In reply to G8ADD:
but it takes longer than that just to fair copy from my notebook to my logbook,
Why transcribe it twice? Either enter the info into the SOTAwatch database and then download that to your PC and/or some backup device. Or enter it into your PC logging programme and then extract the data you need from there and upload that into SOTAwatch. If you want the data in hard copy then print it out. Transcribing it is simply making a rod for your own back!
Andy
MA0FMF
In reply to MM0FMF:
Perhaps I’m a follower of Captain Ludd, but I like a paper logbook and I like to see them in a uniform row on the shelf, I know that they are no longer mandatory but I enjoy having them…and if I ever have a brainstorm and start scoring for IOTA or DXCC it’s all there waiting!
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to G8ADD:
Hi friends,
I think that some guys do like climbing mountains, play radio (with SOTA summits refs) but are not involved in SOTA program, so they don’t upload their QSOs in SOTA database. What can we do ? may be nothing !
I can understand that it is not easy to enter one QSO at time, but we have many softwares helping us to convert our logbook datas in CSV files to upload in database. I think that everybody has to type his QSO in his computer when back home after a SOTA expedition. So, the job is done ! in 5 minutes, the database can be updated.
Now about the first activation problem:
I’m not sure that the database infos are right; I know some summits where the first activator claimed is wrong, especialy when there are 2 or 3 activators the same day. But it’s not realy a problem. The info is there: the summit has been activated.
In reply to MA0MFM:
The 1st activation issue only applies to Scotland amongst the UK associations as we are the only place with unactivated summits.
Andy, you forget other countries… hi !
Finaly, I think that the main question is: how can we convince activators to upload their QSOs ? may be when the job will be easier ?
And at last, my main preoccupation is to find much more activators in France… HELP!
Best 73
Alain F6ENO
In reply to F6ENO:
In reply to MA0MFM:
The 1st activation issue only applies to Scotland amongst the UK associations as we are the only place with unactivated summits.
Andy, you forget other countries… hi !
I did say UK associations! There are lots unactivated in non-UK associations.
Andy
MA0FMF
In reply to G8ADD:
but I like a paper logbook
So buy a printer! The data is useful from a historical point of view on paper as it will probably outlast most computer media. It is totally useless from a database point of view. So put the data into the computer ONCE and use it many times.
You can always print it in a false copperplate style font if you want Brian! Just don’t make life hard for yourself.
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to G8ADD:
snip … Heaven only knows how
long it takes the people who make a hundred contacts per activation -
that’s four pages in my logbook! > 73
Hi, Brian.
As long as it takes me to type them into my logging program (G0CUZ’s WinLog32) plus about two minutes to export the relevant QSOs directly into .csv format for upload to the SOTA database. If I dared trust a pocket PC and could wield a stylus quick enough (which I can’t), I would cut out the offline typing completely.
Honestly, if you have got to transcribe your smudged and hurriedly scribbled log into something legible anyway, this is the least error-prone way to do it.
73, Richard
In reply to G4ERP:
Richard, I’m sure that you and Andy are right, but, and its a big but, I want to stick to my logbooks in a uniform style as long as I can get them, and its not just SOTA, I’m filling an RSGB Value log every year. We’ve all got our little foibles, allow me that one!
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to G8ADD:
I know 
I had a couple of years away from Amateur Radio (shocked gasps all round …) and when I returned I had the option of continuing the old paper logbooks or going computerised. I really haven’t regretted it one bit for all the other benefits it gives such as easy searching etc but I can fully understand that it would be a wrench to stop.
What brought it home was the thought of all those hours wasted writing up hundreds of QSOs for a contest entry and then repeating the whole exercise for my own log. Makes me shudder at the thought even now.
You really can always print them out if you so wish. It’s not that bad!
73, Richard
I don’t find using the manual database entry method a chore at all. For a run of QSOs that are all on the same band/mode, each log is simply time, callsign, click (repeat ad lib). The issue Martyn raises about redundant repeated information is a non-issue on the website entry.
I think there are a few little applications knocking around that turn an extract from (for instance) Logger 32 into a SOTA activator CSV upload file. So there are ways to speed things up. Personally I just use the manual website entry, and find it takes me no time at all to enter the list of times and callsigns, once the data, summit, band and mode are set. On the very occasional time that there is a crash - either local or remote - I am offered the chance to resume from where I left off when I log on again, so it isn’t a case of starting again.
I understand where Brian is coming from. I too used to incessantly keep my RSGB paper logbooks up-to-date with all my SOTA activator and chaser logs included in my best handwriting! This did become too much of a chore though, and I no longer do this additional unnecessary task.
