Last night I camped at the summit but only managed two contacts. One of the two contacts occurred after 1700L my time, which made it the next zulu (UTC) day.
Do I make a separate log entry to reflect the change in Z day even though it was still 22 Sept local?
This morning, I logged an additional two contacts to make the four total required for activation. I logged those on the new Zulu day, 23 Sept. Is this correct?
The date for an activation is only stored once - at the start of the activation, so for a CSV, you’d have something like:
V2,KJ7PWN,W7/XX-YYY,22/09/2020,2100,7MHz,SSB,A1AA,,Alice
V2,KJ7PWN,W7/XX-YYY,22/09/2020,2230,7MHz,SSB,A1BB,,Bob
V2,KJ7PWN,W7/XX-YYY,23/09/2020,0030,7MHz,SSB,A1CC,,Charlie
V2,KJ7PWN,W7/XX-YYY,23/09/2020,0035,7MHz,SSB,A1DD,,Dave
That’ll go in as a single activation - CSV not verified for correctness, but the intent is obvious.
This is correct. You have activated the summit twice but with no points earned.
The pros and cons of this general SOTA rule.
EDIT: I was wrong. See answers below.
73 Joe
No, it’s a single activation, if you use the CSV/ADIF methods.
I was looking at the general rules and see that the UTC day change is only relevant for chasers. Very interesting.
I think this is not obvious. Thanks for clarifing.
I went back to read the rules on scoring (3.7.2)
“The Activator claims the Summit points on an expedition basis, regardless of the total number of QSOs made above the qualifying minimum. A summit may be activated as often as desired but an individual Activator can only claim points for operation from a particular Summit once in any calendar year.”
In my case, I spent the night at the summit having made two contacts the night before and two the following morning. So I believe I meet the intent for a single, rather lengthy, activation.
I will correct my log entry to collect the points.
W7MDN
Exactly. The only time it’s an issue is if you get 4 contacts on New Years Eve, and 4 on New Years Day, you submit two logs there - one for each UTC day, to get the double points on offer.
It’s a throwback to the original SOTA being a UK scheme, and didn’t become an issue until VK people started activating across UTC boundaries (as it’s our mid-morning). While there are still some VK folks who insist on uploading two separate logs for activations that cross the boundary, it is not necessary, other than on UTC New Years.
Updating the DB schema is possible, but we’re wary of changing something that’s lasted that long and works.