Association Updates - 1st April 2017

This has been a busy period for the Summits Team. We have several new associations launching this weekend along with major updates to some existing ones.

I’ll describe those I’ve been working on and leave it to others to describe some more, such as the IS0 revision…

New Associations

(In no particular order)

EA9 Ceuta

Ceuta has a single summit, which is inside the fort - Fortaleza del Hacho. The Spanish LIDAR survey picks out the highest point as inside the south-east corner of the fort, and in case it’s not possible to get inside (?) fortunately the AZ extends to just outside the wall.

[Acknowledgements to OSM for mapping in this post]

Welcome to Javier , EA9AI.

ZB2 Gibraltar

Heading a few miles across the sea to the north takes us to Gibraltar. Here again we have a single summit - The Rock of Gibraltar. In times past I believe the summit was MOD land and not accessible, but apparently that changed from 1993 and much of it is now a nature reserve, plus there are some very very big guns to inspect!

Now I must mention that ZB2 is not a signatory to CEPT reciprocal arrangements. As such you may not turn up and start operating. You have to contact the authorities in advance to arrange a licence. You will need a ZB2 address for the duration of the licence (which I suppose makes it tricky for a day trip). The other big restriction: - No HF! (Just 6m, 4m,2m and 70cm - no linears either)

http://www.gra.gi/communications/amateur-radio-reciprocal-licence

ZB2 is starting up without a local AM - we didn’t want to wait! Reports back from here would be most welcome.

VY2 Prince Edward Island

Eventually we hope to get each and every Canadian province running on SOTA. The newest member of the family will be VY2. This qualifies as a P100 association with two summits.

A big welcome to George, VY2GF.

OY Faroe Islands

I’m based in the UK and was shocked when I realized that one of our closest neighbours was not listed in the programme. Well, we had to fix that!

The archipelago seems to me a SOTA dream, almost like the Lake District was picked up and moved north a bit (remembering they used to speak Norse there too!).

We have 108 summits waiting to be activated.

Again we’re running this one from the MT initially as we couldn’t find an AM in time. I hope we will generate some local involvement.

Oh, if you need any convincing check out the Sheep View videos:

Being a part of the Kingdom of Denmark we’re Ok in OY with CEPT arrangements. Here’s a hiking guide:

(On a technical note we got new elevation data just in time to help with surveying of OY. Latitudes above 60N are not covered by our go-to source of SRTM, but a new Arctic DEM is gradually filling in the gap)

Updates

EA3 Spain (Catalunya)

AM Daniel has been working hard with me on a major update to EA3. I’ve processed the Spanish LIDAR data, as used also for EA2, EA8, EA9 and ZB2 (!). Ultimately we (Summits Team) hope to apply this to all EA but it’s a slow process.

There are a few summits set for retirement. A handful are being replaced by higher near neighbours. In these cases we’re putting off the changeover for 6 months to give you a chance to collect the old refs first.

There are lots of new ones. I’m sorry, I meant to count them. But anyway, quite a lot!

One of my favourites looks to be EA3/BC-086, Castell de Montjuïc. This is right in Barcelona overlooking the sea. But there are lots of new big mountains too of course!

Edit: I just counted them. 291 new summits, less a few deletions.

That’s it from me. Enjoy your new summits everybody and stay safe!

7 Likes

Can you please clarify why one association can operate under a P100 rule while other have to meet the P150 rule, and still have the same range of points available?

I had understood that the intention a couple of years ago was to go to P150 for all new associations.
73 Ed.

If you don’t mind Ed I’d like to cop out there and refer you to the General Rules which give all the detail in section 3.5 (mostly 3.5.1):

http://www.sota.org.uk/Joining-In/General-Rules

OK understood, a region with a very low density of summits “may” be allowed to be a P100 association, subject to MT approval.

So in lay mans terms a “flat lands” type of area or country.

If you look at the General Rules, section 3.5, you will see the requirements for P100 set out. P100 becomes acceptable if the summits are less frequent than one per 2000 km^2. The range of points reflects the range of summit heights in the usual way, a high mountain does not rate lower points just because it has fewer companions.

Updates - continued

(partially)

IS0

Those who follow the reflector may know that an update of Italy is long overdue now, and the MT was always just assuring everybody that work is in progress. Well the work is still in progress, but I can now happily announce that at least for Sardinia which constitutes a separate association the update is coming from 1st of April.

This is very huge update, rising the summit count from 10 to 313, with the broadest spectrum of all available summits in Sardinia (and also minor islands around it) giving a chance for everybody to find a summit to his liking. Also it comes with the whole range of available points from 1 pointer and up to 10 pointers (previously the highest score was 6).

Please pay attention that while the summit count has gone up by adding a whole lot of new summits, some of the summits previously in the database which had bad positions before were corrected, and according to the GR section 3.4 these summits also gained new reference number (for example the highest peak of Sardinia, Punta La Marmora was changed from IS0/IS-301 to IS0/IS-001). Old reference numbers of such summits are concomitantly retired. So if you are planning to activate a summit as of 1st of April please be sure to check which is the correct reference number.

And for those impatient for an update in Italy, please stand by a little more, the update with a similar calibre to this one is coming soon.

4 Likes

There’s some summits to get the juices flowing, especially the OY ones :slight_smile: Thanks to the teams that have brought us these for all their hard work!

Shame I don’t seem to be able to find the time to get out to the (relatively) local ones at the moment, let alone the far flung jewels… Roll on retirement…

73 de Paul G4MD

NA Association Updates:

In North America, we had a major update for W0C-Colorado which included 27 net new summits (3 deletes due to prominence failures) plus 37 new summits because of the change to P150m prominence values. So W0C went from 1,741 summits to 1,805 total summits. The SOTA database is updated with those new peaks eligible for activation on 1 April. The updated ARM doc will be posted shortly. If the NA folks want a list of the new W0C peaks, email me directly.

ZL3 New Zealand South Island had a minor update with 13 new summits added, a few names added and a regional manager change.

Great to see all the additions, especially VY2 Prince Edward Island.

Good morning all around!

Thanks to the MT to publish the sardinian update before easter after having checked the data-input.

As somebody stated, it`s a hugh update, which was prepared mainly by Fred, OE8FNK following my personal interest to get more summits into the database. Fred, many, many thanks for your efforts, it was a great pleasure to give my assist to your work.

I intended to go to Sardinia this spring first-activating a few of the new one`s but unfortunately became sick. For sure I will go thereto after being healthy again.

73, Franz
OE5FSM

2 Likes

Tks for the well job done!

I was in Barcelona 1 month ago. XYL asked if I wouldn’t take the SOTA backpack for an activation: No summits in range, was the answer…

That change now. TKS!

73 de Pedro, CT1DBS/CU3HF

1 Like

Just to note we’ve got ARMs uploaded for the new associations now.

http://www.sota.org.uk/ARMViewer/EA9
http://www.sota.org.uk/ARMViewer/OY
http://www.sota.org.uk/ARMViewer/VY2
http://www.sota.org.uk/ARMViewer/ZB2

More to follow…