Unfortunately this has gone no-where. Except for people driving this to the top… … and that was not where I wanted to steer it.
We will see, I for one hate to see all those nice summits go. I will activate as many as possible on 1 day and use the hit and run way many already do and work the minimum of 4 qso’s. I have done this already and …well…it is not really fun.
Thanks to all for contributing in this,
73
on6uu
Why do they need to go Frank? Surely someone could pick up the P100 summits and create a separate scheme along the lines that we have in the UK. Maybe there is a move towards that behind the scenes or maybe the summits will just be added to the GMA scheme. There is no need to lose anything - the hills will still be there. It just needs some organisation to facilitate the recording of activations and activators willing to go up them.
Or do they suddenly become no-go areas when they are longer part of SOTA? No, there IS life outside SOTA.
73, Gerald G4OIG
Clearly logical Gerald. There is no reason why parallel schemes cannot co-exist. I think however it would be better for a parallel scheme based on P100 perhaps labelled HOTA i.e. Hundred(m) On The Air. or something similar rather than GMA being expanded where you can effectively walk down hill to a minor 5m or 10m uplift. After all we have multiple tiers of football leagues, rugby leagues, chess masters, motor racing (F1, F3, e,t,c,) and many other activities. Trying to cram every single activity into a one tier organisation would always be disastrous.
That is the way hill walking and mountaineering works. In the UK there are a number of tables of hills, in SOTA we are familiar with the Marilyns, any hill with a prominence of 150 metres, but there are the Munros, Scottish mountains above 3000 feet, the Corbetts, 2500 feet to 3000 feet with 500 feet prominence, the Grahams, 2000 feet to 2500 feet with 500 feet prominence, and so on to the Hewitts, hills of England and Wales above 2000 feet with at least 30 metres of prominence - the essential insanity of defining hills by imperial units with metric prominence is almost endearing! I have friends busy collecting the 3000 metre mountains of the Alps (I haven’t enquired about prominence) and they have a lot of fun and adventures! I’ve been into the hills for as long as I can remember, and it seems that a minor symptom of the mountain disease is this need for numbers and tables, I suppose it is something to occupy your mind in your spare time while you wait for your next trip to the mountains. Daft but somehow fulfilling!
What it boils down to is that SOTA is just one of many possibilities, just a selection from the broad palette of hills and mountains available to us. One day we may have a range of award schemes covering many possibilities, I see SOTA as a pioneer pointing the way to these future possibilities, perhaps one day when we have got all the likely Associations going it might be possible to incorporate some of them into SOTA, but for now we still have half the world to be incorporated!
Brian
Well Jim, as part of the Summitsbase HEMA scheme I have been enjoying some P100 summits up in your neck of the woods. Had I not been ill during my week away at Easter, I would have been looking at some decent challenges like Windy Gyle and The Schil. As it was, a chest infection, hacking cough and a bad cold kept me on the lower summits of Titlington Pike and Dod Law, but they were nonetheless enjoyable… dare I say it, rather more so than Lamberton Hill GM/SS-286, but don’t stone me for saying that!
73, Gerald G4OIG
If I ever manage to get my feet back in order (surgery on the left done, surgery on the right inevitable when it gets too bad) then I aim to activate the humps previously known as SB-002 and SB-003 but with now only humps references. I have operated radio from both before and would love to do again,
73 Jim
I well remember walking over Windy Gyle and The Schil!
http://tomread.co.uk/byrness_to_uswayford.htm
http://tomread.co.uk/uswayford_to_kirk_yetholm.htm
These two were visited on the respective last two days of our Pennine Way walk in 2006. Alas, well before the HEMA scheme came into being.
Similarly, we passed many trig points on that 20 day walk, but all well before the launch of the WAB Trigpoint scheme.
The greatest urge to revisit somewhere though, is for the SOTA summits on Ibiza and Menorca that we have visited in the past, but well before there was any EA6 association!
I think to say this is neither true nor fair.
Twice a week I go to work on foot over the beautiful nearby hill. This hill being climbed has a topographic prominence of roughly 30m. But, in doing so, the only practical footpath requires 200m to be climbed - if you do not want to go three times greater horizontal distance and to climb the cumulative altitude differences of 130m. This summit - and there are many such in the Highland - has a topographic prominence of only around 30m. This is the case of the long ridges.
Topographic prominence is just a number in terms of hike difficulty and above sea level itself as well.
Finally, the SOTA rules also allow you to be lazy: You can go up the hill on an electric motor bicycle (diesel quad 4x4, snowmobile or simply off-road car) close to the top and then transmit only a few inches away from it!
Karel
Have you actually read the rules, Karel?
