Unfortunately, the following has not been true for a long time:
The Radio Amateur’s Code
The Radio Amateur is
CONSIDERATE…He/[She] never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.
LOYAL…He/[She] offers loyalty, encouragement and support to other amateurs, local clubs, the IARU Radio Society in his/[her] country, through which Amateur Radio in his/[her] country is represented nationally and internationally.
PROGRESSIVE…He/[She] keeps his/[her] station up to date. It is well-built and efficient. His/[Her] operating practice is above reproach.
FRIENDLY…He/[She] operates slowly and patiently when requested; offers friendly advice and counsel to beginners; kind assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the marks of the amateur spirit.
BALANCED…Radio is a hobby, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.
PATRIOTIC…His/[Her] station and skills are always ready for service to country and community.
- adapted from the original Amateur’s Code, written by Paul M. Segal, W9EEA, in 1928
what’s so annoying about that? it’s a /p to /p contact, both of you have probably made some (or more) effort to operate from this place, regardless if it is a GMA or a SOTA summit. both of you probably operate with low power, small antennas, …
what I find way more unfair and annoying are these “big gun chasers” that keep calling and calling and can’t wait until the previous qso is finished. on my last two activations i had qso’s with a chaser who was clearly using a websdr to receive my signals (I heard his “websdr - echo” on my headphones). that’s annoying …
on my activations i always try to listen for weak signals and portable stations … and I’m very grateful if chasers are helping me with that.
I am not active in GMA but some of my chasers are, I just log them as GMA without reference.
Each QSO is valuable for all of us.
GMA doesn’t give us S2S points, but in SOTA points are not really the most important thing.
During our activity in the program, many things evolve …
Now when I have 1000 activations in my log, I can say with full awareness that we should do what we enjoy and QSOs / points will come themselves.
Summits will not escape, if we do not activate them today, we will do it “tomorrow”, if the summit is removed from the database, we will activate another one.
The most important thing is that what we do should things which give us pleasure and satisfaction.
See you on frequencies.
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
Both arguments are not quite correct. if you had spent any time with GMA, you would know that. There are also no 61 new references for GMA, there are 61 less; because they were long ago referenced as OL/xx-nnn. These summits are being retired right now, so there is no overlap and no confusion. SOTA summits in the Czech Republic are OK/xx-nn, GMA summits are OL/xx-nnn. Both give points for GMA Summit Awards (there are also other things: lighthouses, flora&fauna, castles, etc. = all GMA). Nobody is exploited here and no work is underestimated. I have selected summits for 2 SOTA regions and one SOTA Association myself. I know what kind of work this is.
As far as I know, every GMA user, who has activated a SOTA reference, loads this activation into the SOTA QSO database as a SOTA user. And every GMA user who has activated a WWFF reference sends his log to WWFF as a WWFF-user. What is the problem?
The fact that the inventor of GMA 1.0 (= “German Mountain Award” at that time) was totally out of line here can’t be attributed to all GMA 2.0 users. Funnily enough, he is now a SOTA regional manager himself.
Just look at it this way: GMA is a SOTA fan club, a WWFF fan club, an IOTA fan club, an outdoor fan club and has put a few references into the world.
Mario, you are quite right. It was naive of me not to anticipate that GMA contributors would have already collected these as OL references. It is just such a disappointment that none of these people could be found when SOTA sought help updating our OK list.
Nobody is saying that having classifications other than SOTA is a problem, so long as we are clear and unambiguous. So, what was a problem was non-P150 summits being registered on a P150 list. Now activators and chasers alike know that an OK SOTA reference is as they would expect, conforming to the prominence requirement.
The locations that were removed do of course still exist in reality. If it is possible to do them as GMA OL references I’m sure people can still have a lot of fun doing that (which is what it’s all for). They’re just not counted for the SOTA programme any more.
I hope that OK ops who have taken part in SOTA in the past will keep activating for SOTA in the future. We will miss any that choose not to. I am sure many foreign ops will continue to visit OK to enjoy the country and its summits and to activate for SOTA. Certainly I’d like to do that some time.
To dispel any suspicions about the timing of the OK update, it was on an “as-soon-as-possible” basis. We didn’t know for sure it would be ready until shortly before the news emerged. There was no intent to make it happen now rather than at some other date. But it was surely better getting it out before post-pandemic normality is fully restored.
I’d claim it was on-topic in the spirit of inclusivity.
