Association Updates 1st October 2023

Associations
24

Hello friends,

I haven’t written in the reflector in ages and didn’t want to. However, I was asked by the team and some local activators to write a statement.

Many of you know that we still have P100 in the SOTA-DL (German/Bavarian Alps only). This written agreement with the SOTA MT (application of P100 in SOTA-DL) has been terminated. From January 1, 2025, the P150 rule will be rigorously applied to the Alpine Association and we will lose approximately half of the SOTA references. I’m not going to cry over the fact that we are going to lose so many references. Rules are rules and should be respected.

I fought to the last against the implementation of P150 in the SOTA-DL. I still think that P100 would be a better option for our Alps and, especially, the foothills of the Alps. There are many reasons for keeping P100 in the SOTA-DL, e.g.

  • topography of the local alps. It’s hilly and long mountain ridges usually have a few prominent peaks. It’s just different to our alpine neighbors with a huge number of P150 peaks.
  • accessibility of the mountains. It’s about traffic jams, avalanches of tourists, overfilled trains, more congestion, etc. I’m trying to escape any SOTA activity on weekends. Now we have to drive longer and further.
  • demographic factor. The average age of the radio hams is growing, the number of radio hams is decreasing. A lot of easy accessible one and two pointers will be removed.
  • diversity. Each alpine association has different score and bonus systems, what’s the problem of having different prominences then?
  • mountain definition. There is an interesting study from Switzerland about the dominance and prominence, and how an alpine mountain is defined Wayback Machine (archive.org), where a prominence of at least 100 m is considered as a minimum requirement for a significant mountain in the alps.
  • peak density. The limit for derogation to P100 specified for application of general rule 3.5.1. has been selected arbitrarily.
  • fun factor. I can’t imagine P150 being more fun compared to P100. Will P500 be more fun? If so, I would vote for it.

If other associations have fully embraced the P150 rule, I’m happy for them. But our association would be happy with P100. Unfortunately, the whole argument doesn’t help. We have to migrate back to P150 according to the general rules and agreed to the date January 1, 2025. Again, rules are rules and should be respected.

From 27 summits deleted on October the 1st, 15 are still satisfying P100. I agreed to remove other 12 summits. Despite everything, our inputs ended up somewhere in (SOTA MT) nirvana and all 27 peaks were deleted. Let’s take one example only.

DL/AL-056, Kleine Hoefats - 2073m, 8 points. Not activated yet due to complexity. Prominence according to BayernAtlas 110m. Officially measured prominence is 113m (Kleine Höfats – Wikipedia). The summit has been deleted by SOTA MT as not satisfying the P100 rule.

Collaboration and discussions with the SOTA MT are tedious and time-consuming. The new P150 lists have already been generated by the SOTA MT, not by the local team. These lists are not 100% correct. The team might take a closer look at each deleted reference, but the MT is very confident in its software and “clean” work, that’s why I personally won’t spend even a minute on it.

In my private message to the SOTA MT, I clearly stated that I will be retiring along with P100. That means January 1st, 2025 at the latest. Our friend Simon should have read my private message more carefully. So, I haven’t stepped down yet.

Unfortunately, the SOTA program has not developed in the direction that I (like many others) would have liked. I don’t want to play a vassal role that an association manager (AM) is left with in the current constellation. There is no longer a right to self-determination. There is nothing to manage anymore, all the decisions on the association level are made by the SOTA MT. Summit lists are generated and controlled by the SOTA MT without knowing the local topography and complexity. I’ve often wondered why the MT still needs the local AMs and RMs.

That’s why I want to resign from my position as AM SOTA-DL by 2025 at the latest. A successor is being sought. The regional management team will be laid off. It’s up to them whether any of them want to continue working with the SOTA MT.

The Alps have always been there… and it’s fun to activate them, even in any other XOTA framework. We’ll hear each other again.

73 & GL de Dzianis, DD1LD

14 Likes
25

Well, the description in that Wiki page says it all:

Die Kleine Höfats wird nur selten bestiegen. Das Gipfelbuch der Kleinen Höfats stammt noch aus den 1950er-Jahren.

Translation: The Kleine Höfats is only seldom climbed. The summit book recording ascents is still the same one used in the 1950s.

