Hello,
after reading this post http://www.sotawatch.org/reflector.php?topic=5417 I thought that SOTA members should have some clarifications about what is happening in Italy about SOTA. I don’t want to bore anyone and I’ll try to point out the facts in the more clear and short way.
SOTA Italia (hereafter S.I.) program existed in Italy for 10 years, it was’t recognized by SOTA International (hereafter S.Int.) but all the aspects of the program (referencing system, rules etc) were created following S.Int. guidelines in order to become (one day) part of S.Int. program.
A lot of activations were made in these years and a lot of activators and chasers were involved in the S.I. program, as you can imagine many ham operators in Italy started to become familiar with S.I. summit references and started to enjoy the SOTA programme.
At the end of 2010 the S.I. references were more than 800.
In the last months of 2010 IW1ARE current S.Int. manager for Italy decided to propose Italy as a member of S.Int., this decision was taken without consulting S.I. management team witch was totally unaware of what was happening. Moreover, the summits list for S.Int. program was prepared (I guess) simply cut & pasting a part of the S.I. summits list and changing the reference number…
This is the tricky part: because of this mess now the same summit in Italy has 2 different references, let’s say mount A is referenced as I/RG-1 in S.I. and I/RG-20 in S.Int. this is crazy, don’t you think?
This is (I promise) the last point. Since sota operators in Italy are used to use S.I. reference system (it is the same they used for 10 years, and it was (indeed) the only one for 10 years), some misunderstandings can happen, for this reason, chasers, please be patient and make sure the italian activator is aware of the new referencing system.
As activator I’m happy that Italy is now part of international programme and I really hope that Carlo IW1ARE can fix this bizarre referencing system harmonizing it to S.I. one.
I hope to meet all of you in SOTA very soon!
best 73
de IZ1KSW Gabriele
The reason SOTA Italia was not recognised by the MT, despite the obvious need to have an important country like Italy in the SOTA program, is that they insisted on retaining some rules which were different to the standard set of rules familiar to all SOTA activators. Although approaches were made on several occasions SOTA Italia refused to harmonise their rules with the rest of the world and so matters stood until eventually IW1ARE stepped forward to do the hard work of setting up a valid SOTA Association. It is very unfortunate that there are two organisations now in Italy claiming to be SOTA Associations, but only one of them has the right to use the SOTA name and logo, and only one of them appears in the database. The summit list of the valid Association, whist unlikely to be complete, has been checked using methods that were unavailable several years ago which might explain the differences between the two summit lists.
The MT are looking at ways of preventing confusion between the two Associations.
The reason SOTA Italia was not recognised by the MT, despite the
obvious need to have an important country like Italy in the SOTA
program, is that they insisted on retaining some rules which were
different to the standard set of rules familiar to all SOTA
activators.
Thank you Brian, I suspected it had to be a rule problem.
[IZ1KSW sad]
In the last months of 2010 IW1ARE current S.Int. manager for Italy decided to propose Italy as a member of S.Int., this decision was taken without consulting S.I. management team witch was totally unaware of what was happening.
[IZ1KSW]
This was the really problem that Sota UK does not know or understand.
IW1ARE does not consult the the former Sota-Italia management, controlled by Mountain Qrp Club, and sent the request to Sota UK as a private person!!!
Meanwhile, Mountain Qrp Club was preparing the right referencies list in a professional manner, using database and so on, but unfortunately IW1ARE arrived first!!
Now Sota in Italy is managed by IW1ARE, just for fun:
In reply to G8ADD:
Brian, I understand perfectly your position, just a necessary clarification. The hard work has been done through the years by activators, chasers, managers and ex-managers who referencied, activated and chased the summits. As I told, the only work Carlo IW1ARE did (AFAIK) is cut and paste references changing ref codes, this sounds to me more as a messy work than a hard work. Of course, this is just my opinion, I like simple things one summit = one reference for everyone. I hope this situation will not cause further problems for international chasers and italian activators.
[IZ1KSW sad]
In the last months of 2010 IW1ARE current S.Int. manager for Italy
decided to propose Italy as a member of S.Int., this decision was
taken without consulting S.I. management team witch was totally
unaware of what was happening.
[IZ1KSW]
This was the really problem that Sota UK does not know or understand.
