As the title of this thread would suggest, the SMP activations page has been deleted. After waiting sixteen months for live activations data to be made available to the SMP by the SOTA MT - which really would not take longer than a couple of days for a “seasoned database administrator” (whatever that is) to implement - and after having received little to no response from them when I have in the past begged, pleaded and cajoled for the data, I am left with no option but to admit defeat and throw in the towel. The much more recently-introduced stats page (which relied on the same data-source) has also been deleted for the same reasons, but I don’t think any tears will be lost there.
The activations page was, even I have to admit, a rather nice application the purpose of which was to show graphically contacts and contact-paths on the map for any SOTA activation in the database. I wrote the page in a few days, published it and was pleased to note the favourable responses, many containing helpful notes on how it might be improved - all of which were rapidly implemented.
The page had, however, one big problem - the elephant in the room, so to speak - it had no data. A few months after it had been introduced Andy MM0FMF, in his capacity as SOTA db admin, kindly provided a large but static (not live) block of data to support the page but since than has found neither the time nor the will to support it any further. Indeed, I’ve heard nothing from Andy on this subject since mid-November when I asked him nicely to be kept in the loop on developments in this regard; my most recent (and rather strongly-worded!) message to him just a couple of days ago via the SOTA contact page has met with stone-dead silence. And they say that amateur radio is about communication…
Now, I have to admit that the REAL problem behind this page has actually lain, not so much in other peoples’ lack of effort or commitment (real or imagined) in supporting the page, but in my own undoubted stupidity and naivety in imagining that others - the MT in this case - would see the value in such an application, and readily commit themselves to working toward a common aim: that of providing, or helping to provide, an enhanced service to their users at little cost to themselves. Well: story of my life, I’ve always been this naive and short-sighted and nothing much is going to change there. But as far as providing new tools and services to the SOTA community is concerned, I have learned a valuable lesson.
So, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize sincerely for having falsely raised SOTA users’ hopes by presenting them with an application which, from the word go, was doomed to failure. I promise it won’t happen again.
Rob DM1CM
SMP Admin