So, no loss to the SOTA community. But all the others… What will be left after the deletions for old bumblers like me is a number of really nice peaks, but miles from roads or parking places, and involving many hours of ascent and then descent - all for 4 or 6 points. And then there are the many heavily forested 1- and 2-pointer “summits”, many of which have absolutely no tracks - not even forester’s tracks - anywhere on the entire hill, a nightmare even for a fit person to ascend hundreds of vertical meters to a hidden summit. It will soon be time for me, and others who aren’t getting any younger, to call it a day and retire from DL SOTA. This is in addition to the very many local OMs in DL land who already abandoned SOTA in disgust the previous time (8 years ago?) one of these P100 or P150 mass deletions was pushed through.

Meanwhile, those in DM land, and maybe elsewhere, can easily claim several 10-pointers in a weekend by doing little more strenuous than drive up, set up and call “CQ SOTA”. Heck, there aren’t even ANY 10-pointers in DL/AM, or in DL/BE, or DL/CG, or DL/EW, or DL/MF, where many of the summits are considerably harder to activate than anything in DM/BM (where 38% of all the peaks are 10-pointers - who made that decision?) or in DM/BW (where 26% are 10-pointers - ditto…).

But yes, we have a completely fair and objective system which forces a single rule on activators - people - that pays no attention at all to the human costs of ascending summits. That’s all I have to say.

6 Likes
26

You are correct, Rob, after the last adjustment there was a drop in participation in DL, amounting to 15%, but the numbers rose again and are now 14% above the pre-drop participation. People don’t like change, but they adapt.

The day is coming, Rob, when old birds like me and you will fall off the perch, but there is always a supply of fledglings ready to answer the call of the mountains. As always. Remember also that the MT themselves are rich in years, they, too, suffer when summits are lost, but are passionate about the integrity of SOTA.

If one region has plenty of easy summits, another region has plenty of hard summits, and yet another region has very few summits, that is a function of geology (or if you prefer, geomorphology). SOTA defines the parameters that define a summit in the same way throughout the world, if a summit has a suitable prominance then it is a SOTA summit, no matter how easy, hard or unreachable it is. After wrestling with the problem of difficulty - which not only cannot be defined but is different for every participant and different for every route up any particular summit - the founders decided (IMO correctly) to ignore it. If an Association has a plethora of easy summits, so be it. Over the years there has been many attempts to come up with a better way of doing things. None were successful. In my view, and please forgive my plain speaking, complaints about difficulties in DL and the ease in DM amount to special pleading. We have rules, we apply them, end of story.

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27

I will hazard a guess that at least half of those activations were done by people motoring in from elsewhere to the DL regions to snap up some points, or to get as many completes as possible - “have car will travel”. And then there are the occasional types who want to activate every single summit in this or that DL region, or just repeat the summits they actually CAN still manage.

The numbers of OMs actually living here in DL are diminishing, and there are far fewer younger entries into the hobby in this day of smartphones, TikTok, whatever, than ever was the case: no doubt about that. Removing summits ain’t going to bring 'em in, but rules is rules.

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28

Or in EA1, EA2 or EA4 you can get 10 points for summits of 2000 m and in EA3 you need a summit of 2750 m. Why? I think they are perfectly comparable regions.

I think some standaritzation is necessary

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29

I loved my winter bonus in Tenerife EA8 this January, wearing a T-shirt. In GM, I have to cope with snow, avalanche risk, short hours of daylight, wind chill, never mind risk to my equipment.

I enjoy the challenges of both.

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30

Standardisation is possible, but is it desirable? We treat Associations as independent entities, and for each Association we set the points boundaries to get as even a distribution as possible of summits between the bands, so this is why there tends to be differences between adjacent Associations. I haven’t looked closely at EA1 to 4, but it is likely that if we gave all four a single points banding then one will end up either short of high scoring summits or with too many, depending on which way we standardise. If we went further and standardised all of EA to the same points banding half of the Associations would have no ten-point summits. If we went further and had a world-wide standard then no European country would have a ten-point band. Our system might look irrational but it gives as much incentive as possible to Associations.

Sorry I wasn’t clear, Rob. I was refering to the number of activators claiming German Associations as their home Association. Visitors don’t appear on the German Honour Roll.
As for future numbers of hams, that is the future’s problem: for now numbers of participants in DL have never been higher.

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31

Fair comment.

