Thanks for this.
Good to hear. I am part of my local Coastguard Search and Rescue team and wasn’t aware if thus(I’m new). I shall request more information about local usage and licensing from management team. I take a phone and handheld ‘up top’ and know how 156 is monitored so if I could swap out devices this could save weight, but getting weight v safety has always been a balance for us all.
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You need a licence (not ham) to use a marine radio in the UK. Use without a licence is a criminal offense.
Absolutely, even if you are licensed for marine use, that does not cover you on a hillside.
However, in an emergency situation I’d rather have it available.
I have friends in 2 different MR teams, and they have said having a casualty able to talk to them on channel 16 in a real shout would make a very real difference.
YMMV of course 
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I haven’t looked at SOTA rules but it was surprising that chasers can get points from bogus hunts?
There is something good about WWFF as it is based on activators logs only. This reduces (and on my experience mostly removes) these stations “running the QSO” without actually receiving the activator. At least in Finland you need to also proof your GPS location to get logs uploaded. This doesn’t feel like a burden at all or give a feeling that I’m being “suspected”. Just name of the game. Of course this needs log managers who go through the logs but in the end you have less thrash in the QSO database and the hunter awards are based on quite valid QSOs.
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I completely agree with you on the subject of WWFF. That’s why I only chase WWFF and SOTA… de W6LEN / Jess
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Hey Mike, merry Christmas to you !
What gets on my nerves is the following sequence while i’m activating:
1- while i’m in the middle of a QSO: high power tuning on my freq; followed by
2- Question mark (i’m still trying to complete a QSO) instead of listening
3- Sending their c/s on top of everyone
4- they will probably log their one-sided contact
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re Activator-only logging. I’d guess that with POTA/WWFF <50% of the chaser contacts I make with new-to-me stations fail to ever show up in my chasers logs on the website. It’s far better with the VKs who have a good standard of uploading logged contacts, who generally do a readback of the received call and report so that you know what is being logged, and where it’s mostly familiar calls anyway. But with dx (which generally means NA and EU stations) very few contacts ever seem to show up. I’m not sure if this is because the activators are there for fun and not logging officially, because they can only be bothered to log the 10 / 44 contacts that they need, or that the unfamiliar ZL call gets garbled. But chasing POTA / WWFF dx has ended up being for the enjoyment of the contact, not with any expectations of points. It would be a great shame were SOTA to go the same way.
On the subject of requiring evidence - I avoided WWFF completely for a long time due to their assumption-of-guilt-based rules. In theory all activators are required to keep and produce proof of an activation: GPS logs and photos. This was a real put-off for me. I’m here to enjoy myself, I’m here to be part of a friendly and welcoming community. And I’m happy to continue writing trip-reports and uploading nice photos when the weather is good enough and I remember to take them. And, with a history of being trusted, if anyone doubts a particular activation, I’m happy to give a verbal or written account of the trip in all it’s gory glory and share what photos I have - as our local AM once politely hinted he’d like me to do after a particularly extended day’s tramping, cycling and activating. Or as a one-off collect evidence on my next trip. But that default lack of trust in WWFF and the requirement for GPS logging was a full ‘no thanks’ for me. I’ve since softened my stance, as many of my best chasers are active WWFF participants, so I submit logs for their benefit, and have never actually been asked for proof. But I’ve no idea what my stats in the scheme look like - pretty poor I imagine as 44 contacts would be a miracle from ZL!
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It’s why we trust people here. But everyone should know that your peers will dob you in to the MT if they suspect an activator is not actually climbing the summits.
As I said chasers fall into people who are scrupulously honest, people who are not the best operator and hear things that were never on the air. And a few, a handful maybe, of blatant cheats. There have probably been more posts to this thread by a large margin than complaints have been made to MT about chasers cheating.
So it appears the vast majority of participants are logging genuine contacts. And with that thought I’ll wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas.
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It’s not even xmas yet in pommy-land! We’re the ones who’ve already woken up to the reality that there’s no barista-made coffees to be had for love nor money for another 24 hours.
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Regarding unexpected meetings of other activators on summits…I have had Occasions previously where other operators gave seen my alert and (without any arrangement) met me in the summit. I thought this was great, and led to a mini field day with time spent playing with each others equipment.
In terms of proof of activation…I view the SOTA database as a convenient means to track my own progress, rather than a proven record of attainment for others’ interest. This is what I like about SOTA…uts fairly informal and focused on.personal achievement rather than competition.
After all, the effort to rack up activator points depends on where you live and your personal rules ambition.
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There are indeed a fair cohort of newer park activators who don’t end up managing their logs right. It may be new to them and/or they just screw up the process and stop. There’s a notable p2p QSO that I really wanted in my logs (they were even spotted on POTA!), but I never saw the log show up. Checking my chaser statistics, there are at least two parks in Maine that I’ve chased p2p, but the activator never uploaded. Oh well, I still got to count the QSO for my park.
