Excellent club as well. Jimmy and I had a great night down there doing a SOTA demo and club talk in 2011. Very sad that it is no more.
http://tomread.co.uk/ruardean_hill_2011.htm
Tom M1EYP
In reply to MM0FMF:
My wife likes, if at all possible, to accompany me on activations. In the early days of SOTA in NA, or a VHF only activation, or if there is no alert for whatever reason, sometimes finding the 4th contact has been difficult.
My wife often sets off down the hill before I do, since she doesn’t go as fast as I do. If we have been awhile on the summit and she is ready to get going, she is looking to help me get that 4th contact. Often once she has begun the decent and is prepared to give me a contact from out of the activation zone, someone else will arrive on frequency and her contact is not necessary to complete the activation.
If I contact her from within the activation zone and I know she is well outside the activation zone, I include the contact in my log for completeness. Usually these contacts are mostly status reports on where each of us is located and in particular if I have started my decent yet.
Doug, N7NGO
In reply to M1EYP:
Sometime later, I had a response to a CQ call from M1EYO/M saying he was at the Cat & Fiddle car park.
This would technically fail the introduced rule in WOTA, but it struck me (and still does) as within the spirit.
Even the WOTA “on the same fell” rule needs some “in the spirit of” interpretation as there aren’t usually lines on a map dividing one fell from another. An equivalent rule in SOTA would have to be in terms of some combination of horizontal distance from the activation area and vertical descent from the summit, with the latter probably needing to take the particular association’s prominence into account…
73, Rick M0LEP
In reply to M0LEP:
An equivalent rule in SOTA
… is not needed.
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to G6WRW:
.
You’re right, as usual, Carolyn. The VHF contacts for you and Helen are at the top of a separate page in my Wexford spiral. I’ll edit my submitted log over the weekend, with apologies.
Further, I now have all the gear collected in order to do an activation running 1,000 watts with a Heathkit Kilowatt Kompact amp. I hope that’s not cheating. What do you think?
Elliott, K6EL
In reply to K6ILM:
spiral. I’ll edit my
submitted log over the weekend, with apologies.
Further, I now have all the gear collected in order to do an
activation running 1,000 watts with a Heathkit Kilowatt Kompact amp.
I hope that’s not cheating. What do you think?
Hey Elliott,
I thought the legal limit was 1500 Watts, Stateside? Looks like you’ve come up a little short 
73 Mickey
2E0YYY
In reply to K6ILM:
Thank you for the confirmation of the contact Elliott. I was beginning to think maybe you weren’t where I thought you were. It didn’t really make a lot of difference to my awards because we have had a s2s :o)
:o) 1KW! I know its only a very short walk up your hill but how many trips will you need to get the batteries up there? I’ve absolutely no problem with what power out-put people use… life is too short for QRP and as you know I’m a non-CW heathen :o)
It is my own limitations I put on activations/chases hence the “cheating” was put in quotes. How people do SOTA is entirely up to them as long as it is within the rules.
I’m hoping to get out a little more soon, work, family and the weather has conspired against me the last few months. I’m missing out on all these VK contacts.
Carolyn
In reply to all:
To tie up this thread thank you all for your differing views on this topic.
After analysing all the viewpoints my own opinion is that where the situation is not contrived, then the practice is acceptable. By contrived I would mean 3 or 4 activators travelling together, going up a hill with VHF handhelds and working one another from just below the 25m contour. I think that practice would be looked down upon and could be justifyable criticised, despite it being within the rules.
I think if two activators were struggling to get a 4th QSO to validate an activation and they were both on the same summit then I would deem it acceptable practice for each in turn to descend below the 25m limit to secure a valid contact.
In the case of the 2009 Ailsa Craig expedition I am allowing myself that one as a Chaser as a special one off. I climbed the hill, made lots of contacts and the chaser point from just below the 25m contour is an extra little reward I gave myself!
73 and thanks to all again,
Phil G4OBK
In reply to G4OBK:
Hi Phil,
I’m with you there. There are many good reasons for activators to go out in pairs and it seems a bit rough (especially when you are doing very infrequently activated summits) that for their trouble the activators should lose out on the chance of chasing that summit. Ditto that they should risk not qualifying a summit (which will often be due to very bad conditions, either weather or radio) for want of a fourth contact when there is a potential valid chaser to hand.
Your “contrived” scenario is another matter, and I would add to that one where a single chaser uses multiple callsigns to allow an activator to qualify a summit. Perhaps Brian can address that issue in his review of the rules 
73 de Paul G4MD
In reply to G4MD:
Although the “contrived” scenario is not in the spirit of SOTA, it is not against the rules and it is difficult to see how a rule could be worded to outlaw it. I mean, if for instance you specified that the chaser should be a certain distance, say 50 metres below the AZ, then in a relatively low-relief terrain such as the Wolds that could put him many miles away. If on the other hand you specified that he should be a certain distance from the AZ, say a mile, then in a high relief terrain he could be two or three summits away from the summit being worked: in other words, such a rule could outlaw S2S summits between adjacent summits in some terrains.
With regard to the multiple callsigns scenario, I have taken advantage of that one to qualify a summit myself, as have a number of other people, and again, if one wished to formulate a rule against it (which TBH, I don’t!) then it would be necessary to make significant changes to SOTA, where the identifier would no longer be the callsign but the operator. The term “can of worms” comes to mind!
There is another aspect to this. I am currently looking at producing a “simple English” version of the rules for the benefit of people who’s first language is not English and who have difficulty understanding the semi-legalistic language of the rules. This is not an easy task - far from it! - and I would be against additional complication of the rules making my task even more difficult! (Yes, I know, selfish! )
In the end, all these complications and clarifications could be replaced by the good old catch-all, 3.7.1.14: “All SOTA operations are expected to be conducted in the spirit of the programme.” In other words, if you can show that an activation has been carried out outwith the “spirit” then a complaint to the MT will get the matter investigated. Proof is difficult, though, and the MT tend to allow the benefit of the doubt.
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to G8ADD:
Hi Brian,
Many thanks for your considered and well-reasoned response to my suggestion.
As regards Phil’s “contrived” scenario, I agree that where you get a “mass activation” of a difficult to access summit by a group of activators that has carefully planned and arranged the event it would be churlish in the extreme to criticise the participants for taking advantage of the opportunity to chase as well as activate; and as such any ruling that restricted this possibility would be unjust.
I also have, on one occasion, used a shack-based chaser with two valid calls to qualify a difficult summit and I have no quibble with this. What I was aiming at was an extension of Phil’s situation where one chaser accompanies an activator and uses multiple callsigns to allow that activator to qualify summits. This is potentially open to abuse and in my opinion outwith the spirit of SOTA. It may well be such an esoteric occurrence that you do not consider it worth legislating for.
Wishing you all success with your unenviable task of revising the Rules,
73 de Paul G4MD