Database oddity OE/NO-202?

Online Resources Database
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Something a little strange here; Sotawatch has a page for OE/NO-202 ( Hiking in the mountains: tips for beginner hikers - Mountain Day ) but the main database list doesn’t go quite that high, numbers-wise. The highest numbered OE/NO- summit in the list at present is OE/NO-198.

Try to submit a chaser entry, and you find that summits up to OE/NO-208 are in the drop-down, but get a “summit was not a valid SOTA summit on the the date of your contact” message if you try to submit an entry for today.

Presumably it’s a new summit that hasn’t reached its start date, or something like that? It’s not possible to submit a spot for the summit, but it is apparently possible to submit an alert, so maybe there’s a date check missing somewhere?

As the information’s obviously somewhere in the database, it might be nice to have start and end dates on sotawatch summit pages one day… (I know; yet more on that ever-growing to-do list!)

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In reply to M0LEP:

Presumably it’s a new summit that hasn’t reached its start date, or
something like that?

Exactly! Valid from April 1st. 2011. It won’t yet appear in the online summit list but will be found in the “all summits csv file” which can be downloaded from the bottom of the page.

73 Bernhard DL4CW

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In reply to M0LEP:

The database web pages show you what is valid today. The system is clever enough to allow you to add a retrospective activation or chase for a summit taht is no longer valid as long as it was valid when activated or chased.

You can’t spot a summit that is not valid because you can only spot valid summits. :wink:

Perhaps the alert should be keyed to the date. But as you can’t spot or activate or chase a summit until it’s valid it’s not a big deal. And it does allow you to advertise potential activations as you can sometimes get retrospective permission for them. I did with East Cairn Hill SS-282 some years back.

Andy
MM0FMF

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In reply to M0LEP

See page 21 of the updated ARM at :-

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In reply to DL4CW:

Exactly! Valid from April 1st. 2011. It won’t yet appear in the online
summit list but will be found in the “all summits csv file”
which can be downloaded from the bottom of the page.

Thanks. Somehow it managed to appear in the alerts for today even though it’s not yet a valid summit.

In reply to MM0FMF:

Perhaps the alert should be keyed to the date. But as you can’t spot
or activate or chase a summit until it’s valid it’s not a big deal.

It might, however, point out to potential activators that the summit’s not valid for the planned date of activation, and save them some trouble. Likewise displaying start and end dates on the summit’s information page.

In reply to G1INK:

See page 21 of the updated ARM at :-

Thanks.

73, Rick M0LEP

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In reply to M0LEP:

www.sotawatch.org != www.sotadata.org.uk

Which system are you talking about Rick? The database already displays the start and end date for a summit.

Andy
MM0FMF

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In reply to M0LEP:
but it is apparently possible to submit an alert, so maybe

there’s a date check missing somewhere?

Logically you should be able to “alert” a summit before it is valid or it would not be possible to give pre-start date alerts.

Peter
G1FOA

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It is a slightly confusing system, isn’t it… (Well, it has me confused, anyway. I was looking at bits of both, and they didn’t seem to match…)

I’m looking at www.sotawatch.org at the moment, and the link I posted in the top message came straight from one of the alerts being displayed at that time.

The database I’m referring to is apparently www.sotadata.org.uk (reached by clicking on the “Database” link on www.sotawatch.org).

The lists there (reached via “Summits->List of all summits”) apparently show the currently active summits (and don’t show the dates, presumably because the lists have been selected using the date information anyway).

The “Info” links against each summit in those lists take you to the appropriate summit page on sotawatch.org (confusingly, without the leading “www.” which means things like current login sessions may go unregarded).

Only the individual summit pages on www.sotadata.org.uk show the start and end dates, and they’ve ('til now, anyway) not been pages I’ve gone looking for, partly because they don’t seem to be easy to get to, but also because I thought the ones on sotawatch.org (which are easily reached via spots, alerts and “Info” links) provided all that information and more…

Seems to me:
*) It’d be good for the alert posting mechanism on www.sotawatch.org to complain if a summit’s being alerted for a date on which it’s not valid. This could save activators and chasers time, trouble and disappointment.

*) It’d be helpful to have some form of validity information on the www.sotawatch.org summit pages.

*) The lists on www.sotadata.org.uk, rather than being filtered based on todays date, might instead usefully display all possible summits, but colour-code (or indicate in some other fashion) ones which are no longer, and ones which are not yet valid, and include the validity dates in the list.

…but as I observed before, those might just add to an already too-long to-do list.

…and in the meantime I’ll try to remember to check with the individual summit pages on www.sotadata.org.uk rather than relying on www.sotawatch.org.

73, Rick M0LEP

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In reply to G1FOA:

Logically you should be able to “alert” a summit before it
is valid or it would not be possible to give pre-start date alerts.

It’s perfectly reasonable for an alert to be set for the first date for which a summit’s valid, but it shouldn’t be possible to set an alert for any date before the first valid date.

Likewise, if a summit’s last day of validity is 31/3/11 then an activator should not be able to set an alert for 1/4/11.

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In reply to MM0FMF:

Thanks Andy for the information.

I was the activator today on OE/OO-202 … I were in that region, had a look on www.sotawatch.org and choosed that summit, ´cause on that page was no hint for the valid dates.

I am really sad for that failed activation, i´ve got a big log.

How to get such a retrospective permission? Is it possible for me?

73 de OE5RTP
Peter

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In reply to OE5RTP:
Peter, whether it counts as a valid activation or not, it was for me an interesting QSO; my first with Austria, and surprisingly clear given the low signal level compared to my local noise. Thanks and 73, Rick M0LEP

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In reply to OE5RTP:

How to get such a retrospective permission?

Write to the MT (Summits on the Air) and explain what happened and ask if they will allow the activation.

Andy
MM0FMF

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Are we talking about Sandl OE/NO-202 or Strichkogel OE/OO-202 here?

NO-202 is not yet valid, and becomes valid on 1st April 2011. OO-202 is valid, but ceases to be so on 1st April 2011 (last possible day for valid activation is 31st March 2011).

So this is why NO-202 does not yet appear on the SOTA Database. Permission is not needed for OO-202 for OE5RTP’s activation, because it was valid on the date concerned anyway.

Tom M1EYP

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I guess only Peter can say where he actually was, but the reference I got off the sotawatch alert and confirmed in QSO was OE/NO-202, hence the thread. 73, Rick M0LEP

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In reply to M0LEP:

I was on OE/NO-202 - that summit will become valid on 1st April 2011

I will try to get a retrospective permission for my activation, ´cause it was my fault and i want the chasers to get points thanking for so many contacts…

73 de OE5RTP
Peter