p150

Associations
76

Hi all, tnx 4 ur contribution…

In stead of an active pro - contra list i see people discussing who is or who is not the AM of DM … … hi…

I was hoping to save some summits in DL, OE and HA where now people can go to - also those who have worked their whole life and are not 21 anymore or who are not trained mountain goats… … Some people refer to SOTA as a sport for mountaineers… OK, take only the highest peaks and climb for hours if you want that…i’m still working, i can’t go for hours and hours of driving to a summit, walk 2 hours up, activate and come back 2 hours…I simply don’t have that mountaineer time…

I like SOTA as it is now. I wish some more people would speak up.

If all gets changed, so it will be then, I at least tried to start a discussion here.

Best 73 de ON6UU

sk ee

4 Likes
77

Yes it does make it sound like that - therefore I choose this expression to describe activities like six tenpointers a day. Not a thing of bad or good - but a fitting description for one of the ways in which SOTA is exercised.

78

Well, you did. But as you see, there is little interest in evaluating alternatives or finding any pragmatic solution.The MT has spoken, and the case is closed. I believe it is more likely that you’ll see penguins fly than your summits in DL, OE, and HA saved.

73 de Hans

3 Likes
79

Its OK I knew what you mean’t although I think six ten pointers a day would kill most people unless you are in an association that doesn’t follow the rules…

We have this news paper in the UK called the daily mail. Its the stereotypical wording they would coin for such descriptions.

1 Like
80

Let me sort out one little misapprehension. Austria (OE) has been a P150 Association since 2011. What is happening there is not a change from P100 to P150, but the elimination of summits that do not comply with the established Association prominence. This is the sort of adjustment that can happen in any Association, for instance some summits have been removed from the British Associations list - and some added - due to re-surveys.

Hans, this sort of discussion has surfaced from time to time ever since SOTA began, delve back into the records of the old reflector and the Yahoo Group and you will be able to confirm this. Every conceivable alternative has indeed been evaluated and discussed, many in minute detail.

Oh, and penguins DO fly. Underwater, which is their natural hunting territory that they have evolved to use. SOTA evolved to use only the most prominent summits in any terrain.

Brian

81

Hi all!
It was funny and disappointing to read all these posts above.
It’s just funny when people, living far from affected countries, knowing nothing about us, are trying to explain what should we do and what shouldn’t and accuse us of cheating and even stealing. (Of course no one said explicitly so, but try to read between the lines.)
And it is really disappointing to see and learn a frustrated and arrogant MT when it tries to handle it’s own mistakes, punishing others for them.
In general, I have no problem with having unified rules, but cannot accept the way they were implemented. Moreover unified rules do not exist at all in our case. SOTA is based on a feature of terrain, but the terrain is different in each part of the world. So whatever rules will be created by the MT, they will be advantageous for certain people and disadvantageous for other. So, automatically appears the classic roman question: "Qui prodest?"
Loosing few hundred summits and few tens of supporters might be not relevant from overall SOTA perspective but it certainly relevant for associations affected, so don’t be surprised when we protest and express disagreement.
SOTA HA was created 10 years ago as a P100 association, and became the most popular award program in Hungary. If we had have P150 rules ten year ago, SOTA would remain an average, hardly known program, or wouldn’t been created at all.
So, I wonder, what were the changes on circumstances, founding the necessity of such drastic changes of rules after ten years of existence. Of course no one will answer the truth, because we are radio amateurs, living according to ham spirit, we are free of human weakness.
In fact the only reason of the changes and recent (and past, and future) debates (including my present post) is the green human envy and nothing else.
A quotation from SOTA database homepage: "SOTA is not inherently a competitive activity, it’s about individual aspirations and working towards a goal at your own pace. However, it can be fun to see how your progress compares with that of others, hence we publish our Honour Roll on the internet."
This is either an unbelievable naivety or the biggest lie. Publishing a “non-competitive honor roll” accessible for anybody, making possible the comparison between results, automatically triggers the competition. Of course, we are different, some of us do not take this kind of competition seriously, (they are on the middle or on second part of the list), but guys on front of the list certainly do. You might be surprised, but in real word the competition always accompanied whit frustration, dissatisfaction and envy of less successful competitors especially if the conditions aren’t equal. Checking the forepart of “non-competitive honor roll” shows, that some associations tend to be first (just because they are older/bigger/better/nicer…) are underrepresented, while others are overrepresented just because the existing rules are more favorable for them. That’s all. Everyone can make a conclusion…
So whatever explanation the MT gives, whatever new rules it implements, there always will be winners and losers. It seems, we are on the wrong side now. SOTA has been the most popular award program in Hungary and my favorite activity. I’m afraid it used to be…
73!
Janos

10 Likes
82

Punishing you would be making you lose the points that you have already earned. Have you seen any suggestion from any member of the MT that this will happen? Have you seen any comment by any member of the MT that suggests that you have stolen or cheated?

No sir, you have not!

