SOTA and GMA

During my morning walk, I got thinking about some feelings and numbers in our gaming area. It wouldn’t happen without MT’s stubbornness based on P150. The GMA program would never have happened without it and mutual competition as well as - hopefully - cooperation. The only thing I hope for is that, regardless of what the SOTA and GMA programs mean for each of us, our hobby world is essentially the same.

My virtual SOTA or GMA activation in a few numbers and points, after P150 is applied:

SOTA activation:

Car energy consumption 2 MJ/km; the most common distances are 200 kilometres: 400 MJ or 0.4 GJ (The calorific value of diesel fuel is roughly 37 MJ/litre).

The results of a man’s energy consumption: 0.4 kJ/kg.min while ascending, 0.25 kJ/kg.min while descending, 2 hours, 100 kg, activation is not included: cca 4 MJ,

e.g. 1 percent from a trip energy demand.

GMA activation:

Tens of summits: No car, bike instead of driving. The results of a man’s energy consumption: 0.60 kJ/kg.min while on the mountain bike and ascending, 0.20 kJ/kg.min while descending, 3 hours, 114 kg (bike included), activation is not included: cca 8 MJ,

100 % from a trip energy demand.

If I can just give my two pennies worth: Moreover, mostly less known hills, less crowded…, thus I wish there were more SOTA activators and chasers adopting GMA as well.

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SOTA is based on enjoying the outdoors experience on summits and combining it with the enjoyment of ham radio.

GMA is based on enjoying the outdoors experience on summits and combining it with the enjoyment of ham radio.

The same pleasures, different rules. Different infrastructure. No problem, the hills are big enough for all of us. We don’t compete, we co-exist, we share two fellowships, the fellowship of ham radio and the fellowship of the heights. When Sotari and GMAists meet on a summit they can greet each other as comrades.

Bikes are healthy. They are “green”. They are great for local and semi-local travel. There are plenty of lower SOTA summits that can be ascended on a bike - but as yet I have not heard of anyone ascending the Matterhorn on a bike! So they have their place but they are not a panacea.

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This is an excellent post by Karel @OK2BWB. It demonstrates clearly that no summits are lost. We can still hike them, enjoy them, play radio on them and even participate in a radio awards scheme from them.

SOTA positively approves the existence of other portable schemes like the WAB Trig Points award, WOTA, HEMA, GMA etc as they encourage radio amateurs to enjoy the great outdoors and beautiful countryside.

I regularly operate from my local HEMA (P100) summits that don’t qualify to be in SOTA. I’ve also enjoyed plenty of SOTA to GMA and SOTA to HEMA S2S QSOs recently. All good fun.

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Remember too that as SOTA makes public the summits list, GMA takes the results of the work done by the Summits Team and our contributors for free, so GMA just grew by 61 summits (and a lot more with further additions shortly to be announced). Of course since we don’t usually bother about correcting retired summit positions at lot of these will be placed rather inaccurately!

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I don’t think so. Did you ever see the full OK/OL GMA Summit database?

Karel

In any case, it doesn’t sound very friendly…

Karel

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I’m quite keen to reduce my travelling, so I’m happy to activate P150s, P100s and <P100s. The P number defines the award scheme, but it doesn’t tell you how nice the hill is. I’ve activated some beautiful hills that are barely P30. There’s room for all I hope.

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Exactly what I said above. I am not aware of that ever being questioned.

I was going to apologise for plagiarism, but in fact you didn’t say that. Nevertheless there is general agreement.

I’m doing SOTA only…

And when I’m active, I call CQ SOTA and sometimes stations call back S2S - when I hear that, they’re preferred by me.
It annoys me when I am given a GMA reference instead of a SOTA reference.
It’s happened to me occasionally lately.
But I know that there are many who play both games. But I don’t know the GMA ref. - and I’m not really interested. Sorry!

I don’t know much about GMA, but…
I think the requirements for a GMA summit are not as high as for a SOTA summit…

Is every SOTA summit a GMA summit as well?

73 Armin

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You’d hope so.

Which reminds me. As you know I used to be a member of the SOTA FE Facebook group before I got blocked and banned without explanation. You’re one of the management/moderator team on there I believe. As you know, I was also one of the very first HEMA activators, something I still do to this day. But similarly, I find myself blocked out of that scheme too despite continuing to activate HEMA references regularly to this day. I’m not sure if you are part of management for HEMA, but I know you are a leading activator.

Any chance you can “have a word” and get me back in? Like you say, should be “room for all”.

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Hello Armin,

All summits at SOTA are also listed at GMA. These are listed there with the same references (example DM/BW-001 Feldberg). Otherwise there are GMA references (like DA/BW-009 Weiher - ex SOTA DM/BW-022).

73 Marcel DM3FAM

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It is a valid QSO for you as an activator. How can that be annoying?
Summit to summit is not a SOTA registered trademark and technically it is true.

S2S = Summit to summit and not as some assume SOTA to SOTA

I am happy for every QSO. Just add GMA to the comment/notes field of your log and that’s it. Or log it with all details. You never know if you will need it in the future.

73 Joe

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Its not that simple, Joe. You will get no credit for a S2S contact if the database cannot find the other summit. The other station may be on a summit but GMA summits are not listed in the database because they do not have the qualifying prominence. S2S certainly means summit to summit, but as an award it implies SOTA summit to SOTA summit. For Armin a SOTA summit to GMA summit contact is just another contact with a chaser. A perfectly good contact but not what he was hoping for when he heard “summit to summit”.

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That’s it! I do not know why - but a SOTA S2S is still something special for me. Others are qsos with /p stations - also nice - but no SOTA S2S :smirk:

Ok - it’s a chaser and a valid contact. - I ’ ll be a S2S for him… if that’s the same at GMA…
But it’s little bit unfair to all the other calling chasers.

73 Armin

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Same here.

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A gma activator is on a hilltop, they got there using no motorvehicle, and their station is running on battery power. So i consider gma2sota a proper s2s and id be glad to work that summit station. Regatdless of a award scheme, theres somebody operating under the same conditions as you are. This let alone is a good reason to prioritise the call by this station. Theyre welcome to indicate this by using „s2s“, and i wont waste the chance to make a qso with them before their battery runs flat or before their pole collapses, or whatsoever.
Wr all play the same game -Amateur radio.

Ahoi
Pom

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Your not wrong, Pom. As an activator I would always prioritise an S2S call whether the other station is SOTA, GMA, WOTA or whatever - S2S contacts are the icing on the cake. Similarly as a chaser I will always inform an activator if a station is calling him S2S and he hasn’t heard it in the pile-up. It is in the spirit of both SOTA and ham radio in general to help them both get some icing on their cake. That said, I can understand the disappointment if a guy is on the point of getting the award or an endorsement and the “wrong” sort of S2S calls him!

I’m always happy to take a GMA qso, and I always do keep them in the log, even if I have to delete the summit ref when I get home and the log is rejected by the database. I would only ask that activators send GMA REF as a courtesy, to let me know whether or not to enter it in the log. Otherwise, more power GMA as far as I am concerned.
73 de OE6FEG
Matt

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Likewise.

Always a pleasure to work a S2G (SOTA to GMA), S2H (SOTA to HEMA) or S2W (SOTA to WOTA). None have the same appeal as a true S2S, but they’re still all very welcome in my log.

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