I am very much in favour of the retention of the “1st activated by” feature on SOTAwatch. It gives a little bit of kudos to activators who make the effort. I am proud to have a handful of first activations credited to me (mainly 2003), but if they get gazumped by somebody entering a retrospective log 6/7 years down the line, I won’t be sad. Why should I be, it would mean that I wasn’t the first activator anyway! It’s only a hobby.
Furthermore, I have just been on holiday in GM with my son M3EYP, who was desperately keen to record some first activations. As it stands, he now has three to his name. I know for a fact that one of the summits has been activated in SOTA conditions during the lifetime of SOTA, so that one, technically, could be taken from him at some point, although talking to those involved, it seems unlikely they will ever record those QSOs on the Database. The point is, that the lure of first activations actually motivated us to select particular summits, and hopefully motivated chasers to work us too. It is an interesting facet in SOTA, please keep it, but don’t get overly serious about it!
Cheers
Tom M1EYP
I don’t think the database is broken and the information it displays is very good and I am also in favour of the database as it stands.
It is the data that is missing that lets it down, and how much is there of it!
There are currently 30 active SOTA Associations using the database with their virgin summits waiting to be activated under the “SOTA” banner.
As Andy MM0FMF said, “No matter what is said and what we want to believe, we are all competitive.” So who can put their hand on hart and say I don’t want to be first to activate a summit?
My suggestion of a 30-day limit on the upload of logs should not hinder even the slowest of typists and was only to encourage log submission (use it or lose it!)
Like Andy said “So put the data into the computer ONCE and use it many times”
Ailsa Craig GM/SS-246 was an inactivated summit in the database until 13 Aug 2009 with the first activator being Robert GM4GUF/P
Was this the first activation of Ailsa Craig GM/SS-246 No see “IOTA EU-123”
I could personally scrape a log from 2 years ago and claim the activation of GM/SS-246 on 2Mtrs, should I be able too “NO” should I “NO”. Robert GM4GUF/P should stand because he was the first true SOTA activation of the summit I may have been the first to get up there in a diving dry suit and 2mtr hand held. (A the smell of sweat and bird poo) I should still not be able too put a 2 year old log in the database to claim the summit.
Alan MM0XXP
In actual fact, Jimmy M3EYP was the first activator of SS-246. There is a known issue with the database in how it looks at QSO times to determine the order. Hopefully, this will be addressed, and the true 1st activators will be shown.
Having said that, if you want to retrospectively enter your 2007 logs, and claim the 1st activation, I don’t see any problem with that. It only reflects what really happened. Furthermore, if the Ayrshire hams want to claim it by entering their 2005 logs, then fine also.
The database is a generally accurate record, but situations like these will always arise. It is all fun, interesting, and a hobby.
Tom
In reply to MM0XXP:
SOTA is still new, how many virgin summits are there? Lots! Even those summits that have been activated there is bands/modes that have yet to be logged on the SOTA database.
Lots of firsts to go at … not telling what my next one is! Only joking I dont know what it is either! Or do I? Sean M0GIA
In reply to M1EYP:
The issue Martyn raises
about redundant repeated information is a non-issue on the website
entry.
Clearly this has improved since I last looked at it. Since I always use CSV, I wouldn’t have noticed. Maybe some of the non-submitters have the same misapprehension.
I’m not sure it is particularly useful for the people who don’t have a problem with log submission to tell us that they don’t have a problem with it. OBVIOUSLY they don’t - they’re doing it! The fact of the matter is that other people don’t submit. Either they truly don’t want to (fair enough) or they have a problem - perhaps merely of perception - which discourages them from doing it.
I think encouraging log submission is a good thing regardless of minor issues like “first activator”. So I think it is very reasonable to think about what might be done to encourage the non-submitters to do so.
In reply to M1MAJ:
I’m not sure it is particularly useful for the people who don’t have a
problem with log submission to tell us that they don’t have a problem
with it. OBVIOUSLY they don’t - they’re doing it! The fact of the
I think the web entry of logs is probably the best you can have, since it can done from anywhere with almost any kind of computer. As a future trend I would see that the GUIs are becoming more like web browsers if they are not that already. After the log is in the database, you can download it and do whatever you want with the file.
The other possibility not mentioned here is to use some small computer to log the QSOs on the hill already.
73, Jaakko OH7BF/F5VGL
In reply to M1EYP:
In actual fact, Jimmy M3EYP was the first activator of SS-246. There
is a known issue with the database in how it looks at QSO times to
determine the order. Hopefully, this will be addressed, and the true
1st activators will be shown.
As you know Tom, this issue is something that has been raised on several occasions in the past. In fact in this instance, Jimmy was the first qualifier of the summit and not the first activator since Robert’s first QSO at 1320 preceeds Jimmy’s by 10 minutes, but Jimmy completed his 4 at 1340 whereas Robert’s 4th came at 1355.