As for WWFF, I somehow never encountered additional scrutiny. Their logs get an additional delay because I don’t feel the need to send an email every time I finish an activation. I know an operator who probably had a different KFF log manager give up on the program because of an overly abrasive challenge to his first submission. My misplaced assumption of regularly blogging means I probably have the evidence, but I’ve also never tested those photos/GPS screenshots with a log manager.
Anyway, my activations are on me. I’ll follow the programs’ rules and the DX CoC accurately. Maybe I’ll even climb something bigger than a hill for SOTA, but that day will come when I have better access to real mountains. I plan to have the years left to hit Goat even at my current slim pickings between W9/WI home and W1/EM for my occasional holiday visits. If I wanted to make this easier on myself, I’d maybe stop using 5W and phone for almost everything!
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Indeed the same for me - it involves a matter of trust. As an established SOTA activator of many years standing, the person that I send WWFF logs to has never sought to query their validity. Most of my logs submitted to WWFF are actually SOTA logs in the first instance. The fact that the activations qualify for WWFF is coincidental. I submit the logs in order to give points to the WWFF chasers that I have worked during my activation, many of which have sent their 44s to me.
Now this brings me to an issue which I find increasingly concerning. When I am activating summits which are outside WWFF areas, I am still getting some chasers sending 44s to me. Is this down to a lack of research on the part of those chasers? While I welcome all calls, I do wonder whether the extra (and what might be considered unnecessary) activity is creating additional QRM which is adding to the phantom QSOs that are taking place.
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You will always have people who cheat and it’s very difficult to find out if you’re not on the same summit. Some ops don’t know the rules exactly. A year or two back there was someone who posted photos on Facebook from their first activation from inside their car. I told him that wasn’t allowed according to the rules, and he apologised for not knowing, and promptly deleted his activation. As long as we do the right thing within the rules when activating, it’s all good.
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The person will probably trust you that you do the right thing. Our national admin always wants to see additional evidence like coordinates, photos of the setup, all to see if it’s within the bounds of the WWFF-park. I find the “no exceptions” attitude perfectly fine.
73, Martin
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I am fortunate in that I have fairly regular contact with the WWFF admin and have met the individual concerned. I am always happy to provide additional evidence, but there are occasions where it would have been impossible to do so… for example I recently had my mobile phone die before I reached the summit and without a separate camera was unable to photograph my GPS. I would be extremely (and I mean extremely) annoyed had I had my activation rejected on account of being to unable to provide evidence.
On a few occasions, the SOTA summit I have activated has been on the very edge of the WWFF area. I have taken great care to ensure that my activation has been compliant with both SOTA and WWFF. This of course has required some research on my part. I would hope that chasers would carry out a similar amount of research, but what is happening with 44s being sent when I’m nowhere near a WWFF area might suggest otherwise.
I think 44 has just become a common sign off by those taking part in outdoor activities of all forms so I don’t it means the chaser believes it is a WWFF activation.
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This was a classic case for me this year earlier on, I realised that the Event was a LD S2S party , but decided to travel to Forest of Bowland to do Mobile Chasing from there in the hope to get some unique LD Chases. Now possibly unfortunate for me I am a patient chaser so will always abide by what the Activator is doing (possibly because I am a chaser who also activates) . Anyway I divert, during my chase from Bowland, every op up the summits was CQ “Summit to Summit Only” , so for me I waited for them to do CQ any call, which did not happen so I lost out quite a few qso’s. I even remember putting a post on the LD weekend post that read something like " Note to self , don’t do chasing when it’s an S2S party??!"
If I acted like the chasers being discussed on here I may have got a lot more points? But would never lower myself 
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This is very disappointing. When I am taking part in an S2S event I expect all my regular chasers to call me and welcome them. Obviously I am also looking for S2S but I am very disappointed to hear that some activators are only after S2S. After all, it’s the chasers that are there for me every time I go out on a summit looking for QSOs.
If I hear an S2S or /P call I will certainly give them priority but this has never happened to the exclusion of regular chasers.
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It seems to me that if an activator wants to cheat by not being in the SOTA AZ or POTA park boundaries that they could also cheat on this ‘additional evidence’. A photo of my setup - with or without me and the dogs in it - looks much the same at most summits and in most cases would require someone who knows that summit’s AZ like the back of their hand to say if it was there or not - same with a POTA park.
Apparently there are legal ways of establishing one’s location at a particular time but like most SOTAers I hope we continue on the basis of trust given the number of violations is tiny compared to the number of honest activations.
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If someone cheats at SOTA what do they win? The right to spend £28 on a trophy.
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