SOTA MT vs. SOTA-DL

Hello SOTA community!

I never though I will write here an email like that, but I would like to explain, what is going on between SOTA-DL and SOTA MT. Please take a couple of minutes and go through my message - I hope you will understand me.

I do really understand the P150 and P100 rules and do consider them as a possibility to qualify a summit for the SOTA program. P100/P150 may be good for other regions but not for Alps with their very long ridges… But this message is not about P100 and P150 rules. We asked SOTA MT for P100 to be applied to SOTA-DL and they said OK. After that we all invested a lot of time to find out all summits which are P100 conform. There were 525 summits left. We sent our new reference lists to SOTA MT. 10 days ago we got an answer:

“We have now converted the coordinates ourselves, and used the data to check the summits. We have found summits that are OK, summits that are not OK at P100, and summits that are OK, but where the coordinates need to be checked. In the letter from Marc G0AZS, he explains how he has colour-coded each summit accordingly, and the processes he has used to analyse the lists.

Could you please now use this information to correct your DL summit lists, and to produce your 1-1-09 DL ARM? Many thanks.

This DL review was done in the following manner: Once again I did a Landserf peak analysis for each region area (with plenty of allowance for run-offs) but because this is a more mountainous area (“pointy”), I used 1 arc second DEM files rather than the 3 arc second SRTM. This made the processing more time consuming and data intensive for the PC but gave more accurate results. Then I compared the peak analysis with each and every summit in the supplied lists from the AM.

These are now marked up in the Excel files (just like the DM files) as follows:
Green - P100 compliant summit
Yellow - P100 compliant summit but the location specified in the list needs to be checked and/or amended
Orange - Invalid summit
These files can now be reviewed by the DL AM and/or regional managers. If they want to challenge the any of the analysis, I would be happy to have another look but I must know the following information in order to check and/or change:
Reference and name of summit to be reviewed
Location of summit
Prominence of summit (m)
Location of the highest saddle that defines this prominence.
The AM must check the lists carefully as there will be many changes. i.e. Some “keepers” need to be deleted, some proposed deletions will need to be kept and there are even some previously deleted summits that will need to be reinstated.

Note that all 4,676 German summits have now been checked individually against the Landserf analysis and I have a pretty good idea of some of the errors that are/were in the lists. I feel quite happy to accept queries from the respective managers. At least we have some time now to receive the “second cut” lists before the deadline.”

I took a look at the new lists and was quite scaried and very furious. The most summits were red or orange. I tell you, they in England do not have any picture about Alps at all. They even painted the highest summit in DL/BE Benediktenwand orange too!!! I chosen three lists I personally know very good and checked all orange and red summits for P100 again. What a surprise – all orange summits are P100 conform, and some green summits (i.e. approved by SOTA MT) were deleted by ourselves before. We all worked with TOP50 map from Bavarian Measurement Department. TOP 50 is one of the best maps for the Alpine region. The next point, they have done our job by themselves?!. I promptly wrote an answer:

„I do not really understand what they are expecting from us…

If you (MT) do the same job like me und our RMs, why do you need our association staff at all? Just extract all the summits you want to have and control SOTA-DL by yourself! You will better launch a new German Association without Germans. In that case you will never have grumbling and criticizing people like me at all. We do not have any influence on your all decisions indeed! Additionally we are not allowed to choose our German summits we know and love. SOTA already became a kind of farce. Why do we spend so much time to check all these summits and to search for new ones???

Enclosed you will find the same summits I sent you a couple weeks ago.
I took a couple of hours to check P100 with TOP50 having a special function very suitable for that purpose. Strictly speaking I only deleted one summit in DL/KW because the P100-tolerance could be a bit high. I do not know (and do not want to know) what tool you are using for P100 check but in our ARM TOP50 is declared as a standard.

