I suppose to avoid embarrassment I should not divulge that I really don’t understand this issue (having been a private civil engineering consultant for 40+ years, and having created a LOT of my own maps, one would THINK I understand the concepts, but I am missing something here). I just took a look at a number of US Associations, and there are a lot of them with prominence P100 (328’ over here) rules. In addition a lot of the 500’ prominence regions (P150) say that you can be within 150’ vertically of a summit to qualify, putting you at P107 by my metric conversion math. i.e. you can succeed on a P150 summit by going to P107. And then finally, I thought, naively, that once we set the rules of the game we go out and play it if the rules are accepted.
So given all that, and answering me in private would be fine to my QRZ address if this is a 10 page answer, just what is the issue being wrangled over with this 300+ postings thread? When the conversation ventures off into percentages of coverage etc. I must admit it becomes far too arcane for me, and seems an unnecessary application of metrics and statistics in such a simple activity. My guess is we Yanks aren’t trained well enough in this kind of approach.
I searched the Reflector, but I could not find anything relevant. Could you send me a link? I would like to understand the essence of SD 2000 km^2 constant.
Cap, the prominence rule P150 or P100 in special cases is used to select which summits qualify. It’s a completely objective thing, if a summit has sufficient prominence it gets included and it’s not down to the list compiler’s whim when making the list.
The rules about how close you must be from the top of summit for it to be valid are simply to accomodate that you with antennas may not be the only person at the summit. If allows you to setup and minimise the disturbance to others on the summit.
Just heard something about on a club meeting and had a quick look here before heading to work, simply to add another DM-voice (not siffed through all >300 posts whether there is already a list of summits to be cut off - pun?).
Simple gut reaction: One CW-activator less from DM when the “error” will be fixed (possibly then also deleting my database entry to consequently correct the somewhat “errorneous” QSOs…). Reason? Does a gut feeling need a thoughtful legal explanation? Well, maybe it is a feeling of inconsistency to correct an error after years, like the feeling we had when the tax authority would request additional money from the tax declaration done six years ago.
Of course it is up to the MT to decide what is correct, so no arguing against paragraphs - no time for and no motivation to do this in a hobby. They set and administer the rules - so be it. When things are through and summit list cut I will have a look at the list, but I’m sure SOTA will no longer be a point to decide which radiohike to choose when some hours are available. I went out to deliver points not to earn goat. When you are not retired it is really difficult to mangle an activation into everyday life. Already now a SOTA activation is somewhat tough to do - but with even less choice?
Well, SOTA is successful enough, so it is not about the one or other grumpy activator who only is not able to understand the need to correct now. So let things be correct.
Gl es perhaps hear you from time to time in one or another activity on the bands.
73 Chris DL8MBS
(disclaimer: gut feeling of a hobbyist, no legal argumentation)
Edit P.S.: About the potential argument of deleting inconsistencies: In every hobby-“competition” there are endured white elephants called “inconsistency”. In SOTA it is the fixed point value of a summit regardless of the individual route. There are 2-pointers needing more hiking distance and height difference than a 8- or 10-pointer with nearly “drive-in” - or the regional difference in difficulty for a ten-pointer i.e. DL vs DM. Also endured for the sake of the fun of participants.
As organizer of a rather big contest [WAG] I, too, have to endure that I cannot erase all “inconsistency white elephants” for the sake of the activity level.
There will not be any alteration to past activator or chaser scores. There will also be a notice period of at least 8 months before the P150 ARM is introduced.
To Herbert OE9HRV. Despite your attempt to make out a special case for Vorarlberg, the fact is that the “cull” will not leave the region short of summits. Vorarlberg has an area of 2602 km^2, by our SD rule it would have to have less than 1.3 (that’s one point three) summits to rate P100. It will have many times that, and if some of them are difficult, so what? Mountains are not designed by nature to be a bed of roses. Take your example of Zimba, a nice horn with three faces and three ridges, but the easiest ridge (the North East) is UIAA Grade II, little more than a scramble although it would be prudent to rope up for it. So not everybody can do it - as we say in this country it is a bit of a “Granny-stopper” - but some hams will certainly be up to the challenge.
That really is a bit over the top, Herbert, when many EU Associations are already P150 and always have been. OE has over 2,000 summits at present, probably a change to P150 will remove half of them or thereabouts, but you would still have to do three a day, every day, to work your way through them in a year. The current SD of OE is 39, which is a huge richness of summits, lose roughly half of them and you would still have far more summits than many successful P150 Associations. I appreciate that you are sorry to lose some much-loved summits, but there are no rational grounds to offer OE special treatment.
I’ll do better than send a link, Karel, as it was my brainchild I will explain here.
