9M2CDX, Wants to set up 9M2 region

Again, is this the highest summit in 9M2? If it is not the highest then it cannot be added on it own.

9M2 region consist of 11 states. Each state has its own unique highest summits. More than one summits. Bukit Perangin is the highest summit in it region.

Is West Malaysia only allowed to have one summit?

When refer to latest SOTA General Rules, it is clearly stated that:

3.5 Guidelines for the definition of a Summit

  1. The Programme is intended to be inclusive in nature and, therefore, Summits should not be limited to the highest points in an Association. To encourage participation by as many people as possible, any summit that meets the requirements of principle (1) above should be eligible for inclusion in the programme.

So, although Bukit Perangin is not highest summit in West Malaysia or 9M2 region, it should be allowed to be registered as one of qualified summit because it is still the highest summit in it region at Kedah.

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The highest point on an island is a special case, for which prominence = height above water level. Therefore we knew 9M6/KB-001 was good with little research. Because it was the highest summit in the association we knew it would be 10 points, no matter how we distributed the final bands. Normally we would expect the association to be fully (or at least substantially) developed (i.e. all regions) before accepting it. But in the case of 9M6 we allowed this early summit in the expectation that the rest would follow.

It never did, for whatever reason, so actually we contemplate de-listing 9M6.

Your region high-points are not necessarily high in prominence. I wouldnā€™t be surprised to find that they are, but itā€™s not a given. Also we have to do most of the work before we can set the points bands. So no, we canā€™t arbitrarily list your regional high points.

As you note from the GR we expect substantial development of the full summits list, not just choice high ones, because we want to include lower ones for inclusivity.

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Can SOTA MT, set minimum points at first? Next, the points can still be changed when better information is become available. It is as being told by Ron, @VK3AFW.

As this is a hobby and no financial loss is incurred if a summit is not initially being set with correct points.

Yes, I have finished reading the GR. Yet, it do not clearly stated that we need to have substantial development of the full summits list.

Only I can find is:

3.6 Adding and Deleting Summits

The list of Summits for an Association is not necessarily exhaustive. It is acceptable that the list will evolve over time, as the Programme develops within the Association.

So, this mean, the list can start with only one summit in the list. Next, it can be improved from time to time.

Hopefully SOTA MT, can take a look at this matter. We only hope to register the first summit. Kindly facilitate. Thanks.

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Muhammad,

Please read my response to the post on VU and SOTA.

Summit mapping can be fun but it is time consuming and not a trivial exercise. You soon learn height is not everything. Also the information for tourists on summits and their heights is often wrong.

The SOTA summit checkers are hard markers so you need to do your homework well.

Iā€™m hoping some clarification of the technical requirements will be made to help you and others, especially where the available mapping is not equal in uncertainty to the British Geological Survey Mapsā€¦

73
Ron
VK3AFW

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Thanks Ron. We can try to ask for official 9M2 region topographic map from Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia (JUPEM). JUPEM is our nationā€™s survey, mapping services and geospatial data management arm.

Iā€™m trying to find this technical requirements but without success.

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Do they do maps? Perhaps you mean OSGB. They do the best-looking national maps (Linz a close second) :wink:
But being phtotogrammetric, I suspect, for the most part, probably not the most accurate. Iā€™d guess maybe the EA or LA (mostly) mapping might be better examples.

(If all mapping agencies were like IGN Spain Iā€™d be very very happy! They even run their own radio telescope :grinning:)

Iā€™m not sure that you can quote simple error values for the SAR-derived DEMs as it depends upon the particular circumstances. Broadly an order of magnitude worse than photogrammetric perhaps. And another order of magnitude win when you do LIDAR. You can Google for SAR issues, but Iā€™d note:

  • bad over ice
  • trees difficult
  • deep valley shadowing

All of which we get in varying amounts.

And of course any gridded DEM is only as good as its pixel size, so if youā€™re somewhere with pointy summits and cols on sharp ridges you need heaps of resolution.

The free global maps do quote some summit spot heights but often they seem pretty fictional.

I often think it would be interesting to characterize how bad are these effects, but itā€™s a few years till my retirement from the day job yet!

You quoted it yourself, earlier.

Great. Get their topo map links to WMS, WMTS or XYZ tile server and weā€™ll be good to go.

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Hi, Simon. As for my knowledge, JUPEM only issue a copy of hard copy map. Is it alright?

Next, how long will it take for the list to be approved by SOTA MT?

Letā€™s take this to a PM.

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Yes, the list can be started with just one summit, as long as the summit has the necessary prominance. The trouble is that we have several instances where the highest summit within the borders of an Association is not a valid summit because it is subsidary to another summit outside the border in another Association or potential Association. In the case of the profile that you offer as evidence, the summit would only become valid if a contour 150m below the summit is closed, that is goes all around the summit, if this happens here it would be outside the area covered by the profile. Hence the need for maps - it would be embarrassing if we accepted the summit and then later found it was subsidary to another summit outside the border and had to be removed from the summit list!

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Alright. I got it.

It is true. However to get access for quality national map it not easy. Can we rely on data from Google topographic map? It is still accurate enough.

Hi, SOTA MT should provide option to use current online free map. It still good enough.

Not all countries have free quality mapping. As for Malaysia, I have contact our government agency. JUPEM can only issue or provide printed map. Digital map is restricted due to our federal law.

So, citizen cannot have access to digital quality national mapping. That why we asked SOTA MT to be more rational. Just use open free source map. Do not complicate the SOTA application.

