Italy - new references

Andy, please jump in and correct me if I’m wrong, but Stefano, I believe that any points earned already in the database for summits that were in some way incorrect does not get deleted, just from this point onwards only valid summits (those with 150 metres prominence) at the corrected locations will score for new points.

I “think” again Andy please shoot me down if I am wrong, that activator points (and chaser points as well) already earned stay and hence the Activator roll of honour doesn’t change, until someone activates some more summits and their score increases.

73 Ed.

Yes, nobody should lose points. I am prepared for some problems to emerge, they always do when there are changes etc. as major as this.

However, everything should work for previous summits now deleted and new summits. If anyone does have problems I’m ready to fix them. Problems maybe that old I scores disappear or old logs cannot be reuploaded. They are all fixable.

The old Italy data was so unbelievably broken and incorrect that at one point we were going to delete Italy and all the old logs of Italian summits and start from a clean sheet. However, we are trying to maintain some degree of consistency with the past. It’s not the activator’s fault that the old data caused them to go to the wrong place or listed summits that had no prominence so it seemed harsh to invalidate everything.

Great news Andy that Italy got fixed - having holidayed in Tuscany in 2015 and being a victim of a summit placement error which meant I activated a location which was not the summit - I made 82 QSOs and then deleted the activation due to the incorrect lat / long info on the summit page. After I read about the update this evening I looked in the SMP at the villa where I stayed near Manciano and there are now summits within easy reach rather than over 100 Kms away - great job!

Thanks to YO6PIB Csaba and his team for fixing Italy and making it a more attractive country to visit from a SOTA point of view. After my last visit and the errors and 100s (if not 1000s) of missing qualifying 150m prominence summits I vowed not to return. Now if the chance arises, I would seriously consider returning.

73 Phil G4OBK

3 Likes

I spent one week on a skiing vacation in Alto Adige last winter. We stayed on Zufallhütte and were on surrounding summits every day. Unfortunately none of them was listed as SOTA summit although several would have been qualified. Knowing that, I had left my SOTA equipment at home. I have checked back on this area and it is all hunky-dory now!

Thanks to Csaba and all the people in the background for sorting out Italy. As Phil said: Italy is a more attractive country now for SOTA travelers!

73 Heinz

OK, a few typos, errors etc. fixed.

I/ER This region’s name has been corrected to Emilia Romagna.

I/PM-016 is a border summit dupe with F/AB-098. Most of the summit AZ is in France so I/PM-016 is deleted tonight at midnight. The distance between the 2 summits exceeded the border duplicate check distance in the software so this was missed.

I/PM-040 is a border summit dupe with F/AM-840. I/PM-040 is deleted tonight at midnight. This was missed due to a human error.

I/VA-119 was a typo and should have been I/VE. I/VA-119 is deleted tonight at midnight and the summit is re-referenced to I/VE-289 which becomes valid at 0000Z tomorrow.

One further analysis shows that F/AM-092 is a border dupe with Italy. More of the summit AZ is in Italy than France so F/AM-092 is deleted on 31-oct-2017 and is replaced by I/PM-277 on 1-nov-2017.

1 Like

Thanks for adding that bunch of new summits at their right place - errors and omissions excepted, since we are not a commercial office here. Just been checking out the region of Alpe Siusi resp. Alto Adige where we had been on holidays last year and discovered some feasible new summits. I’ll certainly try to activate some of them when back soon in this marvellous place. The same for the region of Oriolo Romano near Rome.

Since I don’t assume any financial and organisational risks, I consider myself always a guest in this programme with its rules, and I am fine with this point of view so far. Of course it is sad that there are deleted summits even in my home region, but I’ve understood why.

Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ

2 Likes

Maggiorasca in Emilia Romagna? At school, teachers always told me it’s in Liguria. And the summit, with radio repeaters and statue, clearly appears in Liguria also in osm:

For prominence, Caucaso has parents peaks, like most of the mountains in the same region, and other activators are here to explain it. Between those peaks there are tongues of terrain and they reduce the isolation of the main summit, but just in a few directions. If you open google earth 3d view, you can say “wow Caucaso is really a big mountain”.
What is prominence? It seems like a big mistake: I see a mountain with a main peak and 2 or 3 secondary peaks, and none of them is referenced now. Are you kidding?

I do not talk about points, I do not need points for my sota: I need summits, expecially those hystorically, culturally important summits.

Interesting that in the last 10 years it didn’t bother you. It is among the few summits previously in SOTA and with an acceptable positioning too.

that’s the point

so is the South Summit of Everest, yet nobody considers it to be the second highest summit on Earth, even though it has about the same prominence as Monte Caucaso

That explains a few things. Fortunately the summits are still out there.

4 Likes

Is there a license condition in Italy that prevents you operating from them now? That way you get to operate from the summits, and since the points don’t matter, everyone is happy.

BRAVO THE TEAM !
That was long time we expect a clarification in the Italian association.
I also activated several summits by the border, and i can tell you that it was not P150.
@IZ1OQU : when an Association gets thousand summits, it is normal that you will find some mistakes. We did the same in France with 2750 summits and we still find some mistake or new summits. I suggest you to read closely the rules to definy a summit and then you will see that sometime a summit, even well known, can be out of list.

Congrats to the I manager
Bob

2 Likes

So, just to recap.
“Italy is fixed” now. Thanks for “fixing Italy”, that seems to have made loads of foreign OMs happy and to have disappointed many Italian OMs. Well, who cares, Italy is fixed now.

Amen.

As a side note: Dear YO6PIB, appreciate the huge work you had to go through, but please don’t come here and teach us about mountains that you’ve probably seen on a map or on a monitor. Thanks.

Please read the SOTA General Rules (again?): the ONLY criterion for inclusion is the PROMINENCE of a summit.

