I’d like to suggest that (in addition to latitude and longitude) the locator field is listed on the summit pages, so that e. g. on Hiking in the mountains: tips for beginner hikers - Mountain Day
we would not only read “Association: Germany (Low Mountains) Region: Saxonia-Anhalt Latitude: 51 47 57 N, Longitude: 10 36 55 E”, but also “Locator: JO51HT”. This would be most convenient for VHF operations.
I understand that the SOTA team is always busy, and would therefore not make this an urgent request. Still, I believe it is a “nice to have” feature.
I hadn’t realised that the locator information wasn’t on all summits, the UK summits have it! Also times of sunrise and sunset. I agree that it would be nice to have this feature but imagine that it would be very time consuming to calculate and insert all the locations, so I don’t think it will be done soon!
In reply to G8ADD:
You don’t have to calculate HA summit locators, there are calculated LOCs on http://gyalogradio.ham.hu/csucslista/?mutat=EM
page (per areas).
To make it more convenient I can send you a table including REF - NAME - LOC.
Thanks for your effort.
73 Viktor HA5LV
Why, if it is listed in the database, is it not also on the SOTAWatch summit >page?
Because it’s on the database page!
If you use the “List of all summits” option on the database, Sotadata3 then you can get list of summits for any association and region much quicker than selecting it from SOTAwatch. It gives you all the location info along with an activation count and last activator callsign. In addition there are links, one gives that info laid out differently along with the full activation history, another takes you DIRECTLY to the SOTAwatch page which has links to user added details. Both SOTAwatch and the database have links to show the summit on the SOTA mapping project. The SOTAwatch page has a breakdown of activation history by band as well.
SOTAwatch doesn’t get it, Maidenhead locator, from the database because it’s not stored anywhere. SOTAwatch knows the locator for UK summits from the original data uploads back in mists of time. The database doesn’t store the locator because it knows lat&long for all the summits. There is no point storing locator info when all it is a shorthand for lat&long. The locator is calculated on the fly by some code in the database and inserted into the page dynamically as it is rendered. There’s a database paradigm that you don’t store data in a table if it’s stored elsewhere because you have to keep it all in sync. Well we cheat and do store a few bits and bobