks
W0 - 1,791 peaks
VE1 - 28 peaks
W5 - 1,692 peaks
W7 - 13,780 peaks
VE7 - 237 peaks
W4 - 1,361 peaks

Total: 26,031 peaks in NA in the SOTA system. WOW!

When UT and AZ are updated to include all the potential SOTA-qualified Peaks (UT = 1,576 peaks and AZ = 2,551 peaks) brings the current NA potential to 29,750+ peaks!! And when W8 comes on line, the NA peak total would be over 30,000 peaks, a significant portion of the SOTA worldwide peak total.

So the SOTA foundation in NA has been largely built and as Brian/G8ADD has observed, given the large ham population in NA, SOTA activities are just beginning to takeoff. When Activator numbers hit “critical mass” the SOTA spot/alert activity will “explode”! So SOTA is only going to get better and we are beginning the steep growth of the curve. It will be fun!

73, Guy/N7UN

In reply to N7UN:
" When Activator numbers hit “critical mass” the SOTA spot/alert activity will “explode”! So SOTA is only going to get better and we are beginning the steep growth of the curve. It will be fun!"

And the MT are prepared for the explosion - improvements are on the way!

73

Brian G8ADD

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To complete the analysis, Guy, I broke down the W7 association into states and learned that the most peak-populated state there is Washington with about 2,673; followed closely by Montana with 2,657.
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That makes California, with its 3,717, the most peaked state in the US by a wide margin. So many summits, so little time.

Elliott, K6ILM
New CA Climber

In reply to K6ILM:

Yes, CA easily wins and what a SOTA-playground it is! And with about 100,000 licensed hams ( about 700k for the USA), CA should really have a huge number of Activators and Chasers. See ARS Statistics by dxzone.com .

Guy/N7UN aka nS0TA
Old SOTA Climber

In reply to N7UN:

Thanks for kind comments Guy. I should mention Tom N2YTF brought me into “the” thing. He also helped this to take giant steps with his help setting up the first NA SOTA day, in 2009. My thanks to the QRP polar bears who were a sort of inspiration…

I recall 2009, with W1, W2 W6 and VE2… Yep, already “gud ole days” hi.

Lots of people got the bug and in fact, everyone one’s efforts were important. Still, I prey for more chasers in our part of the globe, patience patience :wink:

This thing is fun, easy to spread like warm butter…