I like the idea of an activity day. Yes, there is a lot of sota traffic on the bands during ‘common’ weekends, though I think both -activators and chasers- will take their advantage of it: activators will have a better chance to S2S, chasers will probably get more qso’s into their logs just because activity concentrates on one weekend.
If this is not enough, a bonus could be granted on a certain weekend for any activation (activators) and any qso (chasers).
Ahoi,
Pom
Can someone explain to me then, if the 12 metre challenge was “competitive” why it’s not a contest?
I’m a bit confused (obviously old age) as to what the difference is. Because if it’s a “contest” then it wouldn’t be allowed on 12m in the first place 
Rob
From the ARRL: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/DXCC/Eth-operating-EN-ARRL-CORR-JAN-2011.pdf
“What is contesting? It is the competitive side of Ham Radio”
That clears it up then Andy!
You seem to have taken the bit between your teeth over one person’s opinion, so let me explain.
It wasn’t a competition because it was a challenge.
In a competition you engage in a well-practised activity in an attempt to prove yourself better than other participants, in a challenge you take part in an activity that you would not normally take part in along with other people that also would not participate: in this case activating on an underused (for SOTA) band.
If a challenge would not be permitted on 12 metres then the recent year of W1AW activities organised by the ARRL on 12 metres inter alia would be illegal, would they not?
Brian
Hi Guys,
My two penneth on Contests vs Challenges. In a contest you compete against others in a challenge you compete against yourself. i.e. I would see a challenge for me as one day getting to mountain goat level as an activator.
Now how the 12m challenge and the new 10m/6m challenges fit this definition, I’m not sure.
Also it’s not “illegal” per se to have competitive amateur radio on the WARC bands - rather I thought it was more of a “Gentlemans” agreement. I also would prefer not to see DXPeditions and special event stations on the WARC bands but then activity would never be very high on the WARC bands would it?
When considering to have a Special SOTA weekend, Please, Please, Please check there’s no contest on at the same time!
73 Ed.
I think a contest is where someone ‘wins’ or gains something at the preclution of others who haven’t done so well. The person with the highest ‘score’ wins and those with lesser score don’t.
A challenge is where everyone who reaches a certain achievement gains something. Like the mountain goat, get a thousand points and you win (and there’s no limit to the number of people who can win).
Just my 2¢
Rob G7LAS/P
Agreed. What makes me consider the 12 meter challenge a competition is that if you click on the certificate in the store you have Hams listed as 1st and 2nd not as, have achieved the challenge goal.
What ever comes out of all this I would like to see something VHF oriented, including FM. SOTA is the only achievable challenge on FM that I know of.
Jeff, K6QCB
People can interpret events however they like, that is their choice, but the 12m Challenge was definitely not an AR contest. It was more a “see what you can do on this band over the course of a year”. Saying that it was competitive does not make it into a contest. Many aspects on the radio are competitive. Contests are a different (and well-defined and scheduled) animal.
Now, re FM, the next challenge will reward FM. As the idea of the challenge is to make as many different UNIQUE contacts on 10m and 6m, some attention to using FM modes may well churn out some extra calls on these bands.
And best of all (for Brian), it is for activators and chasers equally. That’s always the best way.
[quote=“M1EYP, post:31, topic:10125”]Saying that it was competitive does not make it into a contest.[/quote]I guess, if you’re using the relatively narrow defnition of “contest” normally applied in amateur radio, maybe not…
…but I’m inclined, rather, to ask “When is a Challenge not a Challenge?”. Seems to me the point of a Challenge is to challenge you to do better than you’ve done before. As soon as there’s a deliberate competitive element (such as certificates awarded for winning places) it ceases to be a Challenge and becomes a Competition.
I very much liked the “challenge” aspect of the 12 metres thing. Thankfully, I was a bit slow picking up on the “competition” aspect of it, because that (when I finally twigged) spoiled it for me.
73, Rick M0LEP
Reading all the posts has brought me to the conclusion that it does not matter if it is a challenge or a competition. Which ever it is it can be what you want it to be. If I were to enter a marathon I would have no thought of winning the contest but just a challenge to see if I could complete it. You can make a challenge a competition by trying to be the first to complete the challenge or stay head of someone else even if they don’t know you are doing that. It is what it is in your own mind. So how about a weekend event with a goal not a winner. Then if you want a competition you can try be be the first to reach the goal, only you will know.