I personally will not spend any minute more until I do not know what does happen with attached three lists…

And please persuade our team to proceed with SOTA your way… I guess we
all de-motivated enough! “

I got back a GENIAL answer:

“The TOP50 criteria is no longer acceptable from 1/1/09. That is why we require full P100 conformity in summits from that date.”

And that after one year of very intensive work. Incredible!!! Could you imagine? I have not believed what I was reading. I even asked them in the next email if they really know what TOP50 is and got back:

“We cannot accept the latest submitted lists from you, as they contain many summits that are not P100. Will you work with Marc on determining exactly which summits are good for P100 and which are not? We need to get this decided soon, as the DL association cannot be accepted from 1/1/09 without fully compliant P100 summits.”

How do they imagine our collaboration? We only have TOP50 und TOP50 is not a standard anymore!!! Should we take a glass ball and decide which summits have P100 and which not? And all that till 1/1/09! Or should we invest weeks of our free time again for nothing, if they decide about our summits by themselves anyway? We have families, jobs and other hobbies. Where were they the whole year? They are not really expecting from us, that we break our holydays now and will check their Excell-Tables with a tool, which is not valid anymore? What do they want from us? That we speechless agree their Excell tables? And what do they expect from us, if they do not trust us?

I personally got fed up with behavior of SOTA MT. Firstly, they are deaf, and secondly they are deaf. They are not able to manage big international teams, they will better hire a good side manager. They write these useless and non-informative messages in the reflector (like SOTA Summits in Germany) instead to discuss and communicate with us. They are so happy about 8 summits in ON and do not carry about DM and DL associations which may get lost. (Nothing personal, OK?).

And now is my official position for SOTA MT:
“It is impossible to re-work all the summit lists before 1/1/2009. Firstly, we do not have any tools for that (our TOP50 map is not valid for any reasons!!). Secondly, you still have to persuade our RM’s to proceed with SOTA your way and to invest so much time again for defining prominence among neighbor summits? Thirdly, could you explain how our further collaboration may work?”

Happy New Year and 73
de Dzianis, DD1LD
Association Manager SOTA-DL

P.S. There is some misunderstanding with colors. Orange is believed to be red. I slightly misunderstood the yellow color, the summit is still valid, but the coordinates need to be adjusted. Sorry, but it does not change the meaning of my message!

In reply to DD1LD:

Dzianis,

I re-read the ARMs on the SOTA Website. The DL-ARM clearly states which maps are the basis of the DL-SOTA program and I believe the MT / Marc should use the maps stated in the DL-ARM as authoritative if they are challenging our P100 lists.

I was quite puzzled to read the MT-mail that stated the topological map which is the basis of DL-SOTA and DL-ARM-lists since many years (called TOP50 in short, Bavarian state topologial map 1:50.000 in long) is to be invalid from 1/1/2009.

Regards,

Gerd.

In reply to DD1LD:
I believe there was once a criterion that being NAMED on TOP50 was sufficient to qualify as a summit. Surely it is this criterion which is now declared “invalid”, rather than the map itself. I cannot see why you should not use TOP50 as a tool to help determine prominence.

Martyn M1MAJ (not MT)

In reply to DD1LD:
The same situation for SOTA-DM.
Quo Vadis SOTA.

Happy New Year, Uli, DL2LTO.

In reply to DD1LD:

Whilst I am not familiar with what TOP50 is/are it sounds from what you say that the MT have decided that the information provide by TOP50 is NOT adequate to ascertain the true Prominence of any summit.

Most of those reading this forum do NOT have access to any of of lists to which you refer (unless I’ve missed the information being published somewhere).

The resolution for this matter can only come from discussion (be that direct or via email) between the AM and MT - clearly this forum is NOT the place for such matters.

Stewart G0LGS

In reply to DL4MFM:

These maps from a federal office are not valid for an amateur radio
award programme? loool

I really do not think that is what was meant. The phrase used was “the TOP50 criteria”. This does not imply that there is anything invalid about the map itself.