It was back in 2009 when I realised that we needed a simple yes/no test to determine if a new Association could have an exemption made for it so that it could use a prominence of less than the historical 150 metres. Previous to that Associations asked for P100 and the MT would look at inadequate maps and debate their answer - and sometimes it was difficult to come to an agreement. I looked at a lot of maps, not just in Europe but in Africa and the Americas. Initially I was thinking in terms of travel distances, but I realised that transport links changed but the mountains didn’t, so I needed to think in terms of the separation of summits themselves. What sort of distance between the easier low summits would start to make it unlikely that a keen activator would not do more than one summit in a day, bearing in mind the huge variations in roads and terrain, plus it had to be an easy number to keep in mind? Eventually I decided that this boundary happened at somewhere around an area of 2,000 km^2 per summit. This figure was doubly convenient in that it was not only easy to remember in itself, but it also defined a circle with a radius of just slightly over 25 km. This figure was debated at the MT meeting in 2011 and adopted as the standard. It isn’t a magic number, arrived at by arcane means, just a pragmatic solution to a difficult problem.
Some participants ask why this figure doesn’t appear in the rules? Well, why should it? The GR are in effect a handbook on how to take part in SOTA, not a handbook on how to set up an Association. That is a separate document which is sent to prospective AMs during the initial stages of starting a new Association.
Incidentally, some people ask how the figure of 150 metres was arrived at to define the standard minimum prominence for a SOTA summit. This is simple, 150 metres is close to 500 feet, the figure which is used for non-metric Associations, a nice easy to remember round figure. The non-metric equivalent for P100 is nowhere near as neat! As an ex rock climber, when I first learned of P150 I immediately thought “Ah, yes! Three rope lengths!”
As I said above, 150 feet is a ridiculously large figure. However, it will only put you at a prominence of P107 in the case where the summit has a prominence of 150 metres, most summits will have a greater prominence than that as 150 metres is the minimum in a P150 Association. In addition, the same sort of arithmetic applies to a P100 summit so that its effective prominence is also lowered, thus the difference is maintained. The standard figure for defining the activation zone is 25 metres, which gives sufficient leeway for an activator to avoid the crowded part of a popular summit, or to drop down out of the wind on the lee side of the summit.
Still a bit off topic, but to be fair ropes have come in all sorts of lengths over the years, but I suspect Brian will be thinking of his own active climbing period when most ropes came in 45M or 50M lengths in 11mm (single) or 9mm (twin/double/half) Kernmantle.
Firstly, the outcome of this won’t change my own participation in SOTA. I LOVE IT! Secondly I recognise the absolute right of the MT to do whatever they like as they are in charge and I have been in their shoes in various clubs/societies over the years - an unenviable position.
So, I’ve stayed silent so far on this subject for a couple of reasons.
I’m new to this game - just about 4 years only 3 properly taking part.
I like to read first to see what comes up.
Simple observations from me. I haven’t seen a big group of people say that they are horribly aggrieved by the “advantage” gained in DM due to a set of historical decisions. But I can see a lot of people being upset by the proposed change that will diminish their enjoyment of the programme, possibly putting it out of their reach.
Comparing “points” collecting capability between Associations is pointless (see what I did there…) because there is such as wide variation already in scoring and access. You cannot compare what it takes to climb the average 8 point mountain in Switzerland with one in Belgium.
I’m all in favour of standards, but not at the expense of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Leave it alone, recognise that the programme is “growing up” and make sure the rules created apply to future Associations and quietly explain to anyone new that there is some history from the early days when getting growth in the programme was (rightly) one of the priorities. I suggest there are examples of this everywhere in sport and pastimes.
The good news is that this excellent Amateur Radio programme gets lots of people out and about. The initial paragraph on the SOTA website homepage says
"Summits on the Air (SOTA) is an award scheme for radio amateurs and shortwave listeners that encourages portable operation in mountainous areas. SOTA has been carefully designed to make participation possible for everyone - this is not just for mountaineers!"
Vive la différence!
Whatever happens I’ll keep popping up on hills around the world - hope to speak to you all soon!
Of course I would like this radius more if it were so far I could walk there and back only on foot or on skis. However, I can still ride a bike.
The SD constant is very simple statistics, it will work the worst in the case of uneven distribution of hills.
However, I understand that such decisions are difficult to make.
Fair do’s, Mike, most of my ropes were 45 metres of 11mm Kernmantle though I did climb with a guy that had a 100 foot hawser-lay rope - it was pretty ancient and if either of us had fallen it would have snapped like a carrot! No, three rope lengths was a handy way for me to visualise it, it meant more to me than 150 metres as for hills and climbs I still think imperial although in everyday life I am reasonably well metricated - and it didn’t hurt, honest!
Despite you have given the explanation here, I really would like to see the original posting. Please post the link.
When I started as AM in 2014 I have not received the documents for prospective AMs as DM was already running. But they seem to be of use also for me. May I ask you to send me the documents for prospective AMs by email? Or even better, as there seems to be public interest in this, make it available as download.