You are painting with far too broad a brush, making accusations that are just plain untrue.

As for the Honour Roll “automatically” triggering competition, you may agonise about your position on it, but it is a couple of years since I last looked at my position, so once again you are incorrect.

I suggest that you tone down your ranting, it is out of place on this Reflector.

Brian

83

What would be pros & cons of dropping the viewing option “All associations” in the database?

Even a consistent worldwide p150 may not present a level playing field for those with a primarily competetive perspective on SOTA - the inconsistency of a 10-pointer in my DM/TH-area compared to the value of a similiar “requiring” summit in HB9/OE, This valueing initially seemed to me a clear indication that no worldwide competition was wished for, but that the competetive part should be restrained only to the association itself.
If p150-inconsistency once is “solved” the remaining very competetive activators comparing each others worldwide may point to this inconsistency. All rather unhappy :frowning:

1 Like
84

Chris, I did say I was not going to comment on the p150 issue but this question is not related as such and I feel warrants an honest answer.

Removing it is not very difficult as a programming task. The associations drop-down menu is populated in every case by the same piece of code. It can either provide a list of real assoications such as G or W7A or DM etc. or it can provide a list of real and compound associations such as “All W” or “All VK” etc. To remove the compound options is a few minutes work, it will take longer to do the background work (save working binaries, upload new code to server, save code changes in Git repo etc.) than to make the change.

As to whether it should go or stay is a different question. I know it’s a meaningless display so I don’t use it as such. I use it as a quick way to locate someone and their home association. However, if it is removed, then it will be a matter of days before someone writes somekind of screen scraping code that fetches the honour rolls for each association and makes an All Associations view themselves. I can already see activity from the server logs that suggests people are scraping the database for their own purposes. Removing the display will not remove the feature for very long.

For fun, I might randomise the display of All Associations. It will make it harder to compare associations. The downside is it will fill up my inbox very quickly with complaints and/or mails saying the DB is broken.

1 Like
85

Rather than taking away things that some will find useful and everyone is free to ignore, why not add some more options to the display:

All P150 Associations

All P100 Associations

But then to be fair we’d really want

All Associations with the same P and scoring bands as my home association

However, to be really fair we’d need some extra columns in the activator database, so that we could choose:

All associations with the same P and scoring bands as my home association, but only activators with the same BMI and inside leg as me

73, Simon

[What I’m hinting at here is - I find All Associations useful for finding people. I’m not using it to judge my performance against anybody else. I’d be surprised many activators are really that competitive. Levelling the playing field would be very hard if you wanted a fair comparison. I’m sure that point envy is not contributing to MT’s motivation for the whole P150 thing and I think it’s unreasonable to suggest that it is.]

1 Like
86

Can I pleeeaaase have a bit of that surplus amount of time some seem to have to do big activations plus coding in the same life… On the serious side: I wondered about the reasoning behind such competetive incentives (as they naturally will be seen) and doing them “officially”.
In a contest I have to live with participants doing their own lists from our score tables but they have a much more private character and are no “official” categories availabe on the organizers’ website. Besides tech issues the question is what categories organizers want to have for what reasons and how to balance fostering core activity vs rulework to level the playing field.

87

They are simply there, to be used or ignored at the whim of the participant. The fact that an activator or chaser has a certain position in world or association rankings has not the slightest effect on how much effort it took to achieve that position. The summits don’t lower themselves for a high scoring activator, or the propagation improve for a high scoring chaser, and only they know what the personal cost was in achieving any ranking.

As for that surplus time - I’ve been retired now for nearly nine years and there still aren’t enough hours in the day!

Brian

88

Hello, I am a member of the silent majority, and a beginner activator living in EU (only 5 activations so far).

After several discussions about the P150/P100 issues, I recently took a look of the maps and realized that DM, HA, OE are not the only associations that will be affected by new, strict prominence rules

My 2 cents about this whole issue:

  • I like strict rules, and P150 rule is quite fine
  • I agree that an organisation like SOTA must be ruled from above (no democracy)
  • It is impossible to level the playing field classifying geomorphological features. None of the classifications or rules (P150, P100 included) can be good for all. Compromises are inevitable.
  • It is also impossible to level the playing field regarding other factors (population density and summit locations, climate factors and seasonal bonuses, age of participants, spare time, fitness, etc)
  • Therefore, SOTA can hardly be a competition between activators (even within the same association)
  • The point system is fine (more or less). Lots of people (me included) like to be rewarded by gaining points.
  • As an activator, I can not care less if an activator in another association has P100 or P150 summits at his/her disposition. We are both trying to have fun as long as possible.

So what is wrong then?

Amateur radio is living its last days. Our hobby is dying. There are no new generations to come. After a few decades, the band will be devoid of ham radio signals.
(At 49 years, i consider myself among the younger SOTA participants)

SOTA is fine now. It will not end the day after strict P150 rule is implemented.
But it will die much, much faster.

