Not necessarily so - not for me anyway post Mountain Goat, but I still need a recognised “target” and post-activation somewhere to hang my hat (for hat read log). Whether I hang it in the SOTA hall, the HEMA cloakroom or indeed the Wainwright cupboard doesn’t matter to me. 
73, Gerald G4OIG
To me, the points are not really important, either. I just enjoy working a new place (not necessarily as a SOTA hunter, another village down the highway ist just as fine), and if I find the time to activate a new place myself (I have little enough of it), the SOTA reference is just the little bit extra information that might make my calls slightly more interesting. If it is not SOTA, it may be WWFF, COTA, or just a new locator field to somebody. Yes, it is nice if you can check things off a list, but that’s not all there is to ham radio, and besides, there are so many lists to chose from, why worry if one of them becomes shorter or longer, as long as there is some consistency and clarity about the criteria.
Thus, I do not understand the fuss about the rule changes, or in this case, their stricter application. Be it P100, P150, P200, it is all fine to me. This only means to me that somebody made the effort to keep things consistent and the numbers manageable. If anything, I wonder why the exceptions from the rules that were made upon joining have not been corrected earlier. It is a pity that apparently some effort was wasted upon proving that some summits were P100-compatible, while this criterion was only a applied for a short time. Maybe this is where some of the resentment comes from.
No matter which prominence rule is finally applied, there will always be regions with few and with many summits in most countries. Such are the marvels of geography, the world would be boring if it looked the same everywhere.
As an aside, I might have preferred SOTA associations to be grouped according to topographical rather than political entities, but that does not mean that - because I’d perhaps prefer the Brocken to be HARZ-001 instead of DM/SA-001, and the Wurmberg to be HARZ-002 instead of DM/NS-001 - I would not work SOTA stations whom I hear calling from there, or would not activate the odd summit myself, given the time and opportunity.
73, Jan-Martin
Here we go again
while (1)
{
printf(“p150”);
}
Heh heh… it is a little like picking at a scab…
(not getting at you Jan-Martin - you make some nice points)
But I suspect this will start it all again. Hopefully I’m wrong.
It depends on how it goes, if necessary I have a nice little spanner here that will close the thread!
Brian
Finally, I see it very positively.
There always comes a time in every activity when it’s time to brake a bit.
I explained to my wife what’s going on. She replied quite happily “okay, we can spend a little more with our other activities”.
I like to make my wife happier.
73
Karel
Isn’t it simpler to keep the summits betwen p100 and p150 and lower their value ? For example previous p100 8-point summit gets only 6-points while a p150 summit the same height gets the full 8-points. This way both camps are happy, wich is what this thing is all about in the end. Just think about it a bit guys, p100 still requires effort - wich is what the points are supposed to reward, and it will keep alot of summits valid wich is important in some regions and for some activators, and can only help the program.
PS: sorry if this has been suggested before, I couldn’t possibly read trough all the discussions on this subject.
Hi Razvan,
Yes this has been suggested before, by myself and others. Not applied on a summit by summit basis, simply a P100 association would allocate points for summits between 1 and 5 points (for example) where an assocaition that uses the P150 rule assigns as at present between 1 and 10 points.
The problem is the complexity that this would add to the scheme and this was not wanted.
EDIT : Having “P100” and “P150” summits within one association, as I think you are suggesting Razvan, would be a nightmare to handle in the scoring systems and cause too much confusion.
How you assign points is a thorny discussion point in any case. I have activated 1 and 2 point summits that have been a real pain to get to and 8 and 10 point summits that have been a breeze! But there has to be some standard to define the scoring and it’s based on relative heights within an association for summits with a minimum prominence over surrounding land.
Them’s the rules.
73 Ed.
Hello Ed and everyone else,
indeed not always the number of points reflects the summit’s difficulty and it’s impossible to really get it right.
I guess what I’m saying is that a summit’s points should not be determined only by the relative height within the respective association, but also by the proeminence. The added complexity is minimal - the current p150 summits in most associations won’t be affected. The real work that needs to be done is for the current p100 summits, but I’m thinking it’s better to re-evaluate a summit than lose it because it’s not p150.
Of course this opens a new door - somebody may think that p200 summits should be worth even more points or p50 summits should get some points too, but I think that’s a non-issue. These discussions are only taking place because there are already a bunch of valid summits under the p100 rule and losing them affects the respective associations, changing something to smooth out rules for all associations won’t set a precedent for future proeminence discussions.
I’m off to a summit now, have a great weekend guys !
Razvan.
Your comments in bold are unusual Razvan. Relative height and prominence are the same thing.
Relative height = prominence.
But I know what you mean. I think it is a very good idea.
If there were no hills P100 in OK, I would not probably join the SOTA program or at most very lightly - because I would still have had to use mainly my car. The change in the rules - for me and others in Czech Moravian Highlands very rapid change - therefore bothers me.
73
Karel OK2BWB
The rules have not changed Karel. They are being properly and fairly applied.
Tom, there is a subtle difference.
At times, when I started, there was no - in my opinion, nonsensical, only making it easy for MT - SD constant.
At times, when I started, there was a possibility to incorporate P100 hill - if this was a hill dominant in the landscape and P150 was not in reasonably close range - no 2000 km^2 constant, that works too statistically.
It was possible to work with it sensibly and sensitively.
I take the program for what it is, but I’d rather take it for what it was.
But that is how it goes - most innovation is not worth much.
So I understood it.
Karel
P100 was initially granted to Associations that claimed that they had too few P150 summits to make a viable Association. Since it was difficult and very expensive to obtain maps on a suitable scale for every country the MT used to accept the word of those starting an Association. As other sources of information started to become available it was clear that many of the claims that had been granted were exaggerated, sometimes very, very much exaggerated. It was suspected that some of the claims were being made because of the desire rather than the need for more summits, debasing SOTA by making it easier. The summit density test was devised because it had become clear that an objective criterion was needed, a simple yes/no test based on easily obtainable information.
The Summit Density test has been successfully applied to Associations everywhere. It works well enough that I reckon that it is here to stay, to continue complaining about it is pointless. The geography of an Association is based on geology, not convenience - I have 165 km in a straight line to my nearest 10-point summit, more like 250 km by road, should I then agitate to have the points boundary lowered so that a lesser summit closer to me becomes worth ten points?
Where SOTA has become bent it will be straightened. That is the end of the story, I have nothing more to say.
Brian
Regardless of points, how far is the nearest SOTA hill?
In any case, Brian, it all depends on the nature and desire of each of us. I noticed that you activate only a few hills annually. You reconciled with it, conditions in G were still the same.
But I took it more passionately. I love radio, we love climbing hills, but not always on the same. We were out on the hill almost every spare moment. We have walked 1750 km within SOTA, except as always climbed at least 150 meters required. For us, the rules are going to change. It does not matter whose fault is that. Moreover, similar errors do things nice.
And now this is changing in motoring.
The more passionately you take something, the more it bothers you if it changes.
However, in my opinion SD constant is bad concept, but as you say, there is no democracy in SOTA nor attempt to look more closely at P100 because there is not time. You have to add 10,000 new hills. Or maybe more.
That’s too much work, I take my hat off.
Karel