Association Updates November 2017

“Slim pickings” this month…

There are a few small edits, which we will expand down-thread.

Plenty is happening in the background though, as always.

Accuracy improvements were made again this month for various associations.

In particular, the French Association Manager and his team worked hard again on continuous improvement of the summits data for France.

This month they analysed carefully a large number of suggestions for improvements related to the exact location, elevation and name of summits, and made dozens of changes where it was appropriate. One new valid summit was also identified and added.

Please report any inaccuracies you notice to the Association Manager in charge in order to contribute to the global effort.

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There are some pending error corrections for DM, OK, W4C. I got a text asking me to deal with an issue at work which stopped these getting done. Tomorrow should complete everything.

Andy, does the database offer a functionality displaying all changes in particular, seen from a time line? (This is not answered in the FAQ, hi.)

Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ

No, it doesn’t. It’s something that I have been thinking about for a while now but I don’t have a plan for how to present the changes. The team comes up with new associations and updates which get applied and the only way you know there have been changes is from the posts on here or if you happen to notice a change when viewing the summit data.

One way people can track changes is to download the summitslist.csv file once a month and compare this month’s file with last month’s file. That easy for programmer type people like myself because I’d just feed the files into something like WinMerge and look at the file differences. But that is certainly not the way I would recommend to non-programmers.

The data for the summits doesn’t have age information on it. So there is no current way of seeing changes. That doesn’t mean it cannot be added.

Rob’s SOTA mapping website fetches the latest summits list twice a day. Unless my data upload has inserted bad data, or the generation of the lists has failed or Rob’s import has failed, the map site is probably never more than 12hours behind the database.

Done daily. Results on ON6ZQ | www.on6zq.be .

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Or load into excel, (menu bar) data → filter on the headings (you might have to delete row 1 unless you are familiar with the process). In the drop down box above “Valid From” click “Select All” to deselect all dates. Click the + along side “2017” to open up the months and click “November” and “OK” to see latest additions. Took less than a minute.

You can select multiple months if you wish or use combinations of filters on any column to isolate any thing you want to see.

Of course as Andy says this only shows additions as changes to existing summits are not currently recorded.

Thanks, Andy, and thanks, too, Christophe, I’ve not known your tool up to now. It shows that there is more steady maintenance than I thought it is . . . so thanks to all helpers and elves keeping SOTA up to date (resp. updated, hi).

Since SOTA is not our daily business, our programmer’s resources should be used wisely. They should be used primarily for direct benefit to the chasers and activators and a happy management team – and not for an administrative summit, hi. But anyhow, I consider the interest in update transparency is increasing, thinking i.e. of the mega update for Italy with local patriotic pros for this or cons against that summit or the frequent P150/100 topic. A public change log could help by delivering neutral background info – even considering the very recent discussion about SOTA participants not using the resources, not reading the FAQ or not retrieving the facts from such a possible future update tool. I’ve not lived many update discussions so far since participating here actively for only half a year, but I think such topics arise faster this type of emotions that are harmful to the SOTA core and a harmonic relationship between the management team and the association managements.

The availability of such a list or tool could be even seen as a marketing instrument. What are the updates for region XY? Oh, a new summit – or a funny summit name not been on my radar so far . . . let me discover and activating them on a long weekend next month! Or look at the activities of our fellows tagging now the “not yet activated” summits in Italy, hi. Updates are a further view on our beloved summits beside the more traditional criteria.

Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ

A few more updates:

DM/RP-444 is deleted.
F/AM-842 is a new summit

I/VA numerous name, altitude and position updates.

I/VA-129, I/VA-130, I/VA-131 are new summits.

We have a new AM for VE2, Pierre Desjardins VE2PID who replaces Gilles Chevalier VA2CG. Welcome Pierre and thank you Gilles.

Sadly I did not enter my QSO into the database with Sven DK6AS/P who activated DM/RP-444 on 1st November in time. Sven’s activation was entered into the database and other chasers were able to claim the points as they must have entered their data on 1st November. I was too late entering mine and did not get credited when I tried to claim my points yesterday 3rd November as the summit no longer exists in the database - my loss for prevarication!