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Do you know about these CD or memory key based maps from JUPEM Muhammed?
https://www.jupem.gov.my/page/electronic-map-emap

There is no complete country eMaponly State, District and Town Maps, so I suspect several of the state map versions may have to be bought.

73 Ed.

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Yes, Ed. That information is to my knowledge.

However, we need to pay some amount of money to get that map. That map also is being sold separately for each different states. So, there is no way that we can combine all the map into one big map.

Besides that, the eMAP still do not cover all regions in West Malaysia. It is not complete. This is because there are some part or state map, still not available to buy. It is being restricted to citizen.

It can be bought. But still not complete. You can see the list of only available map below:

https://ebiz.jupem.gov.my/Produk/SenaraiEmap?productid=10801

So, the purpose to get whole complete quality national map for 9M2 region, still cannot be achieved.

Thats why, we urge SOTA MT to facilitate SOTA application. Just use free open source map. This activity is just a hobby. We just want to enjoy it.

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Good morning Mohammad, selamat pagi.

I think there is a very good reason for trying to make the initial registration of a new association as complete as possible, with not only the highest summit but as many others as possible too. The reason is that with a good number of available summits, of varying difficulty and accessibility, more 9M2 hams (and visitors) will be encouraged to select a summit that suits their abilities and interests. With only Mt Kinabalu registered, the 9M6 association has had only one initial activation - which is not registered with the database - and thatā€™s not really helpful other than giving the few involved a one-off experience.

The SOTA MT (of which I am not a member) tries to get a comprehensive coverage in each country, as far as possible. So I suspect they would want to get the majority of the potential summits registered in the first instance. It makes the SOTA program much more attractive to anyone looking at an activation, if there is choice.

When we registered VK2 our initial summit count was slightly over 1100. We subsequently added another 100 or so, and have some recently identified summits ready to submit. It is a progressive process, but getting the initial load as complete as possible is a big advantage for SOTA in your country.

Good luck and I look forward to hearing 9M2 activators once the registration process is complete.

73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA ex V85DA

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Selamat pagi, Adrew. Thank you for you opinion. However, this task will take times. It is not easy to list out as many as potential summit. The main obstacle here is time. As the team that will carry out the SOTA activity, we only aim for one summit. So, we will would like to register that summit first.

This maybe true. Yet, it will be more easier to just register the summit one by one. When there is a team that like to carry out SOTA activity, just make proposal to SOTA MT. Next, SOTA MT just need to verify that single summit whether is qualify or not.

Just focus to single summit first. Next, when there is new submission for another different summit, then SOTA MT will verify that summit.

As for the points, I believe there is already a fraction of heights to determine a particular peak is eligible for a certain number of points. So, just register the single qualify summit with the correct points follow the points table. There will be no issues.

Yes, I agree. It is a progressive process. However, getting the initial load as complete as possible is not possible within a short time. As we have current team that will carry out the SOTA activity in the early of next month.

So, we expect this SOTA application to be dealt with as soon as possible. We hope SOTA MT, can be more flexible. Change a little on the way how we can approve any potential summit.

Thank you.

Zakwan - 9W2ZOW
MALAYSIA

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Hi Muhammad,
In my opinion, I think what this thread should be titled is that you wish to set up support (ie people to contact) for a mountain-radio expedition rather than you want to set up a SOTA region or association. Setting up an association does take time - plan on a year or so unless you have a lot of coordinated, skilled people and accurate mapping data easily available, then perhaps 6 months.

I am sure a lot of people who read this reflector would be very happy to work a 9M2 station on a mountain, even if itā€™s not in SOTA. So if you publish the planned date, times, modes and frequencies here in this thread and then (if you have internet access) spot yourselves using any of the DX Clusters when you are on the summit (you wonā€™t be able to use SotaWatch), Iā€™m sure you will get lots of contacts. You could even publicise this ascent as a way to attract people to radio operations on mountains and those interested can help with the preparation of the needed data for a SOTA 9M2 association in the future.
I hope this suggestion helps you progress your expedition.

73 Ed.

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Thank again, Ed. I understand it.

I would love to say thank you to SOTA MT for the responses and the explanation. Thank you to all readers and SOTA members for helping.

Maybe that the only things that can be done for now. As the process to set up an association does take times.

So, we will stop here.

On behalf of 9M2 team, I would like to state that, as long as the SOTA MT asks for quality digital Malaysia map as the requirement for the SOTA application, then we had to forget the desire to join ā€œyour SOTAā€.

As I have firmly stated before, our quality complete digital map is protected and restricted by federal law. It cannot be obtain by citizen.

So, the current team will be on air as below details:

Date: 3 - 5 June 2022
Frequencies: HF Band
Callsign: 9M22DX
Location: Bukit Perangin

The event will continue as planned. Any Dx station is welcome to contact us. So, see you again.

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The points in each association depend on the other summits in the association. So without seeing a close to complete submission, we would struggle to know how many points to assign? If we just guessed, then 9M2 might end up with too many 6, 8 or 10 point summits, or worse too many 1 or 2 point summits

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One point that has not been brought out in this discussion is that the MT summit team is already working on a number of new Associations, plus updates and revisions to existing Associations. If the summit team agree to fast-track an application then work on other earlier applications will cease. That is not to say that applications donā€™t get fast-tracked when a particular need arises, such as a DX-pedition, but in the past this has only happened when quality mapping and a small number of summits is involved. Those who feel that the MT are not being fully cooperative in this need to remember just how much work goes on all the time to expand the number of Associations in SOTA: last year twelve new Associations were added to SOTA, each involving months of work by the summit team.

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