I entirely agree regarding not using mountain summit crosses as aerial supports. We need to be empathetic to our surroundings and the feelings of others.
I very rarely use trig points either. On HF my link dipole for 60/40/30/20 is supported at the center feedpoint on a 6m fiber glass / carbon “slip over” pole supported by 3 nylon cords and secured with plastic tent pegs (or stones as appropriate). I endeavor to operate away from the summit to avoid any annoyance to others on the summit, usually gaining shelter on the lee side of the hill.
Within the rules the operator can be as much as 100ft below the summit. I suggest we use that allowance to advantage while creating harmony.
I strongly support the idea of not using the summit crosses as antenna support, because it could well be seen as sacrilege by any other religious people around or when reading our activation reports and seeing the pictures.
On the other hand, I don’t really see a problem with attaching a fishing rod temporary to a trig point, as this is just a man made structure for cartographic purposes and no one are using such trig point for anything while we are activating with our antenna attached to it. In addition, I see this practice as a very good way to let people know about our ham radio and SOTA hobby. I personally do talk and explain what I’m going to do or what I’m doing whenever they show up in the summit while I’m there, as long as they don’t ask me questions while I’m transmitting morse code or speaking to the microphone, in which case I make a sign with my hands meanning that I can’t talk and I’ll explain them later.
Setting up away from the summit might be seen by others like we might be doing something obscure and suspicious.
I not only explain people what I’m doing, but I also offer them to listen through a spare pair of earbuds I always have connected in parallel with the ones I always use. Not everybody try them but some do and they enjoy and amaze with what they hear. I think that’s a great way to make publicity of our hobby and SOTA. No wonder why I’m a member of the Global Publicity Team…
73,
The actual distance is 25 metres below the summit for a contour defining the AZ (activation zone). That is 82 feet, a smaller distance but should still make it possible to set up a station with the consideration for others requested in the Code of Conduct (3.7.3 in the GR).
Agreed Guru. It is just that on summits that are popular with walkers, for example in the Lake District (G/LD), people taking photographs of their friends at the trig is quite common. Indeed I have sometimes been asked to take photographs for individuals and groups. Having my pole in the photograph would have been somewhat embarassing.
I don’t see it embarrasing but a perfect way to engrave in their memory what they found that day in that summit , i.e. a nice ham radio fellow who kindly explained that he was participating in the SOTA program by activating that summit and making contacts with other ham radio people all around the World. Isn’t it a nice thing to find one day and to tell to their family and friends about? It’s perfect publicity for SOTA.
In addition to this, I have several times thought about an idea I’ve never expressed here before but some of you might have previously considered: what about preparing and printing some sort of fliers with a basic short information about the SOTA program, both in English on the one side and in a second language on the other side (French, German, Italian, Spanish, etc…). Activators may have a few of them in their rucksack to be distributed to people they might meet in the summits feeling interested by what they see we are doing.
Any thoughts?
73,
Guru
P.D. what I do is showing them the SOTA logo in my baseball hat and then telling them to search SOTA on Google.
I fully agree with you, I never install my antenna on a cross. There are enough other ways to erect our aerials. Just taking a (more) little time by taking a look around the Summit !
A good exemple is quit near Lörrach, in GMA with the “Schafberg” (DA/BW-070) ; This path is part of the road of Saint Jacques de Compostela. It would be very bad to erect an antenna there ….
Given the religious nature of the holy crosses, I am also not happy that they often have a metal box containing a notepad and pencil attached to them so that hikers can “sign-in” at the cross. That, being a permanent defacing of the cross, I would see as a worse action than the temporary support of a mast as long as the mast doesn’t mark the cross in any way. As I said before, I avoid attaching my mast to the cross for support as I don’t think that is the correct thing to do.
On the two occasions that I did do it (around 5 years ago) I did not get any negative comments, rather interest in what I was doing - it sort of acted like a flag to attract the public!
Ok, on the one hand, the summit cross can be considered as a religious symbol that is desecrated by an antenna.
But I see the summit cross as respect in front of the mountain itself.
It does not necessarily have to be a cross. It also came to be as a monument. I’m having a hard time fixing my antenna to it.
By the way, the book on the summit where you can sign up has the same reason: it gives respect to the mountain - therefore I have no problem that it is attached to the cross…
At a trig point, I would have fewer concerns. …It is in connection with the mountain, which is used for a technical purpose and no longer serves the homage of the mountain itself.
