SOTA MAPS of summits

HI Activators, Chasers,

Can anyone tell me is there is an available source of maps for area’s, such as Wales & England, which show the SOTA summits on them?

Maps hopefully showing tracks or nearby roads.

73 de Kevin
G0NUP

In reply to G0NUP:
Hi Kevin

Try the “summits.kml” file by Martin M1MAj here:

Using it with Google Earth will do what you ask.

Also, browsing for each summit here in SOTAwatch will give you links to Google Maps and OS Get-a-Map on each summit page.

73 Marc G0AZS

Hi Kevin,

I’ve circled all the England, Wales, Scotland and Isle of Man SOTA summits in the road atlas. This is probalbly best map showing all the SOTA summits, but it would take you a few weeks to circle all of them.

Jimmy M3EYP

Yes Jimmy, I do the same in an old road atlas - though it’s gradually getting done as I consider each new region, rather than all done already :wink:

And Kevin, if you like to keep track visually of which ones you’ve done, I’ve found

quite good - though I mostly use the Scottish page, of course. It’s free to register and use it and the ones you’ve done are given a different colour on the maps.

73
John GM8OTI

Hi John,

I circled all of them because if I’m on a SOTA holiday or a family holiday, I know which SOTA summits are in that area to activate.

Jimmy M3EYP

In reply to M3EYP:

I’ve circled all the England, Wales, Scotland and Isle of Man SOTA summits in
the road atlas.

However, if you have have moved on from the stone age and entered the information age there are downloads available for the two most popular mapping programmes used by walkers, Anquet and Memory Map. :slight_smile: These downloads show the locations of all the Marilyns in the UK.

Whilst there are many free sources of OS map data, the fact remains that programs like these two which are geared especially for outdoor activities are streets ahead of anything you can cobble together from free sources. Not only do you get (depending on how much you pay) maps at 1:25000 or 1:50000 of the whole UK but you can draw routes on them, get timing estimations, height changes, download tracks to and from a GPS. Of course you can print out the bits you need at a scale that makes sense.

I muddled along for a while scraping data off webpages etc. and then finally put my hand in my pocket (short arms deep pockets syndrome here) and spent the £120 on Anquet. I’ve been using desktop computers since 1979 and it was simply the most useful piece of software I’ve ever had and is great value for money as the 204 paper maps would be £1400 and still wouldn’t tell me how long a walk should take!

Andy
MM0FMF

Try http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk

  • and (obviously) select to view the ‘Marilyns’.

And Jimmy - that road atlas is getting quite ‘beaten up’ now. Maybe we can buy a new one and you can mark them all again…

(or find somewhere that could laminate each page for us, then rebind them).

Andy - the road atlas, with all the SOTA summits circled - is invaluable for in-car use, and planning a trip to visit a group of summits. No IT-based alternative is as convenient or useful, even though the task took Jimmy many hours of work in the first place.

Will be on GB3MN at 4.45pm Jim.

Tom M1EYP

In reply to M1EYP:

On the old website there used to be a road map of the UK with different coloured “pins” showing the Marilyns and their scores. I think its gone, now, but it was really useful, it would be nice to have it back!

I stick to nice paper OS maps, you can’t beat a bit of map browsing and daydreaming about past and future walks, and I have no hesitation in adding the SOTA designations onto my collection. The best area overviews I think were given by the old Bartholomew half-inch series with colour layering. Lovely maps!

73

Brian G8ADD

In reply to ALL:
Well thanks for all the replies. sorry for the delay in answering I got locked out of SotaWatch, No idea why.

I have to be honest about this, the perfect thing for what I wanted was the google Earth file. How absolutly marvelouse to be able to just zoom in and see the lay of the land.
The real advantage is that I don’t actually have to know the summit name I can just look at the map for the area I’m heading for, find the pin in the map and zoom in.

I had purchased a number of OS maps and has started to look at summits and put markers on the map. I very soon realised that it was going to take me months to complete.

My thanks for all the hard work done for the Google Earth pins file (summit .kml) by Martin M1MAJ.

73 de Kevin
G0NUP

In reply to G0NUP:

My thanks for all the hard work done for the google Earth pins file.

I’ll second that! Martin M1MAJ’s summit .kml files are THE most useful resource in expedition planning, yet he is rarely credited with the achievement - so a big thank you from me too!

I keep track of which summits I’ve done by changing their icon colour too - very satisfying!

vy 73 de Paul G4MD

In reply to G8ADD:
Hi Brian!

I wonder if was the Auto-Route Pushpins you were referring to?

I still use this programme for all my planning - including road times and distances. Also the Pushpins theme selves are the database of the current status of the Summit relative to my Activations & Chasing.

To give you and idea how I use it I have uploaded a .jpg of the current status of my Summits in the D&G area of SW Scotland. Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos

The Legend consists of:

Small Triangles - yet to be activated
Small Square - Activated
Small Circle - Chased
Large Triangle - Activated & Chased

Colours: Black - 1, Red - 2, Yellow - 4, Blue - 6, Turquoise - 8 and White (for snowy) - 10

A Pushpin symbol indicates that I have completed route planning for the summit and is yet to be Activated.

I have used this programme since I started SOTA and find it meets all my needs.

Like the .jpg the original files are available at the same URL. However they are a bit out of date. If there is enough interest I could update?

Finally. I also use the programme to log European summits - mainly from a Chaser point, but possibly Activations in the future??

Trust of some interest.

73

Jack

PS I use Memory Map/GPS (Uploading/Track-backing) in conjunction with Auto-Route for route planning.