In terms of SOTA validity, surely the database and summit pages should record the first qualifier and not the first activator. There have been instances where first activations have failed to qualify the summit. Should both parameters therefore be shown?
Gerald
In reply to M1EYP:
It gives a little bit of kudos to activators who make the effort.
Tom, tell me how can make the effort needed to be the 1st activator of Ben Lawers GM/CS-001 please? You tell me what’s needed and I’ll put all the effort needed in so I can obtain this kudos.
Andy
MA0FMF
In reply to MM0FMF:
Tom, tell me how can make the effort needed to be the 1st activator of
Ben Lawers GM/CS-001 please? You tell me what’s needed and I’ll put
all the effort needed in so I can obtain this kudos.
I am at a loss to understand the point you are trying to make here. Obviously it is impossible to become the first activator of a summit already activated. But the effort can still be made elsewhere. In principle there will come a time when there are no more firsts to be had, but I can’t see it being soon.
But recall that the subject of this thread is “holes in the database”. The thing about first activations was merely cited as an example of the effect of those holes on the people who care about such things. If you personally don’t care, that’s absolutely fine, but it is fairly futile to tell somebody who does care that they shouldn’t.
It’s a pity that we’re not hearing from the people we’re implicitly talking about - the ones who don’t enter their logs. Of course by the nature of the problem such people are less likely to be active here.
In reply to M1MAJ:
Just for reference, I put my activations into the database last night - the TV was rubbish, but sufficiently lowbrow for Mr Plasma Screen, so the bands were rubbish too! Three activations, 33 contacts, one finger, 70 minutes…not bad!
73
Brian G8ADD
When the DB is fixed (on this issue), the activations will be ordered on the first contact, rather than the fourth. Some activations (very rare, but does/can happen) don’t have a 4th contact, or a 3rd etc. If an activation only has one QSO, and works a chaser, then the summit has been activated, right? Otherwise you could have a situation where the “1st activation” could be in 2009, but there could be an activator log, and a corresponding chaser log in the DB seven years earlier!
I think the point about displaying both the first activation, and the first qualification (if different) has some merit. Not sure it would be worth it though, for the very small number of instances where they would be different.
Jimmy negotiated with everyone on Girvan quayside to let him get the first QSO on summit, so he got the 1st activator kudos, in return for organising and communicating the whole event. I just assumed that had been the case when I stated he was the 1st activator. It looks like Robert misinterpreted, and allowed Jimmy to be the first to get to 4 contacts, rather than let him get the 1st!
No worries though, it’s only a bit of fun, and Jim got two other “firsts” the previous week. Robert’s 1st could yet be gazumped by a qualifying activation from previous years anyway. There are at least two of which I am aware.
Nice to hear that your typing is improving Brian!
73, Tom M1EYP
In reply to MM0XXP and others:
Fascinating stuff, this! I think it shows that SOTA, just like amateur radio generally, has different facets for different people.
I was out of amateur radio for considerably longer than Richard G4ERP’s couple of years, and am still using my original (A5 notebook) log book, though I’ll need to get a new one soon since I’m doing a lot more operating that I used to - and I’ll try to find one that matches ;-). Since practically all my operating is /P it goes with me, and sometimes, yes, the writing is done very shakily with frozen hands, whether it’s SOTA or a contest or just sitting by the sea operating HF. I don’t bother with a “fair copy” - it’s a notebook that tells it as it was.
Having spent much of my working life in front of computers I certainly don’t consider myself a novice - but for the moment haven’t got an IT solution for logging /P that would not in itself be an encumbrance. Once I have working voice recognition on the phone/PDA that can produce the logs, then maybe. I did try putting Linux on a Palm PDA and tried logging with a spreadsheet, but that experience made me realise I’d be better sticking to paper and pencil for the moment.
For SOTA, I hadn’t even considered the possibility of .csv entry, I use the web page and transcribe entries from the log book.
I haven’t even decided on a logging program for the (Linux) computer yet, either; once I have then I will download my activations from the SOTA site to save retyping. Really, I wouldn’t want to use .csv as a data interchange medium anyway in the long term, and think it would be much better to use XML, which makes it much easier to re-use the data for other purposes.
On the submission of activation details front, I certainly wouldn’t want to see a deadline. For me, amateur radio is a fun activity, SOTA operating is fun (if I get the contacts and the point/s, great, but it’s no big deal if I don’t - it’s part of an enjoyable day out on the hills), hilltop contest operating is fun (and if it isn’t when the rain comes down, I stop). Many of my qualifying QSOs have been with people who are not SOTA chasers. I’m very happy to get the details into the database, and usually do as soon as I can after an activation, but like Brian G8ADD says, there are other things that come first!
So it’s interesting to see that I’m actually a real dinosaur when it comes to logging. Happy to join the others though …
73
John GM8OTI