In fact, this topic is about not changing the rules but to keep the status quo. 
1 Like
No, itās about applying the same rules to all associations.
1 Like
This is a very nice idea - to have a reason to take out my radio and go to the wonderful nearby hills on foot without having to take the car.
I understand the rules. It seems to me that SD constant of 2,000 square kilometers is rather large. Then one is forced to use the car (mainly due to lack of time) - and then often finally probably goes even higher by car than necessary. But this is of course a matter which translates into more views - which I understand.
Karel
3 Likes
Whilst following this lively discussion, it has been said that some people are / may be scared to say anything for fear of being banned from SOTA, I think this is nonsense. Why would someone be banned for agreeing with MT or politely making a case for new ideas?
For the record, Iām firmly in favour of P150. I do also agree to P100 in those countries for which P150 simply doesnāt work. For Germany, P150 clearly does work. Iāve been doing SOTA since 2004, I have 150 activations completed to date and 780 activator points. I would dearly love to achieve Mountain Goat status; 11 years of activity seems like a lot of effort, but I know when I do get to 1000pts, it will feel like a massive achievement, all the more so due to the difficulty of the task.
I think MT is doing the right thing by cleaning up all the associations.
Colin
6 Likes
Trying to look from a neutral point of view I would have thought that the more summits included in the scheme the better it would be.
For example Scafell is excluded yet to get from there to itās included neighbour Scafell Pike involves a combined drop and a climb of nearly double the 150p limit which is to me quite an effort.
To exclude popular fell tops wherever they maybe just because of a prominence rule just doesnāt seem right to me and is a bit restrictive for the full enjoyment of an area visited.
Just my point of view from a wanderer of some magnificent felltops in LD that are not SOTA
73, Derek
2 Likes
In a way I can sympathise with that, but there is nothing to stop you from climbing Sca Fell, making the difficult descent to Mickledore and climbing Scafell Pike, you can still activate Sca Fell as a Wainright before a SOTA activation of the Pike. The Great walks are still there to be done, activate the SOTA summits on the Ennerdale Skyline or activate Pike oā Blisco then traverse the Crinkles and Bowfell, or do the horseshoe from Wetherlam to the Old Man doing Wainrights along the way and then get a fix of SOTA on the Old Man. All this glory hasnāt gone away because only the most prominent summits count for SOTA. In a way it is even better the SOTA way, you can traverse the long ridge from Dollywagon to Clough Head but you will only have to take one long break to struggle through the pile-up on Helvellyn - if you had to activate all ten summits on that traverse even a midsummer day would be too short to complete it.
The upside of P150 is that while it limits your choices, it makes them more special. You hardly even notice many of the Wainrights as you cross them, but every Marilyn will stand out in your memory.
Brian
Well it all depends on the route that you take but according to the Database of British Hills the drop between Scafell 978m and Scafell Pike 964m is 133m with the col at NY210069.
And if the more summits the better why donāt we include all of the summits in the Database of British Hills all - 18,991 and you could be a mountain goat in a week or so.
A line has to be drawn somewhere and in SOTA it is drawn at 150m drop. But that doesnāt stop you doing any other series that you want - Corbetts, Hewitts, Murdos, Grahams, Munroes, Donalds, Nuttals, Deweys, Birketts, County Tops. Choose which ever you want and get on with it and donāt expect them to include other groups just because some one wants more.
Jim
3 Likes
Hi Jim/Brian,
Tnx for the replies and you are correct, I just like walking the fells and I usually make a note of what scheme applies to the particular fells I cover and log accordingly, Itās just that I feel some fells that are worthy of significance arenāt included.
For Instance, Knock Murton near Blake fell isnāt included in any radio related scheme that I know of but once climbed has striking views and a summit shelter better than most SOTAs.
I only went up there to claim a Geocache, a bit of a lung buster but well worth the visit.
73, Derek
Is that āMurton Fellā Derek?
Hi everybody,
Up to 2011 the rule for Austria was that the summit needed to be 150 m above the surrounding terrain and there had to be a col of 100 m between the individual SOTA summits.
In 2011 the rules were revised and P150 introduced without any consideration of the consequences. Since communication was presumably a bit lacking (German/English) P150 was not implemented consistently. In the meantime new and better tools for evaluation of the summits have appeared and the deletion of all non-complying summits was demanded by the MT for realisation by the end of this year.
Now for the consequences: in my area (Voralberg ā OE9) there are about 180 summits that can be accessed by normal hiking trails and require an ascent of about 2 hours on average, with an elevation gain between 600 and 1000 m and a walking distance between 4 and 10 km. All these summits need to be cancelled because they only have approx. P100.
The remaining 80 summits comply with P150 but only about 30 of these can be accessed via hiking trails, the rest are summits in high alpine terrain and frequently surrounded by glaciers, which, due to their difficult ascent, have either not been activated yet or very rarely.
I took a look at the summits in G and GW that are most frequently activated. Very often the elevation gain is less then 100 m and they are frequently within a walking distance of 1 km.
Here in OE9 SOTA visitors from other countries usually only manage to go up to PfƤnder (OE/VB 512, close to the Ham Radio location) which has been activated 43 times but hardly any other summits are activated by them.
If P150 is implemented consistenly in the West of Austria the number of activations will drop drastically in our region. We are hams, take pleasure in doing portable operation on SOTA summits that can be accessed by walking and hiking, we are usually not mountaineers that climb up every wall.
Our hobby ends where the risk begins! Is this the purpose of SOTA?
