I am not an opponent of SOTA’s principles, but mountains are also oversize values. And one of these values is local patriotism. The mountains were created where God and Nature wanted. The principles and limits are set by man, against man. I see higher values and I think that the highest mountain of a given country should have references of a given country. And on the basis of exception, the highest mountain for two countries lying on their border should have two references. You can not see mountains only through points, prominences and activation zones. I am sorry that Polish Rysy have only Slovak references. The highest peak of Montenegro will unfortunately not be a significant reference in Albania … The highest peak of Bosnia and Herzegovina flew from the reference E7 and appeared as nothing significant in Montenegro. I’m sorry for my English. SQ9MDF
I agree that summits whose AZ lie in two countries should have a reference for each country however this was discussed by the MT several years ago and the decision made that for any one summit, there should only be one reference.
On a border between countries where “dual-references” had been assigned the affected Association Managers got together and “shared-out” the summits, so that they both lost an equal number of summits as far as possible.
Most dual summits have been “eeked out” and one side removed. I believe there may still be one or two that haven’t been found yet but they are very few now.
73 Ed.
Well, patriotism is also a value created by men, just as the SOTA rules. The difference is patriotism is emotional and these are common-sense rules that actually make life easier. Those letters in the prefix don’t really mean much to most people.
I care only for the highest mountains for a given country ,Not all double
Neither of the summits Leszek is asking for is valid for SOTA. In both cases (E7/4O border and 4O/ZA border) the actual border summits are subsidiary to other summits. The old E7/BO-001 has a prominence of about 30 or 40m I think, and the 4O/ZA summit around 90m. In each case the parent summit is wholly within the other territory (4O and ZA respectively). Leszek has objected before to the listing of summits with low P (in OK, the correction of which is in process) so it puzzles me why he’d want these low-P summits.
In the case of Rsys the OM summit is not on the border - it is clearly in OM. Obviously we have to list this as OM. However, the drop to the SP/OM border summit happens to be low enough that it is also in the AZ.
The summit reference is just a code, providing a convenient handle for each summit. It makes no difference to what is or is not a valid summit. Requiring us to allow always a country high point would mean adding some pretty stupid non-summits on slopes.
I do understand the point being made here.
Of course, if a summit is on the border, the AZ will extend into both (or more) bordering countries. So you can activate your highest mountain with your home call, even if not with a “home” reference.
There are positives and negatives for all approaches. What was happening a few years ago, for example, was a summit in HB0 that also had valid references in two other bordering associations. One station, one antenna was set up, right on what was deemed to be the tri-nation intersection point, and the operators rotated around and claimed 3 x the activation points.
In an attempt to avoid such instances, we introduced a rule that repeat activations of the same summit under a different reference must be done on a different date and via a different ascent route. Of course, it was very difficult to tightly define the aspects of this rule, and impossible the police / easy to bypass it!
The current situation, where one summit may have only one reference, is much more sensible, and preferable to the alternative situations described above. We know that there are sensitive issues of national identity - but mountains have only one true summit.
Indeed. The highest point of the Netherlands is exactly such a situation. When the PA association was formed, the PA team simply requested that PA/PA-001 was not allocated in recognition of this, which we agreed to. There was never a request to consider that point to have a “summit reference” though, which, as Simon says, would be silly.
The highest point in the county of Lancashire here in England, is, I believe, on a slope up to a higher point in Yorkshire. There will have been a time (and may still be) that this was a very sore point for Lancastrians!
I think 22 August 1485 put an end to such petty squabbles Tom! I like to think that we Lancastrians are above such nonsense now 
As Simon said, we have found that the highest peak in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Maglic, E7/BO-001) is not valid for SOTA, since there is a slightly higher summit not far away, across the border, inside Montenegrin territory: 4O/ZC-005 - Veliki Maglić (Crnogorski Maglić).
Almost identically, the highest point of Montenegro (Zla Kolata, 2534 m), will not be an insignificant SOTA reference in Albania, since it is not a P150 summit at all. Not far away, accross the border in Albania, there is a notably higher P150 summit.
73 Fric YU1WC
For my understanding is SOTA more topographically than politically
73 Armin
This is correct. SOTA is based on measurement. A summit is a summit because of its topographic prominence, which country it is in is not influenced by anything except measurements. Politics are ephemeral and subject to change, driven by ambition and irrationality rather than facts (witness the Brexit mess, a dog’s dinner whichever side you support!)
Could it not be that SOTA in general is a bit overregulated? As for me I need goals (summits) and a forum to meet like-minded people. I do not need points or awards or restrictions or anything like that.
Just my 2 cents; others may take a different point of view…
73, Alfred, OE5AKM
The trouble is people. Some people see rules and start to look for the gaps that they can take advantage of, like the people referred to by Tom in post 6 on triple reference summits, a process known as “gaming the system”! The rules expand to limit the opportunities for “gaming”. Our General Rules look huge, 23 pages of rules, but most of the pages are taken up by definitions and things like caring for the environment. The essence of SOTA could probably be distilled down to a page or two!
it is the country and is its capital and is its highest point- such is geography
Yes, I understand your point. But that is not how SOTA works. A mountain has only one summit, and therefore only one SOTA reference. As explained above, we did try in previous years to afford multiple references to border summits, but this caused far more problems than it solved.
There are positives and negatives for all approaches to this problem. The approach with the most positives and least negatives is one mountain = one SOTA reference.
For me, it means more associations work if it’s a single designation. If it’s on the border and counted in my association, I lose. Doubles are ZERO.