With today’s first activation of HB/UR-053 by Christian @HB9GIN and Beni @HB9HNT, the HB SOTA association has reached a new milestone: 17 years after its inception, 1000 of the 1331 currently valid HB SOTA summits have been activated at least once!
The HB association is mature as far as the summit list is concerned. Occasionally, when Swisstopo revises their maps and a summit or col elevation changes by a meter or two, a new summit may pop up, or one that just met P150 before has to be deleted. However, this is pretty rare.
The remaining 331 unactivated summits are most likely either very remote (i.e. requiring long approaches and/or a large ascent), or difficult to climb, have objective dangers like loose rock, or any combination of these. A precious few summits that don’t fit any of these criteria remain available for a first activation by those keen enough to find them.
For those who would like to know what HB summits can be like: I activated the highest point of each of the 26 cantons (= SOTA regions) a while back; this report shows that there’s everything from lowland wooded hills to high alpine glacier-covered summits.
I can’t wait to see which summits will be the next to receive their “SOTA baptism”!
Hallo Manuel, ganz grosses Kino von Dir. Leider hab ich SOTA zu spät kennen gelernt. Ich wäre gerne auch noch auf Berge geklettert oder mit den Ski hinauf gegangen. Aber es hat nur zum Breithorn gereicht, dass ist aber vor der SOTA Zeit gewesen. Aber ich bewundere Euch alle. Aber mit defektem Rücken und Arthrose in den Gelenken geht da nicht’s mehr. Leider. So jage ich Euch als Aktivierer um meinen Kontostand zu erhöhen. Besonders auf 60m und nur in CW. Also bis bald Mal wieder und danke für UR-053. GL 73 de Nick, HB9DDZ
Good evening Manuel @HB9DQM. An interesting milestone for HB(9)SOTA. You have to be honest, you are also very active all together The statistics are interesting. Thanks for that.
Lieber Nick, ich freue mich immer, wenn ich dich dran habe. Es gibt ja so viele Wege, um mit unserem Amateurfunk Freude zu haben, und wir sind dankbar für euch, die ihr uns von unten im Tal Antwort gebt. DANKE.
Die vielen Summits bei uns für grosse und kleine SOTA-Gängerinnen und -Gänger machen es uns natürlich recht einfach, immer wieder was Neues auszusuchen. Das ist wirklich ein Geschenk!
Thanks! Although I do try to target summits for first activations that fulfill at least one of the aforementioned criteria (remote, difficult or with loose rock ), to leave some of the precious pearls to others. For example, this summer I‘ve visited, but purposely not activated Piz Gannaretsch HB/GR-185 – one of the few remaining “convenient” ones.
The “first adopters” of SOTA in HB must have felt like in the land of plenty… Well anyway, keep the activations coming, no matter if they are first activations or not!
Danke dir fürs QSO, Nick Ich arbeite fleissig daran, dass du mich irgendwann auch auf CW hörst - aber ich weiss nicht, ob ich das je hinkriege. Im Moment bin ich bei so 5 WPM mit mindestens einem Fehler pro Wort…
Another option: it turns out that a subsidiary summit is actually higher than what’s marked as the main summit on the SwissTopo map, making the activation even more challenging as soon as the data is corrected. (Finding an example is left to the reader as an exercise because at least one such summit is not corrected yet and you can still activate it on the easier of the two summits - even though that one is already pretty challenging.)
Very kind of you, and you even provide the GPX!
This summit would definitely scratch on my limits (T4-T5), even with perfect weather. Unfortunately, many of these “interesting” summits are all far from where I live, and I don’t even want to think about the traffic jams, e.g. by waiting in front of the Gotthard tunnel. In France or Germany I hardly ever experienced a traffic jam, it’s so much quicker to travel, but the close by summits are not so exiting .
Indeed, they look the same, if activated or unactivated.
Abroad, to me it seems so much easier to do first activations, unless it’s very hot and you have to bushwhack through thick vegetation with thorns .
That is quite incredible. The accessibility in Switzerland certainly makes it much easier to make it up summits (i.e., trains, roads, gondolas). When I had visited back in May I was quite astonished by the fact that I could access most summits by just a few bus or train rides away.
Here in Canada, anything remote will take a minimum of 2 days to complete, and you are lucky to get access to a hut in the backcountry (mainly due to location and they are most likely fully booked). I am not sure about the percentage of activated peaks in the VE6 association, but it must be low. Our association also added over 900 new summits recently (and hopefully more in the future), so the percentage must be even lower.
I will keep trying to activate new summits but it will take A LOT of time to even remotely get up to 10% of activated summits in the VE6 association. At least the nice thing is that pretty much any summit you decide to activate, you will most likely be the first activator .
Herzliche Gratulation, Manuel! Vielen Dank für die vielen und vor allem ganz speziellen Aktivitäten, an denen wir hoffentlich auch in Zukunft teilhaben können. Vielen Dank und auf wiederhören.
73’
Paul DL6FBK
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The statistics are interesting. Thanks for that.
), to leave some of the precious pearls to others. For example, this summer I‘ve visited, but purposely not activated Piz Gannaretsch HB/GR-185 – one of the few remaining “convenient” ones.
Ich arbeite fleissig daran, dass du mich irgendwann auch auf CW hörst - aber ich weiss nicht, ob ich das je hinkriege. Im Moment bin ich bei so 5 WPM mit mindestens einem Fehler pro Wort… 
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