Still, if there is another attachment point, I will take it.
On popular summits, I try to operate away from the trig point/cairn/other summit marker if practical unless there’s no protection from adverse weather elsewhere in the AZ.
In any case, I have found people friendly - including a farmer who raced up on his all-terrain vehicle initially to complain about my 10m pole and quad-band dipole on his land - once they understand what I’m doing there.
The exception was last week on G/LD-022 Seat Sandal early morning, alone on the summit. Suddenly a woman appeared. I was already sitting in a drystone windbreak out of the 3C icy wind and had a lot of my gear unpacked. She said she was local and an amateur photographer and wanted to take photos of the (lovely) views including where I was sitting (strange). I willingly volunteered to step away for a bit for her photos but she wanted all my stuff removed too. At this point, I politely declined saying I was already cold (true) and didn’t want to repack everything and move away from the summit.
She then said people who sit too long [duration undefined] at summits are called ‘summit hoggers’ - a term new to me. I hadn’t unpacked my radio gear yet. I asked for clarification in case I had misheard [it was very windy]. Did ‘summit hoggers’ refer to people who sit at the summit (“Yes of course!”) or someone who expects everyone else to vacate the summit so they can have it to themselves, e.g. for photos (“Oh no! Certainly not.”).
I activated the summit pretty quickly on 2m but abandoned my plans to do HF as she said she would return shortly. I asked her, didn’t everyone have an equal right to be at the summit, to sit, enjoy the view, eat lunch, warm up again, take photos? Isn’t “summit hogger” a derogatory term?
I guess the point of my [long] story is that – although she may be the one exception – I get the impression some summit visitors resent not having the place to themselves. Maybe it’s only a problem in tourist area like G/LD. A good reason to be as low profile as possible.
Depends on whether it’s a popular summit. When I expect people on the summit, other than myself or my companions, I avoid using any marker on the summit because people usually want to take pictures there. Sometimes I do use the cross or a different summit marker when I know there’s not going to be anyone else on the summit.
The trig point question is less relevant in Bavaria as it is usually a stone of about 4 inches cube buried in the undergrowth and cannot be used to support a mast. I’m not sure if this is only in Bavaria or generally in Germany. I haven’t seen any Trig point structures similar to what I know of from Australia and the UK in Germany as yet. But if I did find such a structure, I would not be too worried about using it as a mast support as it is an industrial construction used for surveying rather than a religious structure.
On the meadow next to FL/VO-002 , I was aggressively attacked. An angry man said: it would be private property and he put his hands on my antenna to break it. No matter if he was right. I packed up quickly…I was glad that I had 4 qso. - Today I would choose the maximum distance … if I ever go again.
OK - My French is not that good. I would not have moved so fast in Germany…
I think you’re quite right. Decades ago there where great buildings for measuring. But today only the place ist marked, where you have to put your gps.
During my trip to cornwall and dorset a few weeks ago, the only useable trig point was
G/DC-007 .The hole in the other concrete blocks was too short to hold the mast.
Since the use of GPS-based surveying the Ordnance Survey in the UK no longer use trig points.
Though the OS no longer uses the trig pillars, maintaining them is still its responsibility; about 6,000 remain.
They are of historic interest only but walkers do like them and want to touch them or be photographed with them, and may be reluctant to approach if you have your radio kit on it.
Apart from the ones they still use nicely identified by the shiny label saying it’s a part of the Ordnance Survey National GPS Network. But they don’t use them optically the way they used to do.
It’s simple… if I think there’s a possibility other people will be on the summit then I keep clear of the trig and often the cairn/shelter. So that means most Munros and the popular summits. Similarly, I keep wires from antennas clear from paths etc. Sometimes that isn’t possible and I’m very conscious of this, if I see people approaching, I point out the wires and offer to move if it bugs them. So far nobody has asked me to do so, Also I now have a couple of bright orange plastic streamers at the mid-point of the barely visible antenna wire, just so people are aware there is “something” in the air.
The few times I used a trig point on unlikely to be visited summits it’s been a pain to setup compared with my usual way of rigging the pole/antenna. It’s not worth the effort in my view.
… counted is the time between the qso which is longer than 5 minutes !