I’m wondering if Colin was really at Longridge Fell last month. Since then all the trees are now topiary and the heather neatly trimmed.
This needs reporting to the gnome office!
Absolutely, as I mentioned in the sentence after, there are many reasons why operating time may be curtailed.
My point was made in the sentence thereafter. Multi-band alerts from some that consistently do not materialise without an alert update.
Almost like after checking the TV guide, looking forward to Match of the Day, but instead having to endure a double helping of Mrs. Brown’s Boys.
Every week.
EEK!!!
I hardly ever take selfies. I’m an ugly old sod and don’t want to risk frightening people
As previously mentioned, my Garmin InReach device is always with me in the hills and anyone who wants the tracking link only has to ping me an email to request it.
Always happy to be accompanied by management team members too, particularly those who will carry my military radios up ten pointers
Alerting
If my wife is accompanying me, she hates me alerting as she feels it creates pressure on her to walk faster. So the deal now if she joins me on a walk is, either no SOTA, or no alert, so no alert is a no brainer
Proof of Activation
I use my Polar watch as a navigation aid, and this is connected to Strava and so every activation by default is on Strava, complete with summit pictures
My DH is the same. He’ll happily will carry some of my extra stuff, sit and wait on a “boring” summit and even hold the mast on occasions when guying was tricky or we wanted to go faster/ lighter, but he absolutely does not like Alerting.
So we’ve agreed that I’ll alert from the car park (if possible) and he’ll be happy to wait longer at the summit if needed.
On many of the smaller or more feature-less hills, there’s nothing to take a photo of.
I tend to make full use of the AZ in order to avoid getting in people’s way, to face in a good direction and get out of the wind. Which makes it even harder to prove where you are. Plus I don’t really want to fiddle with my phone with freezing fingers on a blustery summit. It’s bad enough having it out to check for other spots etc.
I don’t worry about proving anything… I often have summit photos, track logs etc. (but not always!).
If anyone was to ever doubt one of my summit climbs I’d offer to take them on my next one… I have some interesting routes…
GW/NW-001 via Crib Goch sounds apprpriate!
It’s highly unlikely he will ever get the chance to do it again
I had another random thought, vaguely in this topic this morning….
When I’m having a day at home chasing, I never seem to look at alerts to see who’s going where. I just watch the spotter and work what I can hear as they pop up. Perhaps I’m unusual in this?
Anyway, happy new year to everyone. I’m heading to the Welsh borders with my partner and our three SOTA dogs today
@MW0PDV my wife Nic isn’t keen on alerts either Paul, especially as it puts on pressure to activate a summit that may otherwise be unsafe/unviable on any other day. We try to be realistic about this of course…
@M0RWX re: alerting bands and not using them, we have done this a bit ourselves, sorry, but usually because we aren’t sure which band we will use when we get there. I haven’t seen the alerts as meaning ‘we will use those bands’, more we will have that capability but will likely only use one of them (as is normal for us). Maybe i should just put one band only, but then we may upset people if we use a different band instead?
Perhaps we’ll just avoid alerting and go with only spots. There are no expectations from/on anyone then.
73 & HNY all,
Simon & Nic
Same for me at home Denis, i just chase what is spotted at the time and when i hear someone call on 2m FM, if i have that radio on. This usually works well for me
I would happily support this becoming part of the job description for RMs. Give them something to do…
Seems that individual had little regard for the law generally.
Moel Cynghorion Crescent!
WSJT-Z already does that for me.
Aargh! Yes, that was a dreadful piece of TV scheduling. I had to adjourn to the shack.
You are in very good company here.
It’s generally better not to expand on the workings of the SOTA programme with non-licensed spouses IME.
Unless your pattern of activating stands out as unlikely and/or unusual, it’s not something to worry about!
I support the ‘field audit’ approach suggeated above.
Over the years I’ve had great pleasure taking office-boy auditors round some of my more interesting trap / poison lines, as I suspect have most others in the wildlife management industry. So extending this delight to SOTA would be a plus.
And, if you’re advertising for the auditor position … where do I apply?!
I disagree with any proposal to consciously cease using alerts.
Those who think alerts are a legal contract to be at a certain place at a specific time and maybe even a specific frequency have completely misunderstood the purpose of alerts. Sorry but an alert is not a contract. It signals an intention to do something. It does not force you to run and climb faster, after a delay of some/any kind. It does not mean you have undertaken to be somewhere at a defined place, frequency, etc. as you have no control over propagation (and after this past year, we should all realise that nobody has any control over propagation) and traffic, illness, fuel stops and meal breaks for the activator and others in the party.
The benefits of alerts are that your faithful chasers know what your intentions are and may stay in the shack to be there when you are actually on the air. And your fellow activators have an indication that you may give them an S2S contact, surely the most valuable achievement in SOTA.
Because alerts are able to be edited, gross errors can be fixed on the way to the summit. They are not carved in stone.
To me, the software packages that omit the alert aspect are denying their users one of the most important and valuable tools in the SOTA box. I encourage all developers to include alerts in their functionality. This is one reason why SOTAGOAT for IOS is so valuable to me. Halfway up a mountain I can edit the alert and warn all watchers that my plans have been updated.
Please revise your attitude to alerts if you are contemplating dropping them. If you don’t look at alerts you are participating in SOTA with a handicap. You miss band change opportunities, late alerts, amended alerts. If you like just listening on 7.023 with a 200 hz bandwidth and never move from that frequency, how many activators will you really work? Improve your contact rate and your enjoyment of SOTA by using all the tools available.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA
Noted.
Maybe, but I suspect not. A lot of my chasing happens because I’m by the radio, and then, generally, SOTA spots give me more than enough options. However, if some particularly intriguing activation is showing up in spots but I can’t hear it then I’ll often check the alert to see what other bands and modes the activator might have planned.
On the rare occasions that I get out onto a summit myself I always try to get an alert of some sort up, if only as input for RBNhole.
Yes, a few of the comments above surprised me, e.g. avoiding alerting or getting stressed about having alerted. I have a method which makes most of my alert times fairly accurate ….
… but if I’m late or early on summit (say, more than 30-40 minutes) I don’t worry about it because I know the majority of chasers will have realized that the timing for such an activity cannot be guaranteed.
If I choose to put back the activation time an hour or more, or I’m delayed setting off from home, I’ll edit the alert. Sometimes I have to cancel so will delete the alert often at short notice and feel absolutely no guilt about it. As from the lyrics of a John Lennon song "Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans”.
For chasers who feel an alert is a commitment and activators who avoid alerting for that reason, they should chill out – it’s a hobby.