I’m not sure how you didn’t know I was an FE member when as you say, I have raised it many times with you.
I see you are no longer listed as a moderator on the FE Facebook group; I hadn’t realised that.
If you weren’t aware that I was one of the first HEMA activators, then I’m glad I’ve now made you aware of this, though as you say, I’ve raised it many times. All my activator and chaser logs were deleted when G7LAS took over the running of the scheme, but my HEMA activations still appears in the chaser logs of participants on there.
Anyway, I’ve finally now had the answer as to why I’m banned from FE. It has been posted on there by an admin that it is because they don’t want me including information about gigs I was on the way to, or what I had for lunch on the summits.
I’m still wondering what the reason behind my HEMA exclusion is. No doubt something equally substantial.
An interesting take on “courtesy”, too, banning someone but taking years to tell him why. Or more accurately, telling other people why. Its reminiscent of “1984”, they made Tom an “unperson”. Now, of course, it would be amusing to hear what their reasons are for banning all MT members…I suppose “Free Expression” includes the freedom to refrain from expression. Still, I suppose that makes this place the place where it is all happening. If you want to interact with the MT and make suggestions or ask for reasons you come here.
I don’t understand why I am banned from the FE and HEMA groups Richard as I tried to join these groups after I left the SOTA MT only to get blocked from them for no reason and also tried registering to the HEMA Database, again no response. As you are aware I sent weekly emails to the FE admins who were Mike GW0DSP, Mickey 2E0YYY, Rob G7LAS and John MW0XOT asking why they wouldn’t accept my request to join FE group. I got no response for months until I finally got a response from Rob G7LAS telling me to stop emailing them, but wouldn’t answer my question of why I couldn’t join FE. With this I emailed all admins a week later only to get an email from Rob G7LAS saying that I was harassing them and all the admins were going to block my email address. Still to this day I haven’t got an answer as to why I cannot join FE and don’t know why I have since been blocked from FE. John MW0XOT must know about the issues of me and my dad Tom M1EYP trying to join FE given that he was in included on my weekly emails to the admins regarding this 4 years ago.
We are getting beaten by the numbers. I am only a keen walker. I like walking and observing, mainly in “my” magical landscape, in the Czech-Moravian Highland (my personal web, no promotions): www.bloumani.cz
I am also an avid topographer (in the photo on the left, just including the height of the top rock to the altitude of the hilltop, Bohdalec, the former SOTA OK/VY-059). The measured data are shown in the new tourist maps:
Aber natürlich ist jeder SOTA summit auch ein GMA summit, schau dir doch bitte mal die Liste auf cggma.org an . Schade, wenn man sich nur auf SOTA beschränkt, da bleibt in DL nicht viel übrig.
GMA bietet sehr viel mehr Möglichkeiten der Aktivitäten, Bergaktivierung in Verbindung mit WCA oder WWFF. 73 de Bernd
GMA is a great alternative to do hamradio in nature. 2 mounth ago I had so many SOTA summits in my Czech border area… now I have to drive more then 1 hour for activation of 1 summit in the SOTA category… If I compare other associations like EA6 …there are some differences and inconsistencies that I not understand… (like in Germany years before) …in my eyes there is an injustice…so fortunatly I can use the GMA and that was a great idea… always I use only qrp and no help of vehicles with engine… so for myself the differences are not so huge between SOTA and GMA… only the guardians are different. After full house (340 DXCC) from home there is a new philosophie for me… less is more! 73 Olaf dl7cx/ok8cx
Summits are defined the same way in G, DL, and EA. Now that the false summits have been removed, OK is now in line with the SOTA rules, too. If there is an injustice then the blame for it must go to a Higher Power, which has decreed the size and distribution of mountains.
GMA or SOTA, its still good to be in the mountains.
I have to agree with @DL7CX that there was an injustice.
It was an injustice that activators in one association could activate 14 or more references in a single day because those “summits” were added despite not meeting the prominence criteria in the SOTA rules, observed everywhere else in the world.
It was an injustice that an activator could set up in one position and activate two references because of overlapping activation zones. Something that is impossible if the SOTA rules for summits are observed.
But as a member of SOTA MT, I must accept some responsibility that this situation has existed “under my watch”, and therefore all points accrued from non-compliant summits from the dates on which they were valid references, remain in the activator and chaser records. Hardly the worst outcome.
