Hans describes the situation accurately.
If it is in the database then it is OK.
Older associations were surveyed with very much poorer tools and poorer quality data. This will mean there are summits which, when evaluated with today’s tools and data, will fail validation.
We have said that all the old P100 associations in Europe needed checking with modern tools/data to ensure they were the same standard as new associations which were checked better tools and data.
HB9, OE and DM have been resurveyed. OK, OM, HA and SV spring to mind as being P100 and in need of checking. In addition we had Italy which was incomplete and inaccurate. Italy was missing a lot of easier summits amongst the many problems. We decided to fix the problems with location errors and missing summits in Italy as the next re-evaluation task as it was in a much worse state than other associations. They may be summits which are not P100 in OK and the association probably should be P150 but at least the data is quite “accurate”. If there is a summit listed then there probably is a summit at the location unlike Italy where the are errors running to 10’s of kms in positioning.
The summits team has nicely split itself into groups such that in the US covering North America we have Guy N7UN and Elliott K6EL and many helpers working on checking existing American associations and adding new associations like Alaska. In Asia and the Pacific we have Andrew VK3ARR and helpers checking existing VK associations, helping with updates to JA and bringing new associations such as ZL and E51 etc. That leaves the rest of the summit team to work on re-evaluations and new associations. It means a lot of the work on new associations has zero impact on the resurveying work and we are still in a position to add new associations in Europe and its close borders.
OK is a vibrant and active association but we aware there are summits which are not P100. It certainly needs work. The question is do we do it next once Italy is corrected. Or do we look at a quieter association such as HA or SV next? They all need doing at some point. Some activators spotted there were less difficult points to be gained in OK. They also found a beautiful country and nice people that was a great place to visit never mind the SOTA summits.
What we did decide was that DL would be the last of the old European associations to be re-evaluated as DM was one of the first. The result of this is there would be significant change in Germany then a fairly long period of no change followed by changes again (probably, I haven’t looked at DL data).
I can’t say when OK will be re-evaluated other than it will be done. We’re all clever enough to understand that it will lose summits to bring it into line with other associations. If this bothers you then go and visit the country, enjoy the food, countryside, people, beer and have some SOTA fun sooner rather than later. If it doesn’t bother you then you should still go and visit OK. I say that based on the beautiful photos I’ve seen of the country, from talking to people who have been to OK from the UK who had a wonderful time there and from talking to many OK radio amateurs.
My MT colleague Brian is correct in saying people should contact the AM if they think there is an error (or missing summit). Although in this case it is most likely that rather than the odd summits being invalidated we would wait till we fully re-evaluate the association.
As I said above, “If the reply of the AM is unsatisfactory, you only then contact the MT via the channels provided on the website.” If you won’t contact the MT then no progress can be made as the MT won’t be aware of the problem.
