Hi All
I’m just catching up on long threads from the weekend and now I feel it is time to put my feelings forward.
I have never been an advocate of changing “rules” or “criteria” just for the sake of it (or because of constant pressure from a vocal minority). However, I have given much thought to the topic of “Humps or not?”
Generally I say… yes please in G land.
I have personal motivations and also wider SOTA motivations for the points below.
Let me get the personal points out of the way first. (I would imagine these will resonate with others too)
I love to chase summits when I can but I have relatively little time to do it. i.e. I am at work and/or travelling during the week and thus weekends are very busy family times. I might be able to chase a summit or two in-between the other activities but it’s not the priority.
One thing that affects us “flatlanders" is the more limited number of potential activators that can be worked at a given time. It is plainly obvious that those that live within striking (yagi) distance of NW, Pennines, LD, borders etc not only have a chance at all the HF activations from all over EU, they also have greater opportunity to chase more “local” activators. Hence some of the 100 plus chasing point days I hear about (I wish). I don’t get this chance and thus Shack Sloth is still a stretch for me.
Actually most of my chasing is, not surprisingly, EU summits on 40M CW…
Maybe having more (low) summits in the south would generate a few more chasing opportunities… although I don’t know that would be the case I would like to test the hypothesis.
Also, when I look at my activations and fitting in with other commitments, I can usually only grab and hour or two at weekends to activate. This means that CE-005 is my only opportunity to give something back to the programme. I would love to do more although I cannot afford the time to travel to other “denser” summit areas.
I don’t ever expect to make MG status (maybe when I’m retired in many years) but at least I could get on the air and give a few points out either “locally” or through EU. This is not about MG for me!
Now on the subject of the wider benefits for SOTA… when I did a few VHF only activations from CE-005 in my “early activating days” and before my ability to alert and/or self spot, I found that most of the QSO’s I had were with people who didn’t really know SOTA but were interested. I spent time chatting about it and gave them the URL etc and off they went… a new chaser?.. maybe but at least it’s another potential.
This goes to Brian’s question… I know from my own work life that building awareness in an activity or a product (if you want to call SOTA that) needs many things. Brian mentions the more overt communication tools like magazines, rallies, club meetings etc. However some of the most effective communication comes from basic “guerrilla” marketing activity… i.e. being on the air and spreading the word. Adding more southern summits (Humps) offers more “guerrilla” potential.
My final point relates to the potential deletion of summits in any association. I have great sympathy with the chasers and activators who might be affected. However, most of the most heated discussions over the past months have been related to anomalies and inconsistencies. It seems that if we swallow the “bitter pill” now and deal with these anomalies, we will most likely never have such a vociferous, and at times unpleasant, discussion again. I hope we all can accept the consequences of the clarifications and move on.
After all this is not a competitive (recently verging on the combative) activity and it’s only a hobby! …and many people involved (MT, AM’s etc) are working hard for us with little or no reward.
So… I’m looking forward to working you all even more as a chaser and/or an activator.
73 Marc G0AZS