Whatever happened to ‘popular operators of mountains’ club?
He’s sitting over there listening on one frequency and sending on another.
Splitter!
10 Likes
It is hard to imagine a contest which would be meaningful in the context of SOTA. Sitting on a summit for 24/48 hours sending out 59s to as many people as possible? Boring! Every VHF and many HF contesters do that! How many summits you can activate in 48 hours? Fine for the super fit but not very green with all the travelling involved! The fact is that at the outset of SOTA contests were rejected on safety grounds, contesters intent on winning would be tempted to take risks, stay out in storms or finish up descending while fatigued. Anyway, who needs another contest, if you are competitive with others then the honours tables let you operate as if SOTA is a contest.
2 Likes
Ah, you never tried it, never even read the rules, but you seem to know all about GMAC. Wow, Brian.
It is hard to imagine a contest which would be meaningful in the context of SOTA.
Lack of fantasy?
Boring!
Your opinion.
Fine for the super fit but not very green with all the travelling involved!
Once again, you state something and don’t deliver figures to prove.
The fact is that at the outset of SOTA contests were rejected on safety grounds, contesters intent on winning would be tempted to take risks, stay out in storms or finish up descending while fatigued.
Nonsense. We’re all grown up and experienced hillwalkers.
Number of fatalities, activators hurt or lost in GMAC since 2016: nil.
Anyway, who needs another contest,
It’s the only 12-month marathon contest for summit stations that I know. I would be highly interested in more contests like this. Name them, please!
2 Likes
And would I find that GMA hasn’t copied the basic concepts from the SOTA scheme? (@G8ADD already mentioned the different summit definitions and reference IDs but that’s a trivial difference]. If you or Richard think my first impression is wrong, please say in what way.
I haven’t knowingly worked a GMA activator… I rarely do SSB HF and on CW S2S stations give me a valid SOTA summit reference.
1 Like
I don’t understand that statement. There’s nothing to prevent SOTA activators working contest stations or indeed taking part in a contest, and then filing a SOTA log and a contest log. Am I missing something?
2 Likes
Nothing really appart from the need to mention the SOTA reference every other QSO.
I did that an the other contest stations got fully confused.
So now I do some 2m FM contacts and on SSB I contest. Two seperate logs make things easy.
Adulthood and experience are both on a spectrum. Neither of them are proof against a mischance. If a mischance does occur, you can be sure that in this country serious questions will be asked by a Coroner, and it would be somewhat surprising if there aren’t similar authorities elsewhere in the world.
When SOTA was started the idea of thousands of hams taking up hill walking must have seemed fantastic, then as now the general image of hams was of old, fat and sedentary men sitting in front of radios surrounded by empty cans and food wrappers - and to be fair there is a lot of truth in that, many of the punters at a hamfest or rally are hardly an advert for healthy living! 
Anyway, you claim that GMA runs a successful contest, why not tell us more: how does it work. Who knows, you might get some more participants out of it!
1 Like
amen to that brother de W6LEN / Jess
You would know. They give you a summit reference that confuses the hell out of you when you go home and upload your log.
4 Likes
Rip-off Sota also?
“Saxon mountain competition The first Dresden mountain competition was announced in 1982. The combination of sparking and hiking continues to be attractive to this day and has also been well received outside the district. This gave us the courage to continue the competition throughout the state of Saxony since 1991.”
4 Likes
Fraser, I love your sense of humour!
1 Like
Ah, that’s where my sheltered life comes in.
You see I’m spoilt: I alert for SOTA, self-spot if I can (or an RNB does it for me), I work the SOTA chasers often getting a pile-up. Then I QSY to my next alerted HF band or otherwise go home. I rarely do ‘hunt and pounce’ mode looking for S2S’s - for me, they are the icing on the cake, and I don’t collect points. So, if a chaser is also doing another scheme (e.g. GMA), there’s no obvious reason why he would let me know.
Despite what some might have inferred, I’m not against GMA or any other radio award scheme. In fact, I also do HEMA and WOTA, the latter even this morning on a SOTA/WOTA summit, G/LD-050.
2 Likes
In GMA, the final ascent (climb) has to be unassisted, excluding disabled folks. I got rid of that in the SOTA general rules, as well as in all ARMs in the USA. A single activation can earn 42 or more points. During four s2s weekends each year, all points are doubled, including winter bonus points. An identifiable “bump” can earn one point even if only a few metres high, as long as it has a name on a map.
Elliott, K6EL
Sota MT
4 Likes
In my opinion, GMA is for amateurs and SOTA is for connoisseurs.
Jany
LZ1GJ
Amateurs…Connoisseurs
Ford Escorts…Rolls Royce
Who cares? If it gets people out there participating in a healthy life style rather than sitting at home in front of some ‘Brain Numbing’ electronic screen…bring it on…the NHS applauds!!
Cheers
Phil ZL2VTH
12 Likes
I was that soldier on more than one occasion in RSGB HF CW NFD. Last years effort:
RSGB NFD 2023 G2CP/P 232 SOTA QSOs from G/TW-004 in the QRP Renewable Energy 6 hour section.
73 Phil G4OBK
Operator of G2CP/P (Scarborough ARS)
3 Likes
That’s SOTAItalia, not Italian SOTA, an award scheme conceived by a former Association Manager, the (ab)use of the SOTA prefix is coincidental. Unfortunately the difference is often lost on well meaning Italian hams that believe they have to embark on a polar sled expedition to activate a summit.
3 Likes