Hello,
I’m always surprised when I look at the SOTAwatch page and compare the different operating practices between “continents”.
A side-by-side comparison for today’s activations (US vs. EU):
Maybe this is a rookie question, but why is there such a difference? We can’t do CW in Europe? They can’t speak in the US?
Because the 
’s all use Mountain Toppers, KH1’s and the like? 
Presuming most of these spots are from the activating station, rather than chasers, perhaps there are more in-range RBN nodes in the US than in Europe, hence more CW CQ calls are picked up and posted as spots automatically, whereas on SSB, the spots always have to be manually made?
Or looking at it from the other side, cell phone coverage is perhaps not as good in the US, so while CW ops are less affected (as RBN picks up their calls), the SSB ops are not able to spot because they have no cell coverage (and have not found SOTAMÄT yet).
On a related point - I wonder whther there is a time-related peak in CW or SSB (or digital) SOTA activations?
Ed.
Your question as a non-cw SOTA activator is understandable - the reason for the difference in the time period shown is probably simply the temperature. With cold fingers, it is well known that it is easier to press the button on the mic than to operate a morse paddle, hi.
I counted 8 CW operators over 58 minutes in the left hand column and 4 over 43 minutes on the right. The difference is not as great as you think.
But the ratio is. At the moment,18 over the first 20 spots are CW. The page is all red.
They are repeat spots automatically generated by RBNHole.
Yes it’s true. But … I ran a very quick analysis from a slice of their activation period (>17:00z) and over 33 unique activators:
It’s still 57% CW.
Same quick review of a slice of today’s EU spots, 44 unique activators:
It’s only 20%.
Also, in the western US, especially Wyoming and Idaho, population is sparse. Cw gets the signal out much better on a QRP rig, so your chances of success go up considerably. If you look on POTA, I think ssb is much more popular because you can haul a Qro rig and battery in you car 
Whenever I chase an SSB S2S, 80% of the time I can’t hear them even though they are in the range of the band. With cw, I complete S2S about 60% of the time.
I thought this thread was going to be about Italian QRO.
In all seriousness, I have noticed the same phenomenon as well, and I just assumed it was due to the same factors K7GUD explained- more remote operating locations and/or lower population density.
The extra number of spots is due to RBN spotting CW much faster and more frequently than FM/SSB signals are spotted.
Ok that makes sense to me.
In Japan I think they also use CW quite a lot it seems. Probably for the same reason.
Even when you ignore multiple spots from rbn and consider only unique activators, the ratio CW/ssb is very different.
And you live super far away, imagine living right next to them 
This observation has been made many times before. Your observations of the activity levels of different modes is not statistically valid as any kind of prediction of mode as it is only a snapshot over a short period on 1 day. A long term analysis may show something very different.
If you look at the logs you see something very interesting considering your observation:
| QSO mode | number logged |
|---|---|
| CW | 4,664,789 |
| voice | 6,022,770 |
i.e. CW QSOs exist at about 77% of voice QSOs, something not immediately expected from the spot stats you showed.
“Voice” includes FM which is primarily a V/UHF mode, the situation reverses if you substitute SSB for voice, the use of CW on V/UHF is low. Lies, damned lies, and statistics!
Looking at the Activators’ Honour Roll Top 50, we can count approximately 75% of Europeans. This suggests that SOTA is very Europe-centered. Now, if you show statistics for the global SOTA program, it will primarily reflect European trends.
Can you get the stats according to associations ?
Don’t forget that different countries started SOTA on different dates. SOTA originated in the UK and spread out from there.
When I first read the title of this thread I thought it might refer to the fact that (according to this fine piece of BBC journalism Energy smart meter issues creating north-south divide - BBC News) antennas don’t work in Scotland and that GM activators must be using some other technique to launch their radio waves:
Haha, that’s a funny one. I like the “no such fix is available”.
Here in France, those smart meters are famous for being rejected by ‘tinfoil hats’ due to their supposed ‘electrosensitivity,’ even though these meters do not transmit via radio waves, but rather through power-line carrier. We should tell those people about italian QRO
Oh my god that is awful journalism as it says mobile phones don’t use radio, 4G is future proof and they are not allowed to access the local 3G signal (most of which are being switched off in the UK now).
