Sincere apologies to all, had I thoroughly read and understood General Rule 3.5.2:
“Summits should be distinct peaks. In general, this means that there should be a minimum vertical separation between Summits and their associated cols (also known as saddles). Peaks separated by a shallow col should be considered as a single Summit.
This principle ensures that there is a distinct climb associated with every Summit. As Associations will have widely differing mountain characteristics, the Programme does not specify a minimum separation value. This is for the Association Manager to determine.”
you can call almost anything a summit…
But not quite sure how this relates to “150m above surroundings”
you mentioned earlier :
“Band 6 10 points
The height banding must be constructed in such a way that it encourages operation from the highest peaks in the Association. Therefore, Band 6 should only apply to a small proportion, say 10%, of Summits.”
and I think you quoted 35% of summits in DM are 10 pointers, well this is not the only association which does not comply with the 10% guideline; France has approx 2510 summits and appear to have approx 730 10 pointers, thats about 29%.
It may be worth looking at HB, OE and OK.
On the other hand, they are a bit sparse in England, I think there is only 3 in about 180, thats about 1.5%.
There appears to be inconsistency across the associations and this may not be a hard and fast rule, but probably needs explaining.
As a matter of interest, where is the new DM ARM? I can only see the 2007-01-01 version on the SOTA website. It would be useful to be able to read the document we’re discussing.
I am not sure that 3.5.2 IS understandable. Does the 3.5.2 “minimum separation value” refer to horizontal separation.
You are still right about the 150m rule. No need to apologise.
It is the principle we should be focusing on. Should summits without the 150m drop be allowed?
If the MT is going to exclude countries without hills with 150m drops from SOTA, then why allow the DM association to have hills without the 150m drop in their portfolio?
Ta. As far as I can see they haven’t actually changed their rules, though they are considerably more lax than those adopted in the UK. Interesting that criterion 3 places a decision with “das Management Team”.
and I think you quoted 35% of summits in DM are 10 pointers, well this
is not the only association which does not comply with the 10%
guideline; France has approx 2510 summits and appear to have approx
730 10 pointers, thats about 29%.
It may be worth looking at HB, OE and OK.
Hi Ian,
With Les, G3VQO’s help, I listed these 2510 summits, looking carefully to the 150m drop, wrote the French ARM, all Excel files, kml files, website files etc… to stand up SOTA France.
I never heard about the “10% guidelines”; can you say me where I can find infos about that ?
Now I’m working on the new french data base, modifying wrong references and adding new ones, and I’am a little affraid when reading all these topics.
FYI… The following is taken from “General rules - 3.11 Scoring System”:
"Points are awarded to both Activators and Chasers as follows:
Band 1 1 point
Band 2 2 points
Band 3 4 points
Band 4 6 points
Band 5 8 points
Band 6 10 points
The height banding must be constructed in such a way that it encourages operation from the highest peaks in the Association. Therefore, Band 6 should only apply to a small proportion, say 10%, of Summits. Conversely, a reasonable number of Summits must fall into Band 1 encourage lower level participation. Again, as a guideline 10% of Summits is acceptable."
It seems clear that in this case either the 150 meter rule or the height banding guideline must give way. In my opinion rules have precedence over guidelines, Alain has worked in accordance with the geography of France, whereas the guideline seems to be constructed around the geography of the UK and would be a nonsense if applied to, say, Nepal!
I am starting to think that SOTA was defined in too parochial a manner and should be redesigned so that it can be applied easily in any country in the world - after all it is slowly spreading and I am sure that in time to come it will be a serious rival for IOTA!
Please, it is not a criticism, merely an observation.
No problem for me ! I simply thougt that I had given too much 10 points summits.
But it is not easy to choose the bands. If we try to have only 10% summits with 10 pts, we need to reduce band 6 width; so to win 10 pts, activators would have to climb up to say 3000m …!!!
I think that every country has its own scale, and we cannot compare 10pts summits in France (more than 2500m now) and 10 pts summits in DM land (more than 850m).Climing to 2500m is,of course, difficult and lethal as said Brian G8ADD.
So when french hams ask me “why such a difference ?”, my answer is : we don’t play in the same course ! Don’t look at the “Roll of honour / All associations” but only at “/ France”.
