Hi John, I think that’s 44 not 144 contacts needed in WWFF. 44 is a lot 144 would be a real pain. I wonder if there is another significance to 44 as the WWFF guys often end their contacts with “73 and 44”.
As has been said by others in this thread, the rules in SOTA as regards how often points can be achieved for summit activations have been around for 20 years and changing them now would not (IMHO) enhance the scheme.
Please don’t forget the other challenges in SOTA like S2S, unique, completes and the geographical number of associations worked, mountain explorer and mountain hunter awards.
Given that people have been in the scheme for different lengths of time, this is not a race to 1000 points to get there first before other people. It is (IMHO) meant to be a personal challenge, not a contest. That challenge can be different for each person and they should set it themselves. Although I have been lucky enough to have passed the 1000-point mark, I continue to tell people that getting to 100 points was a far more major milestone for me personally. I recommend people to set their own targets within the rules as they are and try to achieve that target in their own time.
And this is where you go wrong, in my opinion. Lower/higher has two definitions in SOTA:
elevation above sea level → this determines the score for each summit
prominence → this determines if a summit qualifies for SOTA.
Summit A is 400m ASL, with a prominence of 350m, and scores only 1 point. Summit B is 1500 m ASL, with a prominence of 150 m and scores 4 points.
Please explain how you spend more energy on summit B than A.
I really do understand that there is no golden rule to measure each and every summit in the world fairly; there will always be easy and difficult summits. There will also always be people who live close to mountains and can do an activation every week and folk who have to travel far and wide. Things will never be fair and that is to be expected.
What strikes me is that every time I read discussions like this it ends up with “the MT has discussed it and didn’t agree” and “It has worked for so many years, so it works well. No need to change.” The rigid stance the MT shows in considering and implementing change is in my opinion detrimental to new (and also some older) associations. England is not the USA, not Japan, not Argentina. The rules that work well for the UK don’t necessarily work well for other associations. But the different associations around the world basically have very little or no say in shaping the rules, be it general or specific for that association. The MT should listen and accommodate the associations more. They are the ones who know their own turf better than anyone, especially the MT in “good ole England” (I know…they are not all based in the UK).
Again, I know making universal rules are difficult, and pleasing everyone as well. But then show at least some flexibility and compromise to encourage as many people to go out and have fun climbing and doing ham radio.
To be fair, our attitude is not one of not implementing change. Most suggestions work well in one area but have other issues elsewhere. If one Association says we should be able to do X because of local conditions Y, then another association will say, “we think X applies here too, because of Z” which defeats the point of having X available for the first association.
Other suggestions are conceptual but lack a tangible implementation plan (cf every “difficulty” based proposal).
The fact is changes to scoring need to be carefully considered. For example, if you made the change retrospective, that would be unfair on people who went further abroad rather than activated their local summit (which is basically everyone but Tom). If you don’t make it retrospective then there is a specific point at which previous activity bears no resemblance to current activity.
20 years is a lot of inertia to overcome, but that would be true if the first association was, say, Japan and the latest was the UK.
Some things you should take time over, good food, a fine wine , a lovely mountain. You young people are always in such a hurry to be on to the next thing you forget to enjoy where you are
Colm stop stirring the pot (hope you got that immersion heater fixed)
I am watching sota reflector but I am not in SOTA. I activated a lot of summnits but always as portable, never as sota activator. But, I was thinking about to became MG. I found this rules perfectly balanced. Not to easy but achivable.
So, what to do if one live in plain? Move to mountains :-). Or just set up 20 years goal. And enjoy fresh air, birds, grass, haming in nature. Don t worry about points.
There is life outside of SOTA.
Yesterday I “activated” park in the middle of town, 15 minutes walk from home. 1 qso. It was nice
You are conflating prominence with ascent. This is wrong. Prominence defines the relationship between summits and cols, it has no relationship to the amount of ascent. Indeed, even height only has a generalised relationship to the amount of ascent. SOTA point banding is based on the idea that in general a higher summit will require a longer ascent. This generalisation is necessary because the MT cannot measure the difficulty of individual summits. We know that hypothetical summit A has a road over the top, Summit B has a gondola to the top and a restaurant, Summit C is only worth one point on height but in the absence of roads it is a twenty mile walk to activate it. Summit D has never been climbed. The real world is not just messy, it changes. Summit A might become private property and cannot be activated, Summit B might have its facilities closed down, Summit C might gain a new road. Never the less, the heights and prominences do not change. This is why we define point banding by height.
With regard to your comments about the MT, I will just mention two things. Firstly the parameters for each Association are determined in consultation with the AM. Secondly I draw your attention to the General Rules, 3.12.1.7. SOTA is not a club with elections, it is a benevolent dictatorship running an award scheme as defined by its originators. The MT can make minor adjustments where essential (the summer bonus is not part of the original scheme) but the basic parameters are set in stone.
I’d suggest that there is significant correlation between prominence and ascent.
I agree that in general higher altitude summits have long ascents, but there are plenty of anomalies and outliers.
However, this is an endearing feature of the scheme for me. I once picked up 13 points from a really easy short walk in EA8/TF on a rather nice mild day. That was satisfying! I’ve also applied considerable planning, expense and physical effort on some difficult and remote one point summits. Those too gave satisfaction for the achievement.
In this year’s seasonal bonus period, I had a blitz of a load of summits that gave me the best “bang for my buck”. This meant unashamedly manipulating the anomalies of the scheme, ignoring the more challenging one pointers and focusing on the easy (or more accessible) 2, 4, 6, 8 (+3 bonus) point summits.
It can seem that other associations, or other areas of one’s own association have a “better deal” - but that’s what holidays are for
So why not define point banding by prominence? As M1EYP wrote, there is a significant correlation between prominence and ascent. Because things are already set in stone, so end of story. As you pointed out, SOTA is a benevolent dictatorship. Well meaning, but maybe a tad too rigid in its execution.
Personally I am not affected at all: I do SOTA because it combines two fun activities and it keeps track of what I’ve done and where I’ve been. The award scheme is meaningless to me, but it makes me sad to see other well meaning people be cut off with every suggestion.
The ascent is defined by the access, not the prominence, it will in some cases be less than the prominence - for instance drive-on summits - in other cases where a road goes over the col the ascent will equal the prominence, but in probably the majority of cases the ascent will begin from a point lower than the col. Of course, as you know, in the case of the highest summit in a land mass the height and the prominence are equal.
I don’t disagree with that Brian, but there is correlation between the ascent and the prominence. There is also (weaker) correlation between the ascent and the height.
Because it’s much more simple and less time-consuming to do it by height. This makes the banding for each association easy to understand and memorise. Sure it has outliers, anomalies etc - but to keep that us an endearing feature of the programme rather than a problem.
Not every suggestion. But why would we adopt suggestions that would spoil SOTA, be unpopular with participants, and cause disruption and lack of equity with previous achievements?
a) Because for many associations with poorer mapping have prominences supplied which show the summit is >P150, but may not be the exact key col, and b) There are summits in the Himalayas with barely more than 150m prominence, on the wrong side of 7000m. I’d hate to get only 1 point and altitude sickness.