In this moment, the centre of SOTA activity in EU is mostly in the associations that will be affected with the implementation of the strict P150 rule. SOTA in EU relies on those numerous and accessible P100 summits. If strict P150 rule is implemented, the number of easily accessible summits will decline, the number of (aging) activators will decline, the number of chasers will consequently decline too.

We will be left with excellent rules and infrastructure, but devoid of participants.
What is the point of perfect award programme with few participants?

The solution, already proposed by several participants in P100/P150 discussions:

  1. Clean all associations of summits that are less than P100
  2. Leave the rest as it is. Accept the compromise.
  3. Take care that all future associations comply strictly with the General Rules (as it has already been done for some time)

There is another solution, proposed by MT members:

  • Take it or leave it. If you do not like the rules, you are free to join some other similar programme, or make a programme of your own.

This solution is theoretically the best, but… I am not asking for a P100 rule for my association. I like SOTA to remain as it is. Alive. All I want is a populated list of announced activations, and a small pile-up of chasers when I activate my hill.

73, Fric YU1WC

Note for non-EU readers of this never ending debate:

Although SOTA is a global award programme, it relays on intra-continental contacts, since most of us use small powers and small antennas. DX contacts are an exception. So this whole issue affects only EU participants. USA or VK participants would not be affected by the possible decline of activity in Europe.

11 Likes
89

Finally a well constructed answer that says what needs to be said !!

I wish some more people would react in stead of only reading the writings of others and shake shoulders.

thanks Fric for your answer.

73
ON6UU
Frank

3 Likes
90

Dying? Probably not everywhere if at all. For instance, here in the UK there are at least three times as many hams as there were when I got my licence, and the total number goes up every year. I believe the situation is much the same in the USA. Of course, quantity says nothing about quality and we have to expect a high level of wastage, but I see no reason to plan the funeral of amateur radio.

Now a quick look at a bit of history. Have a look at the number of activators and chasers in DM by year:

2007 …127 activators…131 chasers
2008 …131…“…138 "
2009… 85…”…113 "
2010… 88…“…108 "
2011…128…”…131 "
2012…125…“…139 "
2013…131…”…154 "
2014…149…"…154 "

Note the drop in 2009, of about 35%, what caused that? That is when the MT required the removal of about 3,500 invalid summits. Not a few hundred but a few thousand. This, of course, caused outrage and predictions of the end of SOTA. It wasn’t the end, though, was it? After a couple of years the number of participants in DM returned to what they had been and have since climbed further.

This is what I expect will happen again. We will lose some participants in DM and then the numbers will recover. On past form this is a reasonable prediction - it may seem a cold-blooded way of looking at the situation but the MT has to think globally. Meanwhile SOTA is on the verge of a significant increase in the number of Associations in other continents, particularly South America and Asia. There are even a few European countries yet to join SOTA. Despite this controversy we are living in exciting times for SOTA.

Brian

2 Likes
91

Well I haven’t planned to die soon, do you know something different ?

That is not even a pessimistic view, that is pure narrow mindedness. The problem with the hobby today is that many forget why it started in the first place. BUILD SOMETHING !

Jonathan

5 Likes
92

Jonathan,

do not take my words literally, of course! :smile:

I mentioned this not to speculate about the future of ham radio, but to emphasize that the average ham population is already old. Reducing the number of abundant and accessible summits will decrease SOTA activity, I am afraid.

Fric

93

Look at it another way, some people get put off if something is too easy to achieve. I want mountains not hills.

SOTA will more then likely increase in popularity, with the number of general operators in amateur radio decreasing is a more plausible prediction from what I expect with time. Awesome website programming, good system stability, huge pile-ups, exercise - its very rewarding.

Jonathan

1 Like
94

Brian,

I wish I was wrong.

Major contests today have record numbers of participants, more than ever before. This could back your claims. But everywhere I see people complaining about lack of newcomers to the hobby, about increased average age. It is rare to find anyone below forties in the hobby. The result is that the average age of hams (and SOTA participants as well) is increasing. The capability to travel to distant summits, to hike, activate regularly - is decreasing.

I was looking at some maps with P100 summits around well populated areas in Central Europe. Many of those very active hams in Central European countries will find their regular P100 summits excluded from SOTA, with the remaining P150 summits being too distant and difficult to activate regularly.

I am afraid the recovery will be only partial. As time goes by, active hams are older and less numerous, and the (remaining) summits will become fewer and more difficult to access regularly.

I know, there are too much assumptions from my side about things I do not know from first hand - but that is my (pessimistic) feeling.

I know that SOTA is expanding globally, this is great. SOTA will not end for sure, as long as I am able to reach the summits I will be able to find someone to make those 4 qsos to qualify the summit (I hope).

Fric

95

Rather than allowing the core parameters of SOTA to be diluted for the benefit of ageing activators we should concentrate on getting more youngsters interested. I recruited my son to the hobby at age 10. I am still working on enthusing him to climb the summits though!

Simon

5 Likes