IW1ARE does not consult the the former Sota-Italia management,
controlled by Mountain Qrp Club, and sent the request to Sota UK as a
private person!!!
The SOTA Management Team accepted the offer of IW1ARE to form a valid SOTA Association in Italy with relief after years of attempts to get so-called SOTA-Italia to harmonise their rules with the International SOTA rules. There is no reason why there should have been any further contact with SOTA-Italia, or the Mountain QRP Club, which had made it clear on several occasions (the last as recent as last year) that they were not prepared to change. It is in no way remarkable that a “private person” should initiate the formation of an Association, in fact this is the normal way that an Association is formed.
It is ironic that after going their own way in isolation for several years, some members of the Mountain QRP Club and so-called SOTA-Italia are now complaining when Italy has been brought into the international SOTA community with a valid Association. SOTA-Italia could have become a valid Association at any time since their formation merely by harmonising their rules with the official SOTA rules. They chose not to. As a result SOTA-Italia could not use the SOTA facilities such as Spots, Alerts and the Database and Awards system. Thanks to the initiative of IW1ARE Italian activators can at long last fully participate in the International SOTA program, where they will receive a warm welcome from their fellow mountain-loving hams.
It is in no way remarkable that a
“private person” should initiate the formation of an
Association, in fact this is the normal way that an Association is
formed.
…and it is exactly the way in which the unofficial SOTA Italy was formed. It was started by Arnaldo IK2NBU who “cut and pasted” a draft copy of the SOTA General rules (which were being discussed in an open forum). He then made various changes to suit his own aspirations and launched his scheme - at the same time that SOTA launched in the UK. As SOTA grew internationally, the Italian scheme ran into various problems. While the Italian participants were ostensibly keen to join the international scheme - which was rapidly expanding - Arnaldo was, it appeared, unwilling to give up his own changes to the General Rules.
It is courageous of IW1ARE to take a stand and to suggest that SOTA in Italy is best served in the long run by being part of the wider international organisation. I wish him - and SOTA Italy well. SOTA worldwide will be better for having a strong Italian Association as part of the programme.
Brian, Mountain QRP Club, took the work to harmonize the rules with
Sota-ok only in October 2010, IW1ARE beat Mountain Club QRP only on
speed.
As I sad in my post all now must refers to IW3ARE, stop…
If this is so, it is a pity that the Mountain QRP Club did not liase with the SOTA MT, we heard nothing from them until IW1ARE had almost completed his work, and even then it was not made clear to us that they were prepared to harmonise the rules.
This is “water under the bridge” now, the mountains have not changed, the only change is that Italian activators can now take part in the International SOTA movement, and Italian Chasers can join their home Association instead of accessing the database as members of another Association.
Unfortunately I don’t know if it was told to sota.uk
Anyway now this is the situation and it’s important that all knows who is the manager (IW1ARE) and what are the correct referencies for all the activators.
The best is that all parts try to communicate, so for example that IW1ARE request the list of the 800 referencies to Mountain QRP Club!!
In reply to G8ADD:
My last post Brian, I will not get boring.
I think the “whos” are not important, I mean, we are not talking about who did this, or who did that, this post start to sounds like a “personal matter” and we (activators) don’t care about this.
We are talking about the quality of the sota experience for italian activators and international chasers. I think the association should do some kind of quality assurance on the country manager work. If SOTA international decided that ignoring any previous existing reference systems mixing old references with new summits could improve the activators/chasers experience, that’s fine.
IMHO following the concept of “keep it simple”, the best solution was to use the same old references for referring the same summits.
If this is so, it is a pity that the Mountain QRP Club did not liase
with the SOTA MT, we heard nothing from them until IW1ARE had almost
completed his work, and even then it was not made clear to us that
they were prepared to harmonise the rules.
Thanks Brian for the clarification, I’m personally happy that Italy now is in Sota.UK. I think that Carlo will do a good job and I hope that we will found a rapid solution about the referencies.
Thanks Brian for the clarification, I’m personally happy that Italy
now is in Sota.UK. I think that Carlo will do a good job and I hope
that we will found a rapid solution about the referencies.
Thanks Brian for the clarification, I’m personally happy that Italy
now is in Sota.UK. I think that Carlo will do a good job and I hope
that we will found a rapid solution about the referencies.