I haven’t been doing SOTA very long so I have far less to import than you. I hope you don’t struggle to import large files - when I combined a few activations into one file I often got an error:
ERROR [QSO 50] Unhandled error during QSO validation: (‘Connection aborted.’, OSError(107, ‘Transport endpoint is not connected’)).
I can’t say for sure what that actually means but it could be because the file was too big.
I’d forgotten that Ingleborough was also a nature reserve so I will try to upload for the additional reference.
That really is magic! It shows that my local summit Rombalds Moor G/NP-028 is in the South Pennine Moors SAC but that isn’t a POTA site even though the Ingleborough Complex SAC is.
I activated Pota, with 3000 qsos in the log. But the “owner” said: My program, my rules. And he didn’t accept that I called CQ POTA CQ WWFF.
They fought.
This text is in my QRZ
On activation April 1-10, my log was not accepted by the POTA program.
They informed me that I activated it along with WWFF. I didn’t know I couldn’t.
I don’t know what “fights” they have against WWFF, they took me out of the program without accepting my log.
It’s a shame you donated your time to contact my activation and didn’t score in the program. This “ego game” is sad, very sad.
The log was sent but not accepted, although activation took place before the account was removed.
Anyway, the contacts are valid for World Wide Flora & Fauna.
In my city alone there are 117 parks. It was a great opportunity for the program to make a good leap in Brazil. But I stay only in SOTA. Despite being more difficult, it has no egos.
73
carlos
py2vm
He told me in the email that he had a fight with the WWFF.
But it’s not my fault.
He even emailed a HUNTER saying he couldn’t have answered my call.
I’m off that show. I love SOTA, I just don’t do more activations due to lack of financial resources.
Most points are far from my QTH.
See you on the frequency. 73
I started POTA last year as something to do when the WX wasn’t appealing to go and do a SOTA activation. Once registered I was pleased to see that I’d accumulated a few "Hunter"points already, and it’s nice to hear some familiar chases/hunters answering your calls. As someone has already mentioned it might not be against the rules to upload previous logs, but I’m not sure personally that it is in the Spirit of things to upload a log if you weren’t calling POTA at the time of activating. I have plenty of SOTA logs that I could use for previous POTA activations, but I only upload the ones where I was also calling POTA at the time.
I noticed today that someone has claimed a first activation of a park dating back to 2013, considering that POTA didn’t start till 2017 in the US and later in the UK, I’m surprised that the award organisers would allow this. Anyway that’s my 2 pence worth.
Well I’ve gone one better than the 2013 man, although it may be me as I have submitted logs for activity in 2013. I am claiming my SOTA activations inside POTA parks back as far as 2005. The POTA rules permit this by disregarding the date when the scheme started.
73 Phil G4OBK
PS Edit
My first POTA Hunter QSO in the database was on 17-07-1992 when I worked CT1END who is a registered POTA Activator.
In 1967 and 1968 i made some contacts on 2m FM from Black Mtn vk1/ac-042 which has a WWFF code now, but if the corresponding POTA code is valid, I could presumably submit them to the pota database for credit. Retrospective recognition is a pandora’s box of complications.
I’d disagree with your take on this. That’s like a rugby player deciding 'drop goals are unsportsmanlike, you should always go for a “try” or some other equivalent.
The game defines the rules. The players play to them.
If anyone feels they wish to utilise just a sub-set of the options available to them - then good on them. That falls under ‘personal challenges’ and I’m as much a fan of those as anyone else (e.g. my personal SOTA uniques-only rule).
But I’d not criticise anyone else for playing to the full rules of the game.
There are many things that are possible according to the rules and thus generally feasible…
For me personally, there is always a lived component in addition to this formal component.
Example:
I have had a long break in amateur radio. But I had visited in between again and again spontaneously with 2m devices any Summits in the Black Forest… in order to participate e.g. in the Bavarian Mountain Day or other short VHF Contests.
Thereby I fulfilled all rules of a SOTA activation. Although there was SOTA in this time probably already, I did not know it.
Surely I could rummage now for old documents and perhaps even still generate a few activator points. It doesn’t even occur to me. I did not live these actions as SOTA…
When I had registered a few weeks ago the first time with POTA, I was amazed, which successes I had already documented there as a Chaser. I was part of a game / system that I did not know at all. This is because here the chaser points are generated by the activators. You can’t be an active chaser in this regard… a completely different philosphy than it is lived in SOTA.
So if you are automatically included by the system… (whether you like it or not) - then you can feed the system with your own data of the past… no matter if as activator or chaser! Something else would be for me, if all successes as a chaser would count only from the date of registration.
Hi Matt, “The game defines the rules” I would like to ask your player, if the game of rugby was invented when he was playing his game, or was he playing some other game, and then decided at a later date to take his goals from that pervious game and apply to this new game s/he had found out about!
Probably. But as that rule has been there since before I got involved in POTA, that analogy does not apply to me! (Probably a case of ‘Ring the bell, I’m on the bus’ on my part?!)
I haven’t done a lot with POTA but had a set of hunted parks disappear from my account.
Back in September last year I had a series of QSOs with a SV1 op in Greek parks over about a week. At the time they showed in my Hunted log on POTA and the op QSL’ed on multiple platforms with the POTA reference showing.
A couple of months later when checking some more recent hunts I notice all the Greek park hunts had disappeared. I tried emailing the op and the POTA Greece rep to find out why those records had been cancelled but neither replied.
In between SOTA Chasing on quiet days in recent weeks I’ve been filling my Chaser time checking for CW and DATA contacts on POTA at POTA Spots.
Thank you to Fabio @IK2LEY and Andrew @VK1AD for putting their recent SOTA logs in to the POTA database to give this part time POTA Hunter a few points.
TBH, I struggle with POTA what defines what makes a POTA and what doesn’t is BAFFLING! Dovestones Reservoir for example IS a POTA (the boundaries of which i cant define) but Hollingworth lake country park isn’t a POTA! (its still a park, and an RSPB site Like Dovestones is)… At least with SOTA/HEMA etc etc… the Activation zone is easily defined, as generally speaking as long as you are within a few yards of the summit grid reference, its all good!
Dunno, maybe its just me… I have made an account on POTA but not as yet uploaded or used anything!
. BTW, you should see a Hunter log dated 1 April 2023 for Namadgi National Park.