Good to know…

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32

It’s nice that some are lucky enough to have the resources to be able to hop on a plane, have a … errmm, I think it’s called a “h o l i d a y” … get to swan around somewhere exotic in mid-winter in shorts and a tan, and come back refreshed enough to be able to survive the horrors of a Scottish winter :wink:

Fortunately for me (can’t speak for others), I’m lucky enough that every day here is a … whatchamacallit. Thing. :upside_down_face: :grin: :beer: :beers: :cake: :fries: :champagne: :cheese: :cut_of_meat: :mushroom: :cow: :pizza: :wine_glass:

1 Like
33

Hi Armin,
I am going to be not popular too and write some more information :wink:

In bonus altitude matter is chances inequality between activators in Czech Republic, Slovak Repoblic and Poland.

Bonus altitude is respectively 700 / 700 / 1000 m

Mountains mostly the same, winter conditions mostly the same …

Some summits are the same - examples below:

SP/BZ-035 - no bonus, before it was also OK/MO-056 with bonus
SP/BZ-036 - no bonus, before it was also OK/MO-016 with bonus
SP/BZ-073 - no bonus, now inactive - we have it now as OK/MO-061 with bonus
SP/BZ-017 - no bonus, now inactive - we have it now as OM/ZA-059 with bonus
SP/BS-001 - no bonus, before it was also OM/PO-033 with bonus
SP/BS-004 - no bonus, now inactive - we have it now as OM/PO-040 with bonus
SP/BS-018 - no bonus, before it was also OM/PO-043 with bonus

In total :
SOTA SP has 62 bonus summits of 211 - it is 29 % - bonus altitude 1000 m
SOTA OK has 134 bons summits of 230 - it is 58 % - bonus altitude 700 m
SOTA OM has 305 bonus summits of 370 - it is 85 % - bonus altitude 700 m

Repeat: mountains mostly the same, winter conditions mostly the same …
Above mentioned examples of summits are only part - in fact there are much more of them.

Why so big difference of chances ?

It was my the most important question and SOTA SP community discussed it on special anniversary meeting on April 01, 2023

Finally the community decided to find compromise altitude 850 m.

I am sure that it will help to develop SOTA popularity in Poland.

I am not discussing about another countries like Hungary (bonus altitude 600 m) or Romania (500 m).
I just compare Poland with Czech and Slovakia due to the same mountains crossed by borders of our countries.

To make things clear - the goal of this post is not to change anything in SOTA OK and SOTA OM

73, Jarek

5 Likes
34

I am going to cry over loosing over a hundred beautiful alpine summits for SOTA.

Rules are necessary so that humans can coexist and interact. But rules are human-made, not god-given.

Removing a summit because of previously incorrect prominence data is a different beast than going from a P100 association to a P150 one.

73 de Martin, DK3IT

Edit: I am also going to cry that folks with love and understanding for the beauty of alpinism like @DD1LD and @DM1CM and many others may be lost for SOTA.

If you take out the mindset and local history of alpinism of SOTA (and P100 for DL/AL will
have exactly that effect), then you’ll end up
with something like geo-caching 2.0; suitable for a broader audience, but without the beauty of a unique blend of ingredients; just another ephemeral pseudo-metric for demonstrating your own greatness while you are burning your life’s candle; bagging points in a robotic way without writing memories onto the pages of your book of life…

5 Likes
35

One more thing for the “rules are rules and must be obeyed” camp regarding P150 vs. P100:

It is pretty inconsistent that,

a) at the level of inclusion of a summit, we rigorosly apply a very objective rule for exemptions from the P150 requirements, ignoring any local context,
while
b) at the level of points, we boldly apply very subjective, context-specific notions, leading to e.g. countless DM/BW 10-pointers.

So if the MT wants a very objective, scheme, why not state that a 10-pointer must be more than 2000 or 2500 m asl and an 8-pointer must exceed 1500 m asl?

Such would not hamper the number of summits in less mountainous regions.

And if you want it a bit more objective, let the percentiles define the points, like:

10 points for the highest 20% of eligible summits
8 for 60-80%
6 for the 40-60%
4 for 20-40%
2 for 10-20
1 for the rest

within the polygon that defines a SOTA region.

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!!! my opinion !!!

37

Because there are Associations where 1500m and even 2500m is the height asl of the valleys! Do you think that an Association with towns and even cities in valleys at 1500m should only have 10 point summits?

