Inquiry regarding "Summit Activations" within a non-SOTA Association

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Dear SOTA Management Team,

I am a licensed Radio Amateur from Turkey (TA) and a dedicated mountaineer. I am eager to begin activating peaks within my country to promote both the hobby and the spirit of the mountains.

As I am aware that Turkey is not yet an official SOTA Association, my primary concern is to operate ethically. I have a deep respect for the immense effort and organization behind SOTA; therefore, I want to ensure my individual activities are not perceived as a misuse of the system or a violation of the community’s integrity.

I would appreciate your guidance on the following points:

Terminology: Is it acceptable to use terms such as “Summit Activation” or “Mountain Peak Activation” in my CQ calls, provided I explicitly state that I have no SOTA reference?

Best Practice: To ensure “Chasers” are not misled, what is your recommended procedure for operators in “non-SOTA” countries who wish to honor the SOTA spirit?

I truly want to experience the thrill of calling “CQ from the summit” and sharing that unique mountain-top excitement, even if no points are awarded. My goal is to act as a pioneer for this activity in Turkey and perhaps gather the necessary data to help establish an official SOTA Association here in the future.

As an example, I am considering the following phrasing for my calls:

“CQ CQ CQ, this is TA1ODM portable on [Mountain Name], Turkey. Summit Activation – No SOTA reference. Calling CQ from the mountain top.”

I want to ensure this phrasing is appropriate and clearly distinguishes my activity from the official SOTA program.

Thank you for your time, your guidance, and for the incredible work you do for the amateur radio community.

Best 73,

Kaya - TA1ODM.

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Hi Kaya

I am not a member of the SOTA Management Team so this is just my personal opinion.

SOTA doesn’t have a monopoly on summits or mountains. There are many other schemes for activating mountains so it is perfectly ok to activate any summit you like within any scheme or outside of any scheme. So feel free to call CQ from any summit you like. There is no need to mention that it is not a SOTA summit - I think that is possibly more confusing. Anyway, most chasers will know you cannot be on a SOTA summit because there is no association in Turkey.

I suggest you have a look at GMA – Global Mountain Activity which allows you to activate most summits. Although I cannot see any references for Turkey I believe it is much easier to add summits to their program than it is to SOTA. Their website isn’t very easy to navigate so you may have to use Google to find the information you need.

At the summit I’d suggest you just call “CQ CQ CQ, this is TA1ODM portable on [Mountain Name], Turkey. Calling CQ from the summit.”

73 Richard

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Exactly this! I operate off some non SOTA summits for POTA and WAB trig points! I usually just call CQ as “portable from the summit of…..” occasionally youll get asked “Is it a SOTA summit?” a polite explanation usually does the trick!

Alan

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