During the March 2017 SOTA MT meeting, we agreed to try to be more transparent about existing “work-in-progress (WIP) “ efforts to bring new Associations into the SOTA framework.
For the USA, we are very fortunate to have USGS data that provides summits names, elevations, lat/longs, and a calculated prominence and lat/longs of the col/saddle. This data makes it quite “easy” to update or initialize new Associations.
For Canada, Central America, and South America it is not that easy. For the most part, the SOTA Summits Team can do a preliminary terrain analysis using SRTM tools that feed a GIS application to build a candidate summit list. That summit list must be verified against detailed digital maps which can be very problematic and time consuming.
For North America, Ohio is the last potential Association for which we are trying to recruit a local AM. The following is the NA and SA current list of WIP projects:
Initial Inquiry Stage:
- VE3 , VE4, and VE5: Need a local AM
- CE Chile, CX Uruguay, PY Brazil, LU Argentina
Summit List in Production or Verification
- TI Costa Rica
- XE Mexico
- VO1 and VO2 Newfoundland and Labrador
Finalizing ARM and SL docs
- VY0 Yukon (Target for a 1 May launch)
As a final note, the SOTA Summits Team is actively looking for help in bringing these new associations on-line. If you have very good Excel and Word capabilities, please let us know. We need help!
Guy/N7UN
NA SOTA Summits Team