I’m no programmer, but I just made maps of W1 and W2 SOTA summits by pasting the summit CSV info into the Web app at batchgeo.com:
So there are some tools out there worth investigating.
Barry N1EU
In reply to M0JLA:
I agree.
Great shame.
In reply to VK3WAM:
I agree that it is a shame that we lost Mario and his tools. I was using them (the tools) almost daily for planing and reporting.
Since I have no first hand knowledge about the details (just rumors) I can only imagine that there is a huge misunderstanding. Personally I am hoping that all involved parties are mature enough to talk it out and rectify the issue(s) which is Marios return to the program and the return of his tools 
Please MT and Mario make this happen - SOTA should be fun.
Matt/KØMOS
In reply to N1EU:
What a nice website. Working in the software industry you get blase to yet another webapp or app and it takes something special to get my attention. That’s an impressive bit of coding as it does what you for hardly any effort. Visually pretty results for zero-coding… the programmers holy grail 
Anyway here’s GM/NS using clustering…
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to DK1BN:
Since my callsign is mentioned, I, too, will offer a clarification of my own.
In the past a very few people have been excluded from Sotawatch for disruptive behaviour on the Reflector. There is an established procedure for trying to control such disruptive behaviour: an informal and friendly warning to begin with, followed by a formal warning if the behaviour continues. If this proves ineffective then a first exclusion is applied. At this stage an offender can regain posting rights by promising to mend his ways, but if he offends again after giving such an assurance a permanent exclusion is applied. This exclusion extends to the Alerts, but not the Spots: the alerts because they provide a route for further comments. This was applied also to “third party alerts” after a supporter added a disparaging comment about the permanent exclusion of one activator. All this should be well known, much of it can be located in the archives, and what it amounts to is that nobody is permitted to alert for an excluded person.
The alerts that were edited by the MT referred to the participation of a permanently excluded activator, what happened was merely that his callsign was removed from these Alerts.
In the case of DC7CCC he restored the removed comment, and in removing it again it seems that the alert was accidentally deleted by the member of the MT monitoring the Alerts.
Meanwhile, in a seperate incident an unknown person made a frivolous change to G1INK’s Alert where he had replaced the unwelcome callsign with a pseudonym. This is the edit which was made by a hacker using Steve’s account, I did not at any point ascribe the entirely proper edits by the MT to a hacker: we have rules, we followed them, end of story.
In reaction to these events, in somewhat abrasive emails DC7CCC requested that his Sotawatch account be terminated, and he deleted his log from the database.
It must be emphasised that DC7CCC is not excluded from Sotawatch, he has chosen to withdraw from Sotawatch and is free to return by opening a new account if he so chooses, all he has to do is contact the MT. I personally am pleased that he has denied withdrawing from SOTA and is continuing to activate.
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to G8ADD:
Hello Brian,
Mario is still activating because he loves amateur radio. I didn’t have contact to Mario after closing of his account. I believe he is not activating for SOTA, probably for GMA which uses for already existing summits the references as SOTA. So Brian with respect, in this case sending a reference should not be interpreted as denied withdrawing.
73 Joerg
In reply to DL1DLF: (and to GSADD as well)
It would seem to me that Mario’s activation was a GMA activation, and as GMA recognises SOTA summits and uses its codes, then Mario handing out a GMA code would be the same as handing out a SOTA code.
Mario DC7CCC has objected because his alerts were modified and ended up deleted (the deletion has been identified as an accident) because they included the call sign of a person banned from the reflector - It does not take much effort to find out who this person is, and I also note that this person is still active on sites elsewhere.
I also have done some searching but really don’t know what this person was banned for, but I am prepared to presume that his banning from the reflector was legitimate, however I also understand that he is not banned from SOTA altogether.
It seems to me that the policy on third person alerts is excessive. I would agree that if third persons post material on his behalf, fair enough, but mere use of this person’s call sign in an alert to cause consequences seems too much to me. If this person (and I feel ridiculous to not use his call sign here) was banned for repeated disregard of SOTA rules, then a sanction of no use of his call sign in alert text would be appropriate. Otherwise Mario’s alert text saying he was with ??? causing a edit response seems too much.
73 de Wayne VK3WAM
In reply to all,
I too will sorely miss the Adventure Radio SOTA tools. Like Barry it was my ‘go to’ tool when planning an activation. I don’t know any of the parties involved but it is disappointing the entire SOTA community will lose a valuable resource.
I would ask DL7CCC to reconsider his actions. Removing his tools as a message to SOTA MT while sending a message to them of his discontent also removed something many folks used while enjoying SOTA and amateur radio. Aren’t we all in this for fun? Is it fair the entire SOTA community should suffer the collateral damage?