This is purely factual, not subject to interpretation, and can ONLY be determined using maps and monitors.

3 Likes

Italy has been aligned with the rules governing every other association in the world. There’s no special rules for Italy. There’s no special rules for VK. There’s no special rules for G, DM, or ZS. Where we find non-P150 summits, we’re going through and removing them, and in most cases replacing them with many more due to better surveying technology.

Csaba isn’t teaching you about mountains. He’s explaining the rules that govern which summits get included in SOTA and which don’t. I suggest you probably want to dial back the indignance towards Csaba.

It’s a simple concept. SOTA summits have a prominence of 150m. That’s all. Csaba has spent a long time staring at maps to work out which ones do in fact have prominence of 150m and which ones don’t. That means some mountains you love are no longer valid for SOTA. It means a bunch of other references you may not have considered as either mountains or as somewhere to visit do. If other countries are anything to go by, some of those newer ones might just surprise you - you might never have visited them if they weren’t listed.

But here’s the great thing about all those that have been removed: the mountains are still there. Activate them to your hearts content. They won’t have a SOTA reference, but if these mountains are as great as they seem to be, then there’s going to be ample reward for simply being there, with or without a radio. I’d certainly appreciate seeing pictures, SOTA or not.

6 Likes

My very short experience with SOTA in Italy shows me that:

  • The first summit activated was I/LO-308 Monte Boletto near Como. I always wondered how it was possible that this peak was plotted near a pub on the way to the real summit (hi!) and how the exact location of the summit was not the biggest prominence in the area. I know because I was there. Now we have I/LO-333 Monte Bolettone not very far, which is the right choice, and it’s already on the list for my next trip in the area. I still have all the points.

  • The second summit activated was I/VE-309 Monte Cesen that was plotted on another summit. I’ve lost an hour of hiking due to this error. Now we have the real summit as I/VE-215 on the right position and no more activators will be fooled. I know because I was there. I still have all the points.

So, evaluating my little experience in Italy, I encountered 100% errors that were 100% corrected and I still have all the points valid. Well done Csaba & all the team!

I have all the confidence in the quality of Csaba’s work: it is the person who updated the maps in Romania, and after more than 50 summits activated in YO I did not find any mistake. Draw yourself the conclusion.

3 Likes

Perhaps the summits to which you refer, though not now part of SOTA, would make a useful addition to the summits included in the GMA scheme - see www.cqgma.net

1 Like

There was some displeasure of italian OM about the new summit lists mainly concerning the famous P150, expecially of those from Liguria.
But for Lazio, Abruzzo and Marche (the regions I know better) I have to say that there are a lot of new interesting summits; the old are already in list so I have nothing to complain.
At the same time there are some new summits which are difficult or impossible to activate because TLC military installations, residential areas, too much repeaters on the summit, or because they are private areas.
Obviously these summits will be never activated; is it a good idea to maintain or to remove them from the list?
Last but not least, I’d like to remember to all italian colleagues that SOTA UK makes the rules (there is a Reference Manual to read to understand these rules) and if we want to make SOTA activation we have to follow these rules, even if we don’t agree about.
73 to all
Ciao
Alex IZ0WRS

1 Like

SOTA is about summits that have a prominence of 150 (sometimes 100) meters. Identifying them correctly is already a very difficult task.

Determining if their access is restricted, dangerous or has whatever other attribute is subject to discussion: what if a military ham radio operator activates from a military restricted summit ? What if an activator gets approval from the landlord to access a private property ? Is the access only limited during certain months of the year (natural reserves) ?

If you want to contribute, please help improving the summits data (identification, exact location, exact name(s)), and post on the summits pages whatever information you feel can help the others, like local restrictions, radio interference, data coverage, etc.

5 Likes

Hi at All,
Thanks to the team for the great work.
I fully agree with the rules used to reference the summits,
In this way we got rid of some embarrassing summit. e.g. in I/LO not only LO-308 but also LO-324 Linzone
1 392mt now LO-222 Mt Tesoro 1.432mt or LO-317 Corna Lunga 1.275mt prominance of six km long of LO-326 Pizzo Formico 1.636mt.
Near my qth I would have seen referenced Mt Magnodeno but I just have discovered that it’s a long prominance of Mt Serrada/Resegone LO-307.
Anyhow we have earned many important summits.
Gotta Catch 'Em All!!

73 de IW2OBX Roberto

2 Likes

Hi all, just a query on summit references that have changed.

I’ve only done two Italian summits.

One of them is still a valid summit but now has a new reference. So it is now showing as unactivated even though there are 15 valid activations on the old reference. I’ve still got my activator points based on the old reference which is fine.

Is this because the “apparent” summit has moved, even though anyone activating it would have used the real summit location regardless of the DB location indicated.

I am guessing there might be a few more like this. Creating summits that can now have “first activations” that have in fact been activated many times before.

This is not like new references for summits where the true summit has been resurveyed and moved, like Hensbarrow Downs or Muncaster Fell.

We try to avoid bonus uniques like this Gerald when things are moved about. In the case of Italy, the old refs were so screwed up, we took the view the most important use of our time was to get good association data rather than ensure nobody got a “free lunch”. So there will be some people who will be able to claim 2 uniques for the essentially the same summit. It’s not significant to be honest. And as I said earlier. we did think about deleting all the Italy summits and history and starting from new but that would unfairly punish the activators who went out in good faith. Many of those activators found the data to be lacking and did the correct thing of getting to the real summit when possible.

I’m hoping that everything should still work when people submit logs and their activations get scored. There’s a possibilty that some Italian scores may become wrong. They should score correctly still, even the old deleted stuff. But if they break, the activators should contact me and I will manually massage the data. The effort should not be significant.

So consider these cases as an early Christmas present from the MT!