73, Herbert OE9HRV
3 Likes
Its not really that comparable unfortunately both areas in your case and GW and G have different topographies. England really does struggle for summits in the middle ( I know, I live there), but it is manageable. If you applied an stricter prominence rule you would have barely nothing in G. Its the law of averages I am afraid. You have lost a fair number, but its by no means short.
It makes it even more thrilling having to get up at stupid times to drive to these places. It makes it far more rewarding and special in my view.
Believe me the risk has already been undertaken by many for the cause of SOTA. I enjoy being spider-man if the scramble route is there I go for it !
Jonathan.
I presume you mean elevation gain from the nearest road, because all these summits comply with P150. There are a good many high summits in OE that are accessed by mechanical means for skiing, these probably present about the same level of difficulty as the summits in G and GW that you refer to, though they are much higher. Some summits will be easier than others to access, this will be true anywhere, though there are precious few summits in the UK that can be reached by road, rail or cable.
Let us look more closely at your region, Voralberg. According to Wiki it has an area of 2602 km^2, so your figure of eighty P150 summits gives an SD of 32.5, if we just consider your claim of 30 accessible P150 summits you have an SD of 86.7. You donāt have a shortage of summits, you have a massive plenitude of them! Surely you āhave your tongue in your cheekā to complain when you have ten times more valid summits by SD than we have in G-land, yet you would like us to ignore our SOTA rules and give you many more non-compliant summits. Surely this is a joke!
As for not being mountaineers - some of us are, some of us are not. Some of us can ascend festooned with ropes and ironware, some of us close our eyes when the exposure pulls at us. We do what is within our capabilitiesā¦and your alpine summits are dwarfed by the summits in the west of the USA and Canada but their mountain States stick firmly to P150.
Brian
Having just returned from the F/ HB9 border I think I can fully understand Herbertās point. I spent lunch a couple of days looking right at the dents du midi, hb/vs-105 and 154. Never activated, serious climbing by the look of it. I suspect many of the eligible summits in oe9 are similarly inaccessible to normal walkers. Yes they have plenty of peaks, but few really usable. Jonathan- Iām sure you enjoy being spiderman in parts of the UK, just donāt do it in places like that, they will kill you. Iāve given myself enough frights in places like Greece, IME non UK mountains have teeth.
Iām new to this sota game, Iām just in it for the walking and wireless, I neither know nor care for your politics, but my reading of some of the output of those who call themselves the management team, like that from Brian above, is that it is hugely overbearing and patronising. This is just like being back at school, only worse.
My tuppence. (as a recent incomer)
5 Likes
Thatās correct Rob, next to Cogra Moss reservoir, Iāve walked passed it a few times whilst on the way up to Blake fell G/LD-031 but never had a reason to climb it until I took an Interest in Geocaching.
73, Derek
Someone in the vocal minority here. I just got my ham license. Still in college. I liked SOTA very much, itās not just an aweseome outdoor hobby but also a great way to go QRV for newcommers, because soldering together a wire antenna and hang it into a tree is easier than anything for HF in my college dorms. I even bought a mobile transceiver for that reason.
I had my first QSO with a training call of a fellow ham on one of his activations. Itās a summit thatāll be cancelled i guess. I remember asking him why the nice and high hills there are not summits too and he explained me that P-something stuff. It does not even make sense here. There are so much aweseome summits, great view and all that.
Now exam-time is over, weather is ok, time for activating. Already was happily expecting SOnnTAg (Sunday), but then I saw that and got really upset. Even if I wanted, I cannot afford driving all that way. Oddly enough enjoying all the summits I cannot activate while driving.
Anyway it leaves a bad taste in my mouth seeing the attitude of the management here. I donāt see what you could gain from doing that? Nobody wins. Many gread places for activating will be gone. Fuel wasted. Pople annoyedā¦ Yeah well, we are not members, nobody got anything to complain etcā¦ but If you want to push people away, good job!
5 Likes
I wonder based on what considerations summit density threshold of 2000 km^2 was determined. Can I find it anywhere in the Reflector?
I tried to search it, but I didnāt find anything specific.
Karel
2 Likes
Search Summit Density or SD
Well, Iām sorry that you feel like that, Andy, but let us pass over your feelings and look at your arguments.
Scotland has an area of 78,770 km^2 and 1218 summits. This gives a Summit Density of 64.7. This is roughly half the number of summits per unit area that will be valid in the Voralberg Region, and slightly more summits per unit area than are claimed to be accessible in that region. I donāt know how familiar you are with the Scottish mountains, Andy, but there are a number of them that are not suitable for ordinary walkers. Go to Skye, drive to the campsite at Glen Brittle, take the footpath into Coire Lagan and you will find yourself in a wilderness of black rock that is as savage as anything that you will find in the Alps. En route stop by the Sligachan Inn and look at the Cuillin, that nice cone shaped summit on the left is actually the end on view of four jagged teeth, and the highest point is a fearsome scramble. Stand below Liathach in Glen Torridon and you will scratch your head at how to climb Liathach. The point is that SOTA is by definition an award scheme based on a prominence value of 150 metres. In SOTA we list the available summits, both easy and difficult. We donāt exclude the hard ones, why drag the mountains down to the level of the least proficient of us?
Are you into football, Andy? How did you feel about the Americans trying to get rid of the Offside Rule?
Brian
1 Like
Brian,
I rest my case.
Iām not even going to attempt to reply.
2 Likes
Probably the same way I felt, when the rules to the 12m Challenge were re-written by the MT, AFTER IT WAS OVER.
YYY
1 Like