Let’s say hypothetically Ive activated a summit. I got my 4 QSO’s and everything is good to go. I get my points, and that summit is done for me for the year points wise.
If I were to work that summit again just for fun, or say during a hike that takes me over it, would the same chasers that contacted me previously still be awarded the summit points for the contacts?
I hope Im asking that in a clear manner hmmm…
Be gentle, Im probably the newest to this in the history of radio.
Hey Brad,
May I guide you to the SOTA general rules… Summits on the Air
Chasers get points once per day for working a summit. If multiple activatiors are on the same summit the same day points are granted only once (to the chaser).
The chaser get points for each different UTC day that they chase the summit, regardless who is activating the summit.
Here in VK many activators will plan their activation to start about 15 minutes before 0000 UTC to give the chasers the opportunity to get twice as many chaser points by chasing either side of the UTC midnight.
Oh ok thanks you guys. I read through the rules a goodly bit, but was wondering about the specifics on this one.
Specifically If I camped on a summit or near it, to get my activation I could still fire up the Radio the next morning so the SAME chasers could get points again if they were still looking.
Or if you just wanted to go to the same place a month later.
This is correct provided the second activation is a different UTC day to the first activation.
Indeed, as the day is defined as changing at UTC Midnight - that would be 7 pm with you at the moment, so if you did an evening camp out, you could give the same chasers (callers) points with a contact before local 7 pm and after local 7 pm.
The only day this would be an advantage for you as the activator would be if you did your camp-out on December 31st when there would be an “UTC year change” in your evening.
Your campsite would count as being at the summit if it were withing 25 vertical metres of the summit and hence within the “activation zone”. So put another way if your summit is 600m ASL and you pitched your camp on the side of the summit at say 576m ASL you still count as being on the summit.
73 Ed.
Doesn’t sound like such a bad way to ring in the new year😉
I like the way all this seems to work so far. Everyone can play and there’s enough of a “points” situation to make it interesting, but maybe not so competitive or serious as to cause issues between folks. Positive vibes all around it.
Hi Brad,
Looking at how many points other activators or chasers have is not relevant as some people have been doing SOTA for 20 years, others for only 20 days.
The challenge on the points side is perhaps to get through the different award levels and as a “mountain goat” (1000+ points), I can tell you my experience was getting the the 100 activator points level gave me more pleasure than when I achieved the activator 1000 point level and could buy my “ice block” ornament.
Apart from the straight points awards, there are “uniques” “completes” and other awards possible.
The bottom line is however, that you are challenging yourself to get to each of the levels and doing that at a pace that fits your life situation and we are all different in this respect.
At the end of the day, I feel taking part in SOTA should be fun, provide just enough exercise and enjoyment of the outdoors and let you feel you have achieved something.
73 Ed DD5LP.
I tried just this exact thing about a year ago ( A night on Cross Fell (G/NP-001)), it didn’t quite go to plan, but I got the point for both years.
On my last overnight (A night atop Kirk Fell (G/LD-014)) one of the chasers called me at just a few minutes after midnight to claim his second set of points for the summit!
Hi, please can someone clarify – if you activate the same summit more than once in a year, is it all points from any resulting QSOs that are forfeited or just the points assigned to the particular summit?
Trying to interpret: “A summit may be activated as often as desired, but an individual Activator can only claim points for operation from a particular Summit once in any calendar year.”
thanks.
There are not points for QSO per se. If you have at least 4 you activate the summit and that yields point only once per year (the first time per year).
Only side note is if you activated a summit once this year and activated it again in the bonus/winter season you can get the bonus points in addition. But the “main points” are only once per year.
But what of course counts are any S2S summit to summit points you work on (any) SOTA summit.
73 Joe
Thanks, yesterday was my first activation so trying to get my head around things. My understanding now, is the points for activation of a summit are annual, with the possibility of a bonus in winter. Individual QSOs are only scored for the chaser, unless the call is S2S?
Looking at my log from yesterday, I can’t figure out how the S2S qsos were scored:
thanks again 
S2S is explained in the rules in that there is a link to where the awards are explained in more detail.
S2S scores are made up of activator and chaser elements in the same way as the separate schemes. So you got activator points for the first QSO from the summit plus chaser points for each summit you chased. There are no seasonal bonus points for the activator element of S2S.
Perfect. that makes sense, I think I understand it now.