“4. Summits that are accessible by road can still be included in the programme, although operation from within vehicles or the near vicinity of activators vehicles is not permitted.”
and:
“14. All SOTA operations are expected to be conducted in the spirit of the programme.”
If you are visualising an award program where the summits are graded by difficulty rather than prominence, then you would have to accept that each summit will have a prescribed route to it and leaving that route would invalidate the ascent.
Brian
Yes, I read it. What exactly is “near vicinity”, what exactly is “the spirit of the programme”.
I responded to the G0CQK statement.
I just wanted to say that those who want to be lazy, can be. If we are not looking for loopholes, SOTA and GMA can be just as difficult.
It is therefore not correct to write in this way only in respect of GMA.
The world is - 2600000 radioamateurs? Not all are active. Maybe one in a thousand of them (1ppt, or a per mille) actively transmits from the hills (4113 activators registered in SOTA but not all are active) and the amount of chasers is “symmetric”.
One in a thousand of them - not a lot of space for other similar programs, therefore, it is worth discussing…
Karel
It would be enough and easy to prescribe only the principle of ascent to be 150m, if possible (based on the physical layout).
Karel
I don’t know why you are obsessing about the rules, Karel, they have been in place with only minor changes since 2002, they work in Associations all over the world and they are unlikely to change. SOTA is a case of “it is what it is”, and going on about the rules and your conception of “fairness” will achieve nothing except, possibly, the aggravation of people who have to read your posts. I suggest that you let it go, enjoy what SOTA can give you and stop going on about what it doesn’t give you.
Brian
I accept the SOTA program as is, Brian. I like it.
I do not have any ambition to score either in SOTA or in GMA or in WWFF - I am still working and do not have much time so I could not compete in this matter. Just like walking in the hilly or mountainous countryside - and doing it with radio.
I responded just to argue with G0CQK.
Karel
PS I sent you and Andy a PM regarding “sampling radius” (which you offered me).
I haven’t received a PM from you, Karel, did it “bounce”?
Brian
PS Just going out for a few hours, I’ll have another look when I get back.
I have and it says Brian has it. I’ve been rather busy this last few weeks with moving my son into a house, this pain called a job, getting ready for a wee SOTAexpedition and other SOTA stuff.
Good on yer Jim. I hope the feet get sorted soon. Hedgehope Hill and Cushat Law are also on my to-do list as well. I don’t know about them ONLY having HuMPs references… at least they have references! There’s many a fine hill in the area that has neither and those are unlikely to attract the attention of the radio fraternity, unless of course a scheme akin to the Wainwrights comes about.
I have pondered whether to walk the Pennine Way many times, but being self-employed for the past 23 years I have not been able to justify 3 weeks away from the work QTH. Maybe when I eventually retire… of course it will take 25 days minimum - 20 days walking, 5 days activating. 
73, Gerald G4OIG
…what about the three days drinking (re-hydration is a serous business).
Highly recommended Gerald, I loved it. I do intend to do it again sometime in the future, solo, with a backpacking tent and ultra lightweight CW only system.
As even not every summit remains as it it is (physical not SOTA-wise; if you dont believe look only i.e. for DM/TH-012) I can read but need not share the first point - as meaningless as my opinion is. Are there any activities not undergoing change to better fit to a changing environment, their own changes (is SOTA the same then when it started?) and changing possibilities (did we have every software possibility then?).
And second I like nearly every posting with interesting and thought-provoking input from both sides helping me to understand and learn a lot in the recent weeks. I prefer walking to standing
Chris DL8MBS
I’m sure you are right, Gerald, but it is something that I ponder from time to time.
A few day ago I activated Waun Fach in South Wales. It involved four and a half hours driving, three hours walking, and one hour on the summit, which included 40 minutes of operating. I managed 8 QSOs plus one duplicate. Oh, yes, and claimed eight activator points. It was a very pleasant day out, and I will remember it. My tattered paper log book and a few photographs tell the story of my activities, and would do so with or without an award scheme.
So, why didn’t I just take my radio to somewhere nice and closer to home? Why did it have to be a SOTA summit? What do points mean? (BBC Radio 4 listeners probably know one answer to that :o)
Are the points important, or is it that “CQ SOTA”, or indeed “CQ WAB” or whatever, is more likely to attract calls?
Will the day come when SOTA and the like have raised the profile of portable operation, so that it becomes a popular activity in its own right without needing award schemes as a motivation?
I hope so, and I hope that SOTA and the others continue to flourish as the “icing on the cake”. There will be no need then for talk of summits being “deleted”, conjuring up images of giant earth movers!
Er, to keep on topic, I think P150 is fine 
Adrian
G4AZS