Hi Andy,
We should not be surprised if we find KH6 in Virginia and KH2 in California 
Originally the prefixes were supposed to give us an idea of āāthe states heard, I also understand that it gets complicated 
73 Ćric
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My guess is that due to the huge mobility of US population within their National territory, itās very common finding someone who was born in one state but is now living in other state and he may even have a new move to another state in the near future, so he finally doesnāt know which association he wants to belong to and prefers selecting No association yet.
Another guess is that they may believe itās necessary to become a member of a certain association by having filled a joinning form and payed a corresponding membership fee, so they choose No association yet because they havenāt done that.
Any U.S. citizen may give us a clue?
73,
Guru
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I wonder if I changed the first in the list to ā000 - Only fools leave this selection unchangedā if that would have an effect?
We still get people who sign up leaving their callsign blank ( a valid option in some cases ) and when you point it out most say they set their username to their callsign as if that makes it OK.
Of course this fades into insignificance when you see how often people sign up on a Monday and request a Shack Sloth certificate from Barry on Tuesday despite logging only a single 1pt chase or worse, nothing.
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Perhaps itās because people signing up have no idea what Home Association means - there are no explanations on the sign up page. If you are new to SOTA then association will mean nothing.
So most non-English-as-a-first-language users can figure it out despite it not being explained. There has to be something else.
ā¦or request a certificate for 2001 before SOTA started!
Perhaps having the first in the list as ā000 - Iām alone and donāt belong to any of the listed associationsā or better yet ā000 - Iām alone. None of the listed associations want me inā would give a better result, as people donāt usually like to be seen as alone.
Perhaps they do it like that because they are planning to use different callsings and fear that writing just a callsign wen they fill in the sign up form may prevent them from using other callsigns, which is not the case.
Iāve heard people wondering why the SOTA contacts have to be uploaded to a separate SOTA database when they already upload their QSOs to LOTW, eQSL, QRZ or whatever other site offering online logging and they seem to believe that itās SOTA who should be searching/finding their QSOs, wherever they are in the cyberWorld, to make the summary of the points earned and the awards deserved.
Oh, wellā¦
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Maybe it would be worth having a chat with Michael G7VJR who runs clublog.org heās probably seen a lot of similar problems.
I was thinking if maybe non-English speakers Google the term but nothing suitable shows.
Many of the people with multiple accounts or errors in their accounts seem to sign up and then never log in ever again. For example I locked out the last 100 people who signed up and left their home as Bouvet Island a few weeks back and so far, none of them has been in touch to get the account unlocked. The locked sign on screen tells them to contact the MT and few do. That tells me those 100 people signed up for some reason but have never been back.
Iāve been trying to avoid changing the sign on page but I suppose forcing someone to pick an association before the form completes would be one way. However, the good thing is we are no longer getting bogus Bouvet Island sign ups but get people ending up in a catch all association which exists specifically for this purpose.
Iām offended
KH7 but I live in Virginiaā¦. 
Since the US removed the requirement for your call area to match where you live a lot of people have not changed when moving. I canāt speak for everyone but I can speak for myself. Being Military and moving around the Country or even the world every 3-5 years. It would be a real pain to have to change my call sign, also unlike other countries we arenāt allowed to hold more than 1 call at a time.
Furthermore we arenāt required to /p /call area , I have gotten gripped at more than once for ālyingā to people as to where Iām located. Although anytime I give a Signal Report I say where Iām located and when I call CQ SOTA or CQ POTA I typically say what state Iām located in.
Hihi I went back and reread after my rant. When I first signed up I just picked the place that I lived in. Which was KH6 at the time, then work/life got in the way and I forgot about SOTA. Lucky for me when I was reminded of it by Charlie NJ7V I again lived in an area that was listed, W4V. But I would say that if I lived in another location that isnāt listed I would select the association closest to me or that I would plan on activating more often. Even though I live in W4V, I live on the Eastern Shore right now and Iām ~4 hours from any summits. Either in W4V or W3.
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Hi @WC9B/W4 Beau,
Donāt be offended for so little 
LOL
Obviously I was only talking in general.
A SOTA spot indicates precisely where the Martian is at the other end
You have moved many times ā¦!
I understand you, I myself have in 43 years moved 16 or 17 times around the world (QRZ.com)!
Do you think I should have kept my first callsign? No !
Just an example :
Imagine in France ham station from > FG, FH, FJ, FK, FM, FO, FR (/E /G /J /T), FS, FT (5X, 5Y, 5Z), FW and FY walking around without indicating /F in their callsigns !! It would be a mess 
! No ?
Iām just thinking of the young people who are new to radio and who are going to be confused.
Keep your exotic callsign since it is authorized a priori, but do not be offended and good luck with your unique LOTW accountā¦
Truly Ćric
XU5DX
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Oh I was actually offended I was trying to be funny.
Yes that true but sometimes people roll by and here me and get excited. Yesterday I was in Maryland doing POTA. I made sure to say I was in Maryland often. As POTA numbers donāt tell you where people are located.
I continue picking away at this woundā¦
We currently have 285 people who have set their home to be ā1X - No Associationā. There are many genuine registrations in there where there is no real home association. But there are 166 US calls in that list. Now at least 5 of those are stations in Florida for whom ā1X - No Associationā but the rest are just wrong.
We have 164 people claiming to live on Bouvet Island. I have set 100 of those accounts to disabled and I did that 21 days ago. Still none of them have contacted the MT to ask why there account is locked. Those accounts get the chop over the Christmas break as they are not being used.
Finally we are down to only 300 people with multiple accounts for the same callsign. The vast majority of these duplicates are not in use. Only a few times do people have QSOs logged in both accounts. I find it odd that people have done activations and logged them but then donāt see them in their activation view and do not ask āhey where are my missing activations?ā.
I believe that the task of cleaning up all the dupes is actually achievable.
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Hi Andy, great job in what you are doing. Thanks.
Merry Xmas to you and HNY
Cheers 
Geoff vk3sq
I locked out all the Bouvet Island home associations in December 2021/January 2022. Approx 175 accounts and out of them 1 person wanted to know why he could not log in, he asked about 3 weeks back and hadnāt used his account since September 2021. That gave me the confidence to remove every account with no logs and 3Y as their home. There were only 12 people who had it as their home who had chased/activated.
Now there are no real users with 3Y as their home.
Still we get people signing up and leaving their home as the default, ā1X - No associationā. Everyone gets an email request to fix this. About 15% update their account. The rest get locked. Iāve started deleting old accounts with no logs, 2019 vintage and Iāll get more ruthless as the numbers get smaller.
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