I noticed one of the peaks I activated in 2024 is now listed as inactive (DM/RP-180). I looked around at the area and many of the peaks are also listed as inactive. I assume this is just a glitch or database maintenance issue?
Jeff WX7OR
No – it was a mistake that DM/RP-180 was still active such a long time. It didn’t meet the P-150 criteria…
73 Armin
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It was listed as active when I did it in 2024, but my points were deleted in December. Is it possible to get my points back?
Thanks
Jeff
Valid From: 1 Dec 2004
Valid To: 31 Dec 2008
I had an S2S with DM/RP-180 on 4/7/25. I see I still have the chaser points credited but that the activator has 0 points.
For some reason, the Summit was still showing as active and valid until the end of 2025… even though the criteria hadn’t been met since 2009.
Now the Summit’s validity has also been terminated in 2008. Perhaps that’s why the points are no longer being credited.
However, it was shown as valid again from 2016 to 2025 – and was activated 40 times during that period! I think the validity period should therefore be changed from 2008 to 2025.
73 Armin
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A summit has a Valid From and Valid To pair of dates. The DB should block use of the summit if the date of use is not ValidFrom <= date of use <= ValidTo.
In addition, every summit has 1 or more points records. These give the points and bonus points values for the summit and have a Start and End date. There are 1 or more points records because summits get re-scored when measured more accurately or should their bonus period change.
Let’s look at Creise GM/WS-019. This is a big Munro near Glencoe.
| SummitCode | ValidFrom | ValidTo | StartDate | EndDate | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GM/WS-019 | 2002-07-01 | 2099-12-31 | 1900-01-01 | 2002-06-30 | 10 |
| GM/WS-019 | 2002-07-01 | 2099-12-31 | 2002-07-01 | 2021-07-31 | 10 |
| GM/WS-019 | 2002-07-01 | 2099-12-31 | 2021-08-01 | 2021-11-30 | 8 |
| GM/WS-019 | 2002-07-01 | 2099-12-31 | 2021-12-01 | 2099-12-31 | 8 |
You can see this summit has been valid since the start of GM association and is valid to infinity. In fact it’s some time long after all of the current MT will be dead! For “hysterical reasons” really a feature for how the code worked in the past, there is a points time from “beginning of known time” or 1900-01-01 to 2002-06-30. That is to just before GM association began. It’s sort-of a bug but can be ignored.
Then we have a period from 2002-07-01 to 2021-07-31 when Creise was worth 10 points.
In 2021 I updated the summit because it had been re-measured and was under 1000m, so we have a range of 2021-08-01 2021-11-30 where the value is 8 points. Finally there is a range of 2021-12-01 2099-12-31 and this is because the bonus period for all GM was changed to November 30 to March 14. This allows the GM bonus to begin on St. Andrew’s day, a holiday in Scotland.
The score you receive is worked out by finding which date window we are talking about and using the points value for that window. You should not be able to change DB entries if the date in question is not in the ValidFrom <= date of use <= ValidTo window.
Yes, it’s quite complex. But it means we can adjust bonus windows and or scores without affecting the past. That’s the idea.
DM/RP-180 was invalidated in 2008 as measures showed it didn’t meet the prominence. It was revalidated in 2016 when shown to be prominent enough. What we have is a valid window showing 2004->2008 but points values for after that. So there is an issue in the valid dates don’t match the points dates and this is likely cause a corner condition in the scoring code.
Why is the an error in the data? I was looking at this as I fixed a typo in a call for WX7OR and was perplexed to what is / was happening. The major issue now is that the source data for the summits is kept in summitlist spreadsheet files for each region and for DM/RP the line for DM/RP-180 occurs twice. This is simply finger trouble and can be fixed. Then the correct dates can be set for the summit.
At this point I don’t know if DM/RP-180 should be invalid or valid. But that can be found and confirmed.
If it turns out it should be invalid and should not have been re-validated then the MT will decide what should happen to chases and activations made in this period. Off the top of my head we will probably keep them because the people involved trust the DB and if it’s wrong through MT error it’s not fair to penalise the users.
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Thanks for the responses. I just looked at that area and there are many summits listed as inactive. The map wasn’t that way in October 2024.
I am not to worried about it since it is 6 points for me. I think other SOTA people that operate in that area might be impacted more.
Jeff WX7OR
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Thanks. I meant to show just RP-180. I should have proof read my post before hitting send.
As I said, I am good either way. Simmerkopf was one of the more enjoyable hikes in Germany. It was the middle mushroom gathering season. I met many local people who showed me their days’ bounty. I wish I had a kitchen and could have collected a few. To me, that experience is what I enjoy about SOTA.
Jeff WX7OR
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It’s been very useful Jeff for several reasons.
- fixed your typo
- found a summit with screwed up dates that needs fixing
- found a source sheet with doubled entry
- possibly found corner case in software that mixes up screwed up dates
It just so happens that the old program we use to take the source sheets and upload/update the data is being rewritten. The old one is in C# and needs a good clean and the new one is in Python so will be runnable from Windows, Linux, MacOS and whatever. But knowing that there is a chance that there is a duplicated line, with 180K summits, there probably is another file with such an error. I can extend the new program to specifically check that each summit only occurs once in each region file.
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As Andy already wrote: You also selected the inactive summits to display.
Take a look at:
Summits on the Air – DM, German Low Mountain Range Association Reference Manual
file:///C:/Users/packr/Downloads/ARM-DM.pdf
The development of the summits in DM seems to have happened in three stages. Initially, the prominent summits were listed. There were a lot of them.
Then, starting in 2009, the P100 guideline was implemented, which already reduced the number of summits.
Since it was felt there were still too many, the P150 guidelines were introduced in 2016. This resulted in a significant reduction.
In DM/BW, for example, only 93 remain from over 850 summits.
As I see it, DM/RP-180 didn’t even meet the P100 guidelines and was declared invalid in 2009. But for some reason (a bug?), it slipped back into the range of valid summits during the second reduction (P150).
I think this is a rare, isolated case…
73 Armin
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I understand now. The weird thing is that some people received points for the summit during this period and some did not.
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