Looking through the newer type awards, there are awards that seek to recognise chasers in contacting activators around the world, but activators are recognised for activating in different places. Has there been consideration to the varying locations of chasers in the activator’s log, say a DXCC style award for activators, or perhaps for now that should be a DXLC (50) award. Perhaps DXCC based on prefixes rather than ARRL DXCC entities? I have not been involved in SOTA for very long but it is interesting already to look through my activation logs and see where chasers have been coming from.
Building on this, and perhaps using the prefix idea, another interesting achievement is 50 or 100 prefixes s2s? Or separately, multi-continent s2s. Over the next few months, I hope to achieve a EU/VK s2s and a W/VK s2s QSO but these will be challenging.
Over the next few months, I hope to achieve a
EU/VK s2s and a W/VK s2s QSO but these will be challenging.
What do people think?
Hi Wayne,
I’ve worked just one VK station on SSB in more than 120 SOTA activations. Not easy, especially for the activators running an FT-817, with less than average band conditions
There is a summit to summit award available from an independant site,
quite an attractive sheepskin so the MT decided not to compete with
them:
Hi Brian
May I correct you on this point? Originally the MT decided not to offer an S2S award because it was only likely to appeal to a small minority of activators and also that it was felt that encouraging people to remain on a summit to get S2S contacts was a potential safety issue.
The MT’s view on the first point has been borne out by the third party award which has only been claimed by a tiny minority of activators. Most activators value S2S contacts but don’t see much need for a special award for them it would appear.
The second point was critical in that from the very outset of SOTA it was felt important that no element of the award should be linked (even indirectly) to how long you remained on a summit. It was for this reason that only 4 contacts are required to qualify (the precise number was the result of extensive discussions). It was also for this reason that no special credit is given to the number of contacts made on an activation.
I’ve worked just one VK station on SSB in more than 120 SOTA
activations. Not easy, especially for the activators running an
FT-817, with less than average band conditions
Hi Mike,
The fact that it is hard is part of the challenge! So far, I have achieved EU, but not yet G SSB contacts. I’ve achieved both on CW.
As discussed elsewhere on this topic, there is some issue with encouraging people to stay up on the summit for longer than getting 4 QSOs, but in a way to encourage people to try and get a wide a range of DXCC entities or prefixes helps to internationalise SOTA even more than it is now - and Mountain Hunter is already pushing in this direction for chasers. In another way, it might help VK activations where often one needs to stay on summit for 2 hours to get the 4 QSOs! Obviously the 4 are achieved much faster when there is a pileup on CW 20m. EDIT: and these pileups tend to be EU centric!
But mind you, if there is not widespread interest in a SOTA wide DXCC style award, then perhaps it might be better in another form.
Various awards are available via the SOTA shop (www.sota-shop.com)not via the website but, as Brian said, we do not have a S2S award as this is ably covered elsewhere and the MT did not see that it was appropriate to compete.
Local Associations are at liberty to introduce their own Awards (see the upcoming one from the Belgian Association) biased towards promoting their Association. Having said that I would be interested in following-up on your ideas with a view to extending the international scope of our awards programme.
Could we discuss this direct rather than on the reflector - my email is barryhorning “at” btconnect.com - replace the obvious error in the middle of that email address.
Hi, Richard, obviously your knowledge of the early years of SOTA is authoritative, but I can only add that the matter has been discussed by the MT during my time as a member, with the conclusion being to maintain the status quo for the S2S award. I really don’t know why more people haven’t applied for this third party award, it really does look an attractive piece of mountain art!
“The second point was critical in that from the very outset of SOTA it was felt important that no element of the award should be linked (even indirectly) to how long you remained on a summit. It was for this reason that only 4 contacts are required to qualify (the precise number was the result of extensive discussions). It was also for this reason that no special credit is given to the number of contacts made on an activation.”
This is a very, very sensible attitude! It is all too easy to under-estimate just how hard the mountains can bite if you have the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A succession of activations in good or not too bad conditions really doesn’t prepare you for the worst, and remembering my early experiences over fifty years ago, it is easy to get blase’ and start to think that the stories you hear are pub exaggerations - which eventually I found that they ain’t!