At the same time I applaud SOTA MT for considering supplying a similar application to replace the Adventure Radio apps. I realize we, as users, don’t contribute for support but an interactive map has become common place with many groups. Of late geocaching.com has introduced a similar map for geocaches. Maybe this should become part of SOTA instead of relying on outside sources for apps that many activators make use of?
Just my two cents worth,
Jim/KK1W
In reply to G8ADD:
Hi Brian,
Can the MT give us the list of all banned from the SOTA ?
Thanks
Alain F6ENO
In reply to F6ENO:
I don’t think anyone has ever been banned from SOTA but no doubt someone will be able to clarify this?
73
Richard
G3CWI
In reply to G3CWI:
You are correct Richard. Nobody has been banned from SOTA, only from SOTAwatch. Only one person has been permanently excluded from SOTAwatch.
In fact the only person ever caught cheating on a SOTA activation is still involved with SOTA and able to enter chases and activations. In most programs being caught in flagrant abuse of the rules results in an automatic and normally permanent exclusion from that program. That activation was deleted and the activator was given the option of deleting any other activations which were not valid. Should it transpire that those activations are anything less than legitimate having been given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to remove them without penalty, then this person will be permanently excluded from the program.
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to KK1W:
I would ask DL7CCC to reconsider his actions. Removing his tools as a
message to SOTA MT while sending a message to them of his discontent
also removed something many folks used while enjoying SOTA and amateur
radio. Aren’t we all in this for fun? Is it fair the entire SOTA
community should suffer the collateral damage?
I have no idea what happened behind the scenes, but isn’t it possible that DL7CCC did NOT remove his tools but somehow his app lost database access and that is what brought the app down? In other words, something happened to his database account and that immediately brought down the app. If that’s the case, can action PLEASE be taken to restore his access/account?
Barry N1EU
In reply to MM0FMF:
Got real potential Andy.
Is it possible to re-do the colour of the summits using the resistor colour code as I do in my Autoroute ‘push-pins’ ie - brown = 1, red = 2, yellow = 4, blue = 6, grey = 8 and white = 10 (I know it’s out of sequence but it’s good to indicate a snowy summit - hi!). You get an immediate visulisation of the all the relevant heights.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers
Jack(;>J
GM4COX
In reply to GM4COX:
Sounds a good idea to me, Jack, and I would prefer a better map, one that gives a good orographic representation of the hills - Google map would be even better, individual hills are shown on Google Map on the summit information pages so presumably we could show the lot!
73
Brian G8ADD (about to start clearing up after a violent thunderstorm!)
The alerts from DL3SBA, DC7CCC and DL1DLF were edited by the MT.
How great is the chance, that meanwhile an unknown person called Hacker made a disgusting change to G1INK’s alert?
Can someone calculate it, I can’t.
In reply to N1EU:
It’s a deliberate action Barry.
We wont run SOTA the way Mario wants so he punishes the SOTA users who used his tools by removing them. The result of his actions is to get the former users to request we reconsider.
If my colleague Brian wasn’t such a gentleman we’d simply copy all of the many emails Mario has sent so you could see exactly the language used and what was being demanded.
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to DL1DLF:
That is what happened, calculating odds is irrelevant - not that the events were simultaneous or even near simultaneous: it wasn’t until Steve complained about the hack that our attention was drawn to the need to edit the German Alerts, without that we might never have noticed them. Also, this was not the first case of unauthorised tampering on Sotawatch.
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to MM0FMF:
Hi Andy and Ric,
I suppose that the only ham banned from SOTAwatch is Mike;
I like what Matt KØMOS wrote:
Personally I am hoping that all involved parties are mature enough to talk it out and rectify the issue(s) which is Marios return to the program and the return of his tools
Mike has been banned for many years now.
May I ask the MT do do the same for him. Remember, we are not in war, we are hams, and I’m sure that some people of the MT could vote to allow Mike to come again now.
Best 73
Alain F6ENO
In reply to F6ENO:
The exclusion of people from Sotawatch is treated as a confidential matter for legal reasons. I can only reveal that in fact there is more than one person excluded. More I will not say.
Note from my earlier post that exclusion does not come out of the blue, it is a four-stage process, the final exclusion follows an earlier exclusion that is ended by that person giving an assurance that he will in future refrain from posting inappropriate material. The final exclusion is permanent because the MT takes the view that that person has proved beyond any possibility of doubt that his assurances can not be trusted. It is the right and the duty of the MT to continue to edit spots, alerts and posts appropriately for good management of these free online facilities, and that includes the painful necessity of excluding people who show that they cannot be trusted to use these facilities responsibly.
Further discussion of this matter is profitless, I therefore have no option but to close this thread. The rarity of the necessity for such a step on Sotawatch is a testament to the good sense of the great majority of our contributors.
73
Brian, G8ADD, Moderator.