Imagine how many posts like yours we would get if we downgraded many of those summits in line with a revised points banding. You are trying to have it both ways, Martin. On the one hand you think we should not make changes but on the other hand you think we SHOULD make changes.

This is what we try to do, nowadays; a lot of the inconsistances in early Associations are because the MT of the time was on a learning curve. Look at the first Association, G, with 174 P150 summits and only 3 worth 10 points. If it was a new Association today it would have many more.

P100 Associations were introduced so that some countries with no mountains could have a place in SOTA. IIRC the first one was PA. It became clear that only Associations with few summits - that is summits very widely spaced - should be P100 Associations. You speak of alpimism, but most of the alpine summits are not in DL, they are in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and because these sections of the Alpine orogeny have no shortage of summits they are P150. How do you justify your claim for special treatment for DL? Furthermore, by what logical contortion do you justify your claim that removing summits with a prominence below 150m reduces SOTA to geocaching? Let us be frank. You are resisting change just because it is change. You want your special treatment to continue, you want to be outside the rules that bind the surrounding Alpine Associations, Associations with summits no less beautiful than those in DL, with summits that have as long a history, some of which are indeed higher than any in DL. To tell the truth, DL would have lost those sub P150 summits years ago, but the MT had too much work bringing new Associations into SOTA.

2 Likes
38

There is no need to cry, Martin. The summits are still there, and you don’t need the pope… ehh, pardon… the SOTA-MT blessing to climb and activate them.

All alpine summits with P100 will stay eligible for our national SOTA-DL awards, and there are over 400 summits with P100 in the German Alps to activate. You don’t get SOTA points for many of them, indeed, but honestly, who really cares about the points here. All the SOTA “point collectors” goes somewhere else. Almost all alpine summits are valid for GMA and many of them lie within a WWFF/POTA area. Thus, there is no big issue anymore to collect a bunch of QSOs from any reference in the German Alps. Just get out with your radio and have fun.

As long as new P150 reference lists with all the errors and mistakes, association parameters, future SOTA manual updates, etc. for SOTA-DL are considered, I and the former SOTA-DL team is out of this. I won’t spend a single minute of my life on this. This is and will solely be managed by the SOTA-MT. Their rules, their game, end of story.

Looking for a new challenge? Why don’t you try to get a SOTA-DL SKY WALKER award? Only two OMs achieved this one so far. You might be the third one. Or how about a SOTA-DL CHALLENGER Award in Gold?

GL & 73 de Dzianis, DD1LD

2 Likes
39

If there is - and I see that there is - mutual comparison of conditions in different associations, why my above post was ignored ?

73, Jarek

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The quick answer to bonus questions is that the MT lacks experience of the local climate and therefore sets winter (and summer) bonus heights and dates in accordance with guidance from the AM and his team when the Association is being set up. On occasions where the AM later finds that a change is needed then he applies to the MT to have the change made. If a participant feels that a change is necessary then it is up to him to persuade the AM to seek a change.

41

SOTA SP manager sent proper request to MT during first half of 2023 year and get refused despite on as you said lacks of experience :wink:

So, who still needs to be persuaded ?

73, Jarek

1 Like
42

Obviously, the MT. My personal take on the application was that it was based on a run of winters that were too short and quite possibly a statistical anomaly, a blip. Anomalous runs can last for several years and then revert to what was previously normal, and it was an unusually long time since the last major El Nino. We listen to advice, we don’t always take it. In this case I suggested waiting to see if the weather pattern reverts.

43

I think this is the wisest sentence in this great reply, and I will try to follow the advice.

I really appreciate the time and effort many people have been investing in SOTA as a community. But in the end, it is just a few men’s game, and us mortals are only welcome as contributors of content; technical advice, images, trip reports and logistical information, but otherwise pawns in a game.

I could accept the decision as such, despite thinking that it is making SOTA a lot less beautiful in the German Alps. But the latent aggression in @G8ADD ‘s response to my reasoning is nothing I need in my life. And it would of course have been easy to include the community in such a fundamental decision, e.g. by a poll or a voting mechanism…

It has been great seven years since my first SOTA activation in 2017, and I am thankful for many greats moments and interactions.

But consider me out.

73, thanks for your company,
and always a safe return

Martin, DK3IT