Simple. As should be clear the MT will manage the situation to P150 given the refusal of the AM to do so and then once P150 has been achieved, it will release DM from MT administration, whence the AM can resume the role, if he chooses to do so. Of course he may not.
SOTA is very simply a rewards scheme that awards certificates to radio amateurs who score points within the scheme by activating P150 summits if they want to collect such. No-one is compelled to do so. That is all that it is and nothing else. For some reason some people seem to think it is club or organisation with members and structure but it is not. Some regional groups have tried to take SOTA under their own definitions and have expected the SOTA MT to continue to award certificates regardless of their departure from the basic principle that SOTA is a rewards scheme that awards certificates to radio amateurs who score points by activating P150 summits.
Of course, in order to allow this scheme to be shared, the SOTA MT engaged others who were interested to participate in regional or country participation. But that should not be a deviation from the fact that SOTA is very simply a rewards scheme that awards certificates to radio amateurs who score points within the scheme by activating P150 summits. When others start layering their own perceptions onto that very simple scheme why should the SOTA MT deviate from the original very simple scheme.
You can if you wish argue this endlessly but as I will repeat endlessly SOTA is very simply a rewards scheme that awards certificates to radio amateurs who score points within the scheme by activating P150 summits. It is nothing else apart from concessions to extremely low profile countries/states to be P100 given real paucity of P150 summits. The judgement of that deviation from the original scheme design must be a decision for the scheme organisers and will be subject to verification based on available or evolving geographic data,
If you want to join in great. If you want to do something else, no problem, you are free to do so
āA small Management Team has been appointed by the Award Programme founders and has
the responsibility for the overall management of the SOTA Programme. Specifically, it is
responsible for creating and maintaining the General Rules and for determining the suitability
of proposals made by Associations and approving theseā
āEach Association must have an Association Manager, who is preferably resident in that
association area. The Association Manager (AM) in consultation with the SOTA Management Team
(MT) manages the summit research to identify qualifying SOTA summits (minimum
P150m) and submits a proposal in the form of a Summit List.ā
āThe Management Team administers the Programme on a volunteer basis and has overall
responsibility for the operation of the Programme in all Associations. Its decisions are final.ā
So what, in these quotes from the GR, gives you the idea that the MT is subordinate to the AM?
On the other hand, there are people completely uninterested in rewards, top 10 charts, points or whatsoever. The people who do SOTA for pure joy of trekking and operating portable.
My understanding is that this was the original idea behind SOTA. If this does not apply any longer, then points should be computed from absolute ASL and not relatively for each association.
By the way, a compromise solution for the problem discussed here would be not to delete summits, but make them 0 points. Anyone interested can activate them if he/she wants to.
Whatever people do of their own choice is absolutely their choice to do so but I repeat that SOTA is very simply a rewards scheme that awards certificates to radio amateurs who score points within the scheme by activating P150 summits. You cannot expect those who defined the original scheme to modify it to meet anyone elseās expectations. If you have other expectations you are absolutely free to do so under any other scheme you care to adopt, but it will not be the SOTA scheme,
It is not very accurate, otherwise there would not be this thread.
ā¦ or P100 summits, in special justified (on the SD basis) circumstances and this is written in the rules for a very long time (only without SD) and it is still the same main SOTA scheme.
Karel, personally Iād be interested in seeing what you may design with regards to terrain sampling. However, discussion of such a subject will be difficult open on the reflector as there will always be someone who will want to move the thread back to why P150 is wrong and that the MT should be subservient to anyone who shouts loud enough. If you want to send me a private message, click on my avatar and there is a link there and you can tell me more.
As for discussions of why P100 is right, or whether black is white, or whether left is right or should up be the new down, well Iām not taking part any further. The rest of you can knock yourselves out.
Tomorrow the WX forecast is not too bad and Iām off to do a summit which has only been activated once before and never on HF. Itās a 7km walk and drive of 330km there and back. Colin M1BUU managed to work in New Mexico on 17m twice today so maybe the radio gods will be on my side.
Karel, if you can come up with something that is simple to apply and convinces me that it works better than SD then I will be its advocate to the MT. Remember, though, that it would involve changes to a number of Associations so there might well be resistance to it.
All other methods are of course more difficult to apply. But in my opinion it should not be the business of MT to choose summits in the field, which they know only based on digital models. The selection should be done by AMs.
Effective method of P100 decision-making is simple to understand but not simple to apply. It is time-consuming and requires at least a basic knowledge of the terrain.
In my opinion, truly effective and fair is as follows: If it is possible to draw a circle between P150 or P100 hills (neither P150 nor P100 inside) with a radius of 25 km or greater (sampling radius; the value used is only an example), then select one P100 in this circle - if there is. And repeat itā¦
In stead of an active pro - contra list i see people discussing who is or who is not the AM of DM ā¦ ā¦ hiā¦
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 goatsā¦ ā¦ Some people refer to SOTA as a sport for mountaineersā¦ OK, take only the highest peaks and climb for hours if you want thatā¦iām still working, i canāt go for hours and hours of driving to a summit, walk 2 hours up, activate and come back 2 hoursā¦I simply donāt have that mountaineer timeā¦
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.
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.
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 youāll see penguins fly than your summits in DL, OE, and HA saved.
Its OK I knew what you meanāt although I think six ten pointers a day would kill most people unless you are in an association that doesnāt follow the rulesā¦
We have this news paper in the UK called the daily mail. Its the stereotypical wording they would coin for such descriptions.
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.
Hi all!
It was funny and disappointing to read all these posts above.
Itās just funny when people, living far from affected countries, knowing nothing about us, are trying to explain what should we do and what shouldnāt 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 itās 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 donāt 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 wouldnāt 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, itās 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 ānon-competitive honor rollā 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 arenāt equal. Checking the forepart of ānon-competitive honor rollā shows, that some associations tend to be first (just because they are older/bigger/better/nicerā¦) are underrepresented, while others are overrepresented just because the existing rules are more favorable for them. Thatās all. Everyone can make a conclusionā¦
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. Iām afraid it used to beā¦
73!
Janos
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 āautomaticallyā 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.
What would be pros & cons of dropping the viewing option āAll associationsā 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 ārequiringā 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 āsolvedā the remaining very competetive activators comparing each others worldwide may point to this inconsistency. All rather unhappy
