Continuing the discussion from Any new Challenge for 2025? (Part 1) - #100 by VK3SQ.
Previous discussions:
You forgot the â20 Year SOTAâ challenge⌠which unfortunately was never evaluated. 
73 Armin
1 Like
I had forgotten Armin but that didnât require anything different from chasers or activators.
Although I am largely one of those that have not had their boat floated by any of the challenges, I can see some advantage of having challenges every other year to give some time for operating practices to revert to their normal level. This does not mean that everyone suddenly stops using 10m⌠far from it, but the emphasis changes. The bands are all there to be used and not having a challenge next year might open up activatorsâ minds to other possibilities, for example such as has been suggested, being the first to use a particular band from a summit.
If I were allowed a vote (which Iâm not because I donât usually participate 
) a 15m challenge in 2026 seems to me to fit the bill. I might even give it a go. 
2 Likes
SOTA has never been a democracy, as it is an award scheme, not a club. This is clearly stated in the General Rules. That doesnât mean that the MT pays no attention, but their emphasis is on maintaining the facilities and extending the geographical coverage of the scheme. Things like challenges are a bit of fun, but they are also a distraction.
With regard to 15m, I look at it like this. If you are in EU or NA and you want to work the newer Associations in SA at this time then 15m should be your automatic choice! It shouldnât take a challenge to make this clear!
3 Likes
Continuing the discussion from [ WN1C Thomas
The next generation of a GEO/MEO amateur radio payload? â AMSAT-Deutschland
1 Like
What about the ¨Old School Challenge¨? Activation and Chasing without Spots. Any possibility of uploading an alert but not having the callsign taken by the RBN?
1 Like
Yes there is. Itâs in the instructions.
1 Like
Where in the instructions? You mean the setting in the Alerts windows?
Under the bit marked âThis sounds too hard, can I tell RBNHole to ignore me?â
(tl;dr use NoRBNHole in the comment)
3 Likes
Thank you!
Hasnât 10m been superb this year ? What a great band during a solar maximum and officially my favourite. It was a perfectly timed challenge IMHO.
Regardless, I look forward to a year off challenges to focus on âwhatever I fancyâ for the summit of the day.
2024 is not over and 10m continues to be the band that gives into the holiday seasonâŚ. 
4 Likes
Yes, at the beginning of 2024 there were spectacular conditions and the CW/SSB signals did not go below 59(9)+
Starting in May or June the conditions fell but in general terms I can say that I had a lot of fun in 10m
2 Likes
Ok just food for thoughtâŚ
Maybe an ALL BAND CHALLENGE would be fun. This would encourage all bands being utilized.
Maybe You would score 1 point for each band you make a contact on from each summit.
Example: lf you make 50 contacts on 5 different bands from a summit, you score 5 points for that activation. The next peak you make 10 contacts on 10 different bands, and score 10 points.
With an event like that you could create single band winners, and multi band winners on HF, VHF, UHF, MICROWAVEâŚwhatever.
This might be to complicated for the Database to generate the scores, but it wud be a grest way to generate activity on all ham bands known to man.
Anyhow just another ideaâŚmaybe to difficult for the data base to score/track easilyâŚ
73
Pete
WA7JTM
5 Likes
The idea sounds good but regarding QSOs the âUNIQUEâ status should continue to exist, since the number of QSOs varies greatly depending on the region. For example, the log you can achieve in region 1 of Japan is immensely higher than what you can achieve in other regions.
I would do it as follows:
¨Total unique QSOs * Nr. of Bands * Nr. of Modes * Unique summit.
73, JP3PPL
2 Likes
At least 15m allows most to accept the challenge, whereas in the UK 30m band is CW and Data only, that means anyone wanting to use phone is excluded.
1 Like
This would give silly (even more silly) scores. There should only be one multiplying operation in the formula. You could do it instead as Unique QSOs * (Bands + modes + unique summit) but it still looks âclumsyâ to me.
The existing standard challenge formula of unique QSO partners * unique summits is perfectly adequate. The more diverse you are in bands used and modes used, the greater chance you give yourself of scoring more unique QSO partners. So thereâs no need to add these in as explicit incentives.
Moreover, I still feel - and others have expressed similarly - that 2025 should be challenge-free.
4 Likes
Youâre right! I donât know where I forgot my headâŚ
Yes, I think the same. But these are just ideas for a new challenge in the future.
2 Likes
Or even no multipliers at all. You can encourage folks to spread their activity by creating a unique scoring item combining different characteristics instead. Sure, without multipliers, scores would climb more slowly, but IMO that would be better.
1 Like
Well the unique QSO partner idea / unique summit idea was designed partly to guard against exponential scores, add to the challenge for participants, and encourage activators to âbroaden their horizonsâ. The original 12m Challenge was fairly successful but the major failing it had was affording the same rate of points accumulation for the activator repeating his/her local summit over and over again, and working the same handful of chasers over and over again. That was probably quite good for me personally but not so great for the programme as a whole.
Anyway, weâre settled on the scoring algorithm - thatâs not part of this discussion - as it would just be endless! This discussion is about whether there should be a Challenge for 2025, and what part of the spectrum the next challenge should focus on.
1 Like