8 out of 10 cats

Old Reflector
1

…prefer English summits it seems. Eight out of the top ten SOTA summits are English. It’s amazing just how many of the top 50 summits are English ones. I didn’t count but it must be around 70%. The remainder are Welsh summits. Occasionally a German summit has been on the list; near the bottom. I can’t recall seeing any other country’s summits on the list.

http://database.sota.org.uk/topsummits.aspx

I also notice that there have been more English Activators out this year than any previous year apart from 2007 and 2008 - and, of course, there is lots of the year left to go.

73

Richard
G3CWI

2

In reply to G3CWI:
Is the constant activation of SP 15 putting it near the top ?

Morgan
M3LMP

3

In reply to M3LMP:

It certainly helps Morgan. Popularity is a wonderful thing!

73

Richard
G3CWI

4

In reply to G3CWI:

I havent been on the site for a while, but it seems popularity has been a bit scarce from reading some of Tom’s reports, it must be so frustrating to go up a summit and only get 3 contacts, it happened to me and my Dad, but only once.

If the weather stays fine then I think we are doing Whernside tomorrow, or possibly going to see the new Transformers movie, yaaaay.

Morgan
M3LMP

5

Is that Transformers as in “Robots in Disguise”?

Tom M1EYP

6

In reply to M1EYP:
Yeah !! have you seen it ?, up on the hill or Transfromers ? hmmmm cant decide so will let the weather do it for me.

Morgan
M3LMP

7

In reply to G3CWI:

Hello Richard,

interesting statistics. I wonder if it would be possible to put popularity of SOTA summits in correlation with their proximity to car parks?

Regards,

Gerd.

8

In reply to G3CWI:

As its raining here (again!!!) I have extracted the figures below from the database. They would be better viewed in graph form but I dont think you can do that on the reflector. I have listed by year, the number of G activators and the number of activations. I have also done the same for the DM association as I think it is the second oldest (outside the UK). What it doesnt show is how many of the activations are actually in G or DM, for example, many of my activations are in GW,GM,DL etc. I think the most startling thing is the drop off in DM land over the last year. Also the numbers in G land seem to have reached a plateau over the last 3 - 4 years.

Year G activators, Summits done, DM activators, Summits done,
2002 24, 265,
2003 48, 759, 18, 164,
2004 100, 1293, 62, 936,
2005 122, 2028, 85, 1367,
2006 147, 2441, 92, 1636,
2007 155, 2792, 129, 2841,
2008 171, 2867, 133, 3704,
2009 147, 1656, 68, 510,

***** later edit
Sorry for the appearance of the above table. It looked fine in draft format, however when I posted it lost its formatting.

9

In reply to G1INK:

I think that no conclusions can be drawn about this year until after it is over. Bear in mind that if you use the year filter in the database activators won’t appear until they log an activation, their absense may indicate a lack of activity, or merely a lack of enthusiasm for the chore of logging their activations - that latter is why I don’t appear yet for this year!

If you plot the total number of activators per year in all Associations against time, ignoring this year, then the growth is close to linear:

2002…33
2003…87
2004…210
2005…273
2006…344
2007…478
2008…606

Plotting yearly activator totals avoids counting those who have activated but are no longer active, so that the total of 606 activators logging in 2008 is a genuine indicator of activity. Of course there are some who seem to take a perverse pleasure in forecasting the demise of SOTA and claim that it is dying on its feet, but the figures don’t support their gloom and doom scenario! Even the G-land plateau for 2006 to 2008 is more accurately described as a slow down in growth, and that is hardly surprising - activating is not something that could appeal to everyone, and as the word has probably got to most potential activators in the older Associations by now, future growth in them will be because the number of new licensees coming into SOTA exceeds the number of activators that drop out.

As you might guess from the above, its raining here too, and a horrendous local noise level is hindering my chasing!

73

Brian G8ADD

10

In reply to G8ADD:

This is what happens when the rain makes boredom set in. Lets examine your figures Brian but lets imagine the hypothetical case where due to erosion from walkers, the Cloud G/SP-015 was to lose 25m prominence, this is what happens. Strange how one summit on the Cheshire/Staffordshire border can make such a massive difference to the figure for “all associations”. And before you say it, I`m not a doom and gloom merchant

…with cloud…without cloud
2002…33…30
2003…87…75
2004…210…198
2005…273…249
2006…344…305
2007…478…342
2008…606…442

11

In reply to G1INK:

I’m sorry, Steve, I’m not with you. My figures were for the total number of people activating in one given year, and since very few of those individuals would have only activated the Cloud the loss of it would only make a marginal difference to the figures. I really don’t see how taking the Cloud off the list of summits would have lost us 164 activators in 2008.

73

Brian G8ADD

12

Ah yes Steve, but The Cloud does have 25+ of prominence, so all activations on it do contribute to SOTA activity. It is interesting to see however, that even with the records of 72 different activators (not including those who did it for the 1st time this year) expunged, that while the numbers are not as high (obviously), the growth trend looks remarkably similar.