Well, my opinion is: let’s climb and make QSO, either in phone or CW, the essential rule is “ham spirit”, not the points earned !
Dear SOTA friends
please look under www.sota-dl.de > DM Association:
under reference-handbook and looks at the two new charts at, distribution of the summits in the regions, distribution of the summits after points in DM.
We think, the relationship is nevertheless balanced between 1 - 10 points
Best 73 Matthias DL1JMS
For those of you that want an example of the issue in DM/BW have a look at DM/BW-522 and DM/BW-031 on Google Earth. DM/BW-522 ia 1049m, DM/BW-031 is 1047m and the coll between them is 1036m. They are just two high points on a ridge.
This is just one example there are loads of others.
I have left my Google Earth file on the Yahoo group for the time being. It now has coloured pushpins. Red=10 points. Blue=8 points. Yellow= the rest.
DM/BW-522 ia 1049m,
DM/BW-031 is 1047m and the coll between them is 1036m.
Now there’s a novelty - as the DM ARM also embodies the 25m vertical height activation zone, you could activate both summits without actually moving! Ingenious!
If you want another example, look at DM’s BW041/042/043/045/053, all 10 pointers, BW041 being the highest at 1007m, BW053 the lowest at 985m, and at most, a 36m drop between the lot (less between some of them). These are not additions, they are in the original list.
So when french hams ask me “why such a difference ?”, my
answer is : we don’t play in the same course ! Don’t look at the
“Roll of honour / All associations” but only at “/
France”.
The problem with this view is that you choose your own home association, and you don’t necessarily gain all your points in your home association. So with a quick trip to Germany, an Isle of Man activator could easily make a score which could not be reached in decades by activating solely at home. Of course there is a risk of taking it all too seriously, and I don’t personally care in the slightest about these anomalies, but I think it is inevitable that the different associations WILL be compared while we have a common pool of points for all contacts.
While I am concerned about the implications of the differences between the German rules and the original SOTA rules, I do wonder if we are being just a little arrogant over this. Perhaps the Germans have some issues with the SOTA rules and good reasons for their stance, it would be interesting to have them join in a dialogue on this reflector rather than have it sorted out behind closed doors, and might avoid rancour.
you can stop your game !
but i don ´t understand your personally goal and what you try to reach with that.
i think you activated the same summits a few years before and typed that in the database.
ok, you can stop , before you look on other association where you
also can find such multiple summits on highlands/riches…and you never find a end . better save your time and go activate a summit for the chasers.
and i save your time with sending an e-mail to the mangment team and ask about
a new summit list for DM/BW.i will make the work !
why you everytime speak from the BW-List ? i´m the only active activator here
you can send me your problems with an e-mail. why in the reflector ?
and if someone thinks ham´s going only on summits here to make a lot of points and these many 10pointers give more activity ?? look on the activations-database and count the mass of activators here in BW on HF.
the why , Sota-DM runs so good is , i think , that we have summits all over the associations and for most possible activators is a summit in good range.
not everyone wan´t to drive 200km or more with the car to do the first time sota…
for the posters before who speak from that easy activations here –
120 to 180minutes of operation time by - 10°C is no easy gained point.
also funny to see so many here, who says the summits are not ok in my
activator log and also in the database
and the streets here near some summits … in black-forest we have a higher
population as in many other summit-regions and also a big winter as summer tourist-activity to ski´ing or trekking.
but the biggest minus in all the last threads here, is the missing word
"ham-spirit". and that is not good for my view on sota.
we can speak over all themes normaly, but why this war from your side and some others.
i come back to sota when we have cleared lists with maybe the alps-high-table and the OK from the sota-people for activating again…then all are 2 and 1 pointers and then i must not say…oh forgive for add 10 points to my score…
but its true, i never looked on these points, i only looked on QSO´s per summit and reached chasers ! these points system is no challenge for activators in different associations. by the way, if the wlks on the summits is your primary … why you have a problem with these ?
in moment i have no interrest in activating , take aliitle break and
see in what direction the discussions run.
by questions, pse e-mail me.
now i write the mail to the MT, only for you and your freetime