Back to where this started, something to be fun and increase interest. I have seen Hams excited about SOTA only to do a few activations and then disappear. Maybe they see it’s a long term challenge and loose interest, I don’t know. In any case short term challenges would be welcomed. I know there are intermediate certificates on the way to Mountain Goat or Shack Sloth but that is not the same.
Jeff, K6QCB
It would be much less intrusive into ordinary random radio contacts than a DXpedition is. Those events can make more mess of a band than some contests do.
I think rather than trying to decide whether SOTA challenges are contests merely because there is a points table and results can be seen on a website, we should consider more whether they create mayhem on the bands and prevent large subsets of the amateur community from using the band, in the way an ARRL or CQ contest does. I think the answer is that there may be several activators on the band for a given hour and there may be 50 to 100 chasers wanting to work them, but after those contacts have been made (or the propagation shifts or dies) everything returns to normal and the discussions of gall bladder operations and lawn mowing can then resume as if nothing had happened.
73 Andrew VK1DA/vk2uh
I thought this thread was titled appropriately about “fun” and Event(s) to possibly promote the interest(s) of Summits On The Air.
Not to discuss to the absolute finest detail if fundamentally the 12m “challange” - key word there, was a contest / competition or not. — Yawn !
Would May / June be the most probable month for Scotland to have better weather Andy ?
I am thinking if at least a month can be made likely then I could ask maybe some other Amateurs in other areas not directly involved with SOTA ( thinking VMARS here ) to get equipment ready to take up on the hills, at least then some others have chance to get organised for such an event. There was some interest about the previous event from other areas and maybe others would want to take part in another event.
It would be really great to have maybe two days dedicated to either HF or VHF chasing / activating these stations.
Jonathan
Nicely put, Andrew!
There have been instances of DXpeditions operating with wide splits on WARC bands causing much more wide band and long lasting chaos than could ever be caused by a SOTA Activation. Annoying for some, perhaps, but neither “illegal” (e.g. against licence conditions) nor against the spirit of the “Gentleman’s Agreement” that attempts with mixed success to regulate WARC band activity.
It has to be added that in terms of band occupancy SOTA is low key and low impact, and in any case there is no compulsion to take part in these events, if you don’t like them, don’t participate.
Brian
My crystal ball is a bit cloudy but May can be settled but June tends to be foul (well that’s how it panned out when revising for my Finals!). It can snow in either month (I have taken part in VHF Field Day, first week of July, in a snow storm!).
May, though, is generally quite clement
We had Romania, Czech Rep. France, Spain, Germany, England from Europe, Washington State, California, Oregon, Nevada from USA and Victoria and Tasmania from Australia in the last 24hrs. Not bad for a Thursday near the end of January so we should all be happy we don’t need to promote international operation any more.
We have our view on what contests and competition are but the view of the SOTA MT and SOTA’s founders is that it should “not be inherently competitive”. Really you are in competition with you own abilities and achievements rather than others. The honour rolls are really provided so you can see the kind of achievements others are making and you can decide if you are doing better than you thought or if you want to push yourself further. The challenges are more competitive but again I was always in competition with myself. I’m sure some people would have been trying to get the top score but that’s fine as most of the time we do have the “not inherently competitive” mindset.
Fun days and the like really should be just that, a fun time playing SOTA. It doesn’t need to be organised by the MT either and we’re very unlikely to write special code for the database to manage it! The NA boys are having a Winter S2S fun weekend soon (details will be in the news). It’s just an occasion to get as many people out as they can especially when many US summits will be significantly challenging with Winter still being in full force. I can remember being in LA in April some years ago and it was mild enough for shorts (well for people from Scotland it was positively hot) and then driving to Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon. Boy was I cold standing about in a thin jacket at 7500ft in the swirling snow. Then we drove to Sedona and it was 25C warmer the same day!
Thanks for the suggestions for events. Bouncing ideas on here lets you see if anyone feels the same.
Thanks Andy, I totally agree with you - SOTA “Fun Days” are what would be nice to have - no need of a special challenge structure simply a defined day or weekend when the intent is for those who are interested to be on the air - either as activator, chaser or SWL. Perhaps have one every 3 months to experience each season? Possibly regional. Called by an association manager rather than MT organised.
73 Ed.
How about trying to activate all the summits in a set region(lake district or pennines or a full country on a single day or weekend? That way its not competitive, good for chasers and activators, not a competition or a challenge. No one wins anything, the only thing is increased traffic on the bands and more activator points and chaser points and s2s’s available.
Also fits into the term ‘fun’