The summit was deleted due to a mapping error.

73 Phil

That doesn’t sound right Phil. If a summit was valid on the day that it was activated, chasers should still be able to record their contacts (just not contacts on later dates). Normally the end validity date would be changed in the database, not the record deleted. If it were deleted historical data would also be lost.

Checking the database the summit actually ended being valid on 31st. October - in that case both activator and all chasers should lose the points I think.

Andy, can you clarify please, have I interpretted this correctly?

If the change was not indicated prior to being actioned, it does seem a little unfair on Sven who activated in good faith on Novemeber 1st. Perhaps the end validity date could be changed to November 1st from October 31st. (please)?

Ed.

Wow, that was quick. Maybe a bit too quick? :slight_smile:

Sven’s call is DK6HS/P :slight_smile:

Strange thing. When DK6HS/P will keep his points, then of course you also have to get your points. Everything else makes no sense here.

Well there was not only a simple ‘mapping error’. The summit had multiple errors:

  1. The name was wrong (on the marked spot).
  2. The height was wrong.
  3. The summit was not within P150.
  4. The marker was set on the wrong coordinates (for the name “Sindelsberg”).

Here you see the old marker and where the real summit (Sindelsberg 519m) is:

DM/RP-494 is just next to it and P150 conform, so even when the marker would be corrected it still lacks the P150 criteria.

So it is abolutely okay to delete the summit, but I think a pre-notification from somewhere between one or four weeks would have avoided the problem. Speaking for myself, I was there too some days ago and activated the 2 other summits. I did not activate DM/RP-444 as I knew the problem and so I was in “bad faith” to stay with Eds terminology.

Yes John, I made a typo with Sven’s callsign, you are quite right - it was correct in my log. Thank you for the supplementary information about the former “summit”.

73 Phil

I don’t know why RP-444 deletion was not publicised up front. It was one of several summits that were border dupes or had failed to be removed previously.

I do know that it was updated on 1-nov-2017 around 2000Z. So if the activation was submitted before then, it would be valid and allowed. What will happen is the next time Sven DK6HS submits an activation, the RP-444 will get rescored as 0 points.

Andy, can you please explain what that exactly means? Was DK6HS’s activation valid or not? One sentence ahead, you write that you have deleted the mountain from the database at around 2000z on November 1, 2017. DK6HS was about 9 hours before “on air”. As far as I can see, only 21 chaser from 39 total worked have already claimed their points. So the rest of them would also lose their points. Is there no way the other chaser still credit their points?

No, because the summit wasn’t valid on that day.

The issue is whether it had been announced it was to be deleted before and I don’t have time to check right now, I’m packing for a vacation. If it was then the deletion should stand and no points for anyone. If it wasn’t then the end date can be pushed forward a day.

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Thank you Andy for your fast reply.

Sounds fair to me.

The exact deletion-date was not announced officially here. The first time I heard “officially” from the deletion was after your post here Nov 1, 11:06 PM which of course was after DK6HS activation and also after the summit was deleted.

Well, just to show how generous we are on the MT, RP-444 has been given an extended lease of life. It does seem that the notice of deletion slipped through the net and only the MT knew it was going to end. That’s a little harsh to enforce the deletion on 31-oct-2017. So it has been bumped by a few days, it now stops being valid on 2-nov-2017. This means Sven’s activation stands and people who haven’t logged it can now enter their chase. Given time, the database will update everyone’s score who has a 1-nov-2017 QSO in their logs. If you have logged it already, do nothing. If you haven’t logged it, now you can.

On a similar vein, OK/MO-016 and EA4/CC-020 are due for deletion. These may have been announced or maybe they slipped through. EA4/CC-020 is a border dupe with Portugal and was due for deletion 31-jan-2017 but was missed by me.

So both OK/MO-016 and EA4/CC-020 will be deleted on 30-nov-2017.

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Very generous indeed Andy, thanking you.

Phil G4OBK