SOTA in the Caribbean?

A bit of blue sky dreaming going on here but…… I cant seem to work out whether there are any summits in the Caribbean. Does that suggest 1) the area has been reviewed and no summits meet the criteria or 2) the area hasn’t been considered?

73, Lea.

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A very quick check shows Barbados, Guadeloupe and Martinique all have SOTA summits.

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Thanks for your prompt response. I’m not finding SotaMaps very intuitive. I’m on my mobile so maybe that’s the issue but I cant even select the region. What Association are they in?

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No, you are not looking in the right place for the answer. So here’s some suggestions.

Top of this page there is a line of blue links,

“Database” takes you to the database where you can find lists of associations and summits and their activation history. A somewhat raw format but this is what everything is built on.

“Summits” takes you to the summits site listing all associations, summits etc. and presented in a more pretty way than the database.

“Mapping” takes you to the maps… you select the association and can see the summit locations.

Not linked as such is https://SOTL.as run by Manuel HB9DQM where you can move around the map and zoom on any part of the world and see the summits available.

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Cheers Andy, I’ve done all that but without knowing what Association say, Antigua is in…… how can you search it?

By the way, Manuel’s map seems much more intuitive :grinning:

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I used the summits site. I looked through the list of associations and could see the places I mentioned.

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Summits site, search for Antigua for example.

And a radio ham should know the vast majority of prefixes in use. The common ones are easy and knowing the obscure ones means when that ZP9XX and HB9XXX call you at the same time, the ZP9 guy is the real DX (sorry Switzerland) and is the one to work first. There’s only a few hundred and due to humanity’s colonial past, many follow a distinctive pattern. i.e. anything starting V was part of the British Empire. I’m sure this was part of the licence but that was some time back and it may have changed now.

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It is. It is hard to describe the sheer beauty of the way the data is displayed. It’s so easy to get the data off the screen and into your head.

That will get you every time. Small display and cruddy controls for the win! :slight_smile:

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Here’s SOTA Maps showing you all valid summits world-wide - expand to see a particular area better:

To get this, under “Choose Association” - select Multi and then click on first entry, scroll to bottom of list and Shift+click on last entry to mark all associations, then in the “Choose Region” selection area simply click on multi and all.

73 Ed.

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Thanks Ed :+1:

So, …… sticking with Antigua for now…… can anyone answer my original question?

(By the way, I’m aware Antigua is V2)

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Antigua - no defined summits at the moment.
On a very quick look at the Open Topo map, I would say that Boggy Peak and possibly Sugar Loaf Hill would meet the 150m prominence requirement (a more detailed look needs to check where the col is, to make sure sugar loaf hill isn’t an outcrop on the side of Boggy peak at less than 150 vertical metres down its side).

Of course the other requirement before you can have SOTA summits in a new area/country is that there needs to be an association manager for the area, who needs to submit and control the application for summits to be added to the SOTA award scheme.

73 Ed.

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Cheers Ed,

This sounds more promising! I agree with your take on those two spots you mention. Presumably I would need to approach a local Op to process an application?

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Hi Lea,

I’ve found a likely third summit, just behind Falmouth, the ground goes up to 200 metre ASL and that looks like it has 150m Prominence


(where it says “print map”).

These are from a very quick look at the map and would need to be verified & confirmed. If you have licensed friends on the Island who may be interested in SOTA, you should contact them and ask them to contact the MT if they wish to volunteer to act as association manager - that’s assuming there isn’t someone to cover the whole of the Caribbean already.

73 Ed.

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SOTA home page (link above), click the blog link, read the items there about finding summits etc.

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Thanks Ed for the 3rd possible summit.

A quick search on the SOTA site indicates Guadeloupe & Martinique are both managed by F5HTR (who appears located in Fr.) whereas Barbados appears to be managed by a local, 8P5AA. I might need to reach out to someone in Antigua :grinning:

73, Lea.

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As I said, If you already know someone in Antigua that may be interested, that’s a great start, then put them in contact with Rob G0HRT, who manages the Association managers.

https://www.sota.org.uk/About

When are you hoping to head to Antigua - is this just “blue sky dreaming” as you said or is there a chance you’ll get out there when this C***D nightmare is behind us all?

73 Ed.

Essentially it boils down to the French territories having excellent freely-available mapping and the others mostly not. For instance plenty of the English-speaking territories have summits which could be included if we had reliable data. However, we also feel there is a particular need for local advice in respect of any difficulties accessing summits. We had local input for 8P, and seeing as it’s a single summit we’re confident it’s correct. But elsewhere we’d need a local with access to the national mapping at least.

I think V2 Antigua maybe has three (all in the south-west). If you know a local (with proper map access) point them my way.

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Simon,

Thanks for you input, I will let you know how I get on with reaching out to a V2 Op.

73, Lea

Ed,

I don’t personally know anyone yet but have reached out to a V2 who runs a net.

If restrictions stay as they currently are then hopefully a trip to the region can be planned soon. It also goes without saying that the XYL has a say in these matters and me grabbing a SOTA point doesn’t come into her equations so I am trying to keep as many options open as possible.

73, Lea.

Puerto Rico, Dominical Republic have a lot of summits.

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