In any case, for Gerd DF9TS, I have done a few whirlwind calculations regarding distances from parking spots for the 50 most popular summits. There are obvious ‘health warnings’ with this, as there are other routes and other parking positions; I have tried to pick the ‘usual’ (modal) ones. Public transport users like Phil G1OPV and Roy G0HDX (RIP) will have walked further, and there ar other anomolies - the 4km approach to Skiddaw LD-004, is much simpler than the 1.7km to the Old Man of Coniston LD-013. Therefore, how appropriate it would be to calculate correlation co-efficients based on this data alone, I am not sure, but here is the data anyway:

(Ref - summitname - number of activations - walking distance in km)

G/SP-015 The Cloud 494 0.5
G/SP-004 Shining Tor 285 1.9
G/LD-049 Kirkby Moor 225 0.5
GW/NW-051 Foel Fenlli 222 0.6
G/SP-013 Gun ----- 218 0.7
G/SP-005 Pendle Hill 191 1.7
GW/NW-044 Moel Famau 185 2.4
G/NP-010 Pen-y-ghent 175 2.2
G/NP-005 Ingleborough 174 4.0
G/SP-001 Kinder Scout 160 4.3
G/LD-050 Gummer’s How 159 1.0
GW/NW-062 Hope Mountain 157 0.2
G/NP-004 Whernside 153 2.0
GW/NW-042 Moel y Gamelin 145 2.5
G/WB-005 Long Mynd 142 0.7
G/SP-010 Winter Hill 142 0.3
GW/NW-001 Snowdon 135 4.2
G/NP-017 Fountains Fell 128 2.2
G/WB-004 Titterstone CH 127 0.5
GW/NW-043 Cyrn-y-Brain 127 2.0
G/LD-013 OM of Coniston 122 1.7
G/WB-003 Stiperstones 121 1.0
G/NP-008 Great Whernside 121 2.7
G/NP-028 Rombalds Moor 118 1.3
G/LD-003 Helvellyn 118 3.5
G/SP-002 Black Hill 117 3.2
G/SP-014 Longridge Fell 116 1.9
GW/NW-070 Great Orme 116 0.1
G/LD-018 Stony Cove Pike 114 2.8
GW/NW-040 Tal y Fan 112 1.4
G/SP-012 Easington Fell 108 1.5
G/NP-009 Buckden Pike 108 5.0
G/SP-017 Billinge Hill 106 0.4
G/NP-029 Sharp Haw 105 1.6
G/NP-015 Gt Knoutberry H 104 1.5
G/LD-004 Skiddaw ----- 98 4.0
G/LD-022 Seat Sandal 97 2.5
G/LD-007 Fairfield 93 4.0
G/SP-007 Fair Snape Fell 93 3.0
G/SP-008 Boulsworth Hill 92 2.0
G/NP-030 Lovely Seat 88 1.1
G/WB-002 Brown Clee Hill 86 1.4
G/LD-017 Red Screes 86 0.9
G/CE-002 Walton Hill 84 0.4
G/CE-005 Wendover Woods 83 0.2
G/CE-001 Cleeve Hill 81 0.4
G/CE-004 Bardon Hill 80 1.4
G/WB-010 The Wrekin 80 2.0
G/NP-006 Gt Shunner Fell 78 2.6
G/LD-008 Blencathra 77 3.0

73, Tom M1EYP

13

Oops, yes, well spotted Brian. Think you’ve dropped a clanger Steve. You have subtracted the number of activations of The Cloud, not the number of activators who only did that summit (and that is probably zero anyway!).

Tom

14

In reply to G8ADD:

Hi Brian, you have me - I must read things more carefully in future. I blame the fact that it`s so dark here I should put the lights on. Each time it brightens up I think about doing shining tor - then it gets dark / wet again.

15

In reply to M1EYP:

I presume that for the OMC you are judging that most activations will be via that horrible quarrymans path rather than the easier but longer approach taking in Dow Crag? When I activated the OMC I did toil up that path, but the time before that I climbed it (pre-SOTA but I did carry an FT290R!) I did the circuit from Wetherlam…and considered that to be the easy option!

Its interesting that there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between walking distance and popularity of the summit…at least, until you notice that the longest walk-in on the list is a trifling 5 km!

73

Brian G8ADD

16

In reply to G1INK:

:-))

I’ve just looked at the weather radar - there’s worse on the way!

73

Brian G8ADD

17

In reply to G8ADD:

Will you guys quit with the negative waves about the weather. You’re making it cloudy over here where the sun always shines.

Andy
W6/MM0FMF

18

In reply to MM0FMF:

Thats not clouds, its smoke from wildfires!:wink:

Hope you’re enjoying your stay!

Brian G8ADD

19

In reply to G8ADD:

No it was grey and cloudy most of yesterday by the coast. It was sunny around lunchtime when I was sampling the laid back California coastal style at La Jolla but afternoon up at Solano Beach it was just like a Scottish sky. However, since I’ve been down to the gym and got back to my room normal service has been resumed and the sky is, once more, wall to wall sunshine. Now breakfast by the pool and then Palomar if I can get to the summit.

Andy
W6/MM0FMF

20

Then, if you really want to get carried away with the statistics you can divide the resultant by an incentive factor based on the number of points for the summit (oh, not forgetting to take the winter bonus into account…)

73, Richard

ps It’s raining properly here now so no more gardening for today. Weren’t we lucky with the weather yesterday.