In reply to G4OIG:
I am of the opinion that we need to have a broader understanding for
the sake of the future of SOTA, particularly with regards to potential
participants. We need to consider the situation from the point of view
of someone in the southern part of the country. This is where the bulk
of the population of the country is located and we need to take that
fact on board.
As has been mentioned, the south of England is where the bulk of the population resides, and, by extension, the home to a major proportion of licensed radio amateurs. Despite this, SOTA has not made significant inroads into the consciousness of many southern amateurs.
Naturally, topography has a lot to do with this, as the hills we have down here do not loom so large, either actually or figuratively, in our day-to-day existence. They have no significant influence on our climate, and are low enough to experience the same weather almost without exception. Our recreational use does not generally differentiate between a country walk and a hill walk, and Mr Average would probably be hard-pressed to name more than a handful of hills in his general vicinity.
It has frequently been suggested that reducing the prominence parameter of the English Association from 150m to 100m will somehow be a “magic bullet” that will allow a sudden upsurge of enthusiasm and activity for SOTA. I beg to differ.
A glance at the Summits page will reveal that there are fifteen SOTA summits in the SE Region – my home patch. Since SOTA’s inception they have had a total of 329 activations, of which 78 are mine. With around 23% of SE activations, I guess I can reasonably claim to be the Region’s most prolific activator, and my perspective may be of interest.
Of the fifteen SE summits, two (SE-002 Leith Hill and SE-005 Botley Hill) quite literally look down on the outspread suburbs of London. If there was really a latent desire for SOTA, merely thwarted by a lack of summits, one would expect that there would have been far more activations than have taken place. Both are easy to reach by road, and are served by public transport, Leith Hill to the bottom and Botley Hill to the top! In fact, my fifteen visits to Leith Hill represent almost 50% of the total number of listed activations. Of the rest, there are some well-known “northern” SOTA callsigns “passing through” to gain another unique, and a few one-off visitors – hardly the statistics to reflect local unfulfilled dreams!
Many of the SOTA activators that pass through the SE also comment how hard it is to qualify any summit with simple VHF/UHF equipment, despite the large numbers of potential contacts within range. The truth is that, for whatever reason, the south-east does not use the VHF/UHF bands in the same way as happens further north. It seems that lots of people are monitoring the various repeaters and calling channels, but only respond to voices they recognise. Whether this is a long-term result of earlier repeater abuse and piracy, I don’t know, but it makes SOTA-style operations with a hand-held often doomed to failure.
In this environment, what would be the effect of adding a range of new summits to P100 level? Any new summit could not be any easier to access than the existing ones, so it is difficult to envisage a sudden increase in SOTA activity down here. Since my initiation into SOTA, I have tried, not always successfully, to manage at least one activation of each SE summit in each calendar year. How would I react to a virtual doubling of the number of summits? Well, if they were to be introduced, I would obviously wish to add each to my “uniques” score, but there again, according to the rules, I only need one QSO from each! After that I would not expect to re-visit them for a multi-band, multi-mode, extended visit. Why should I? There would be another batch of new summits just over the border in SC that I need for uniques!
Once the dust has settled from the inevitable initial flurry, I believe that the overall level of SOTA activity in England will remain around previous levels. After all, each SOTA activator has only a certain amount of time, money and enthusiasm to devote to the hobby, and that will be diluted amongst a wider range of, in my view, unnecessary and unchallenging new summits.
There has been a lot of discussion on the subject of reducing the prominence to 100m, much of it very sensible and well-argued. However, I do sense an undercurrent of selfishness from a few who believe they stand to gain. By all means argue your case, but please don’t hide behind the myth that you are somehow helping us poor, benighted souls in the south out of the goodness of your hearts!
These are my personal views, and do not claim to represent the views of the MT as a whole.
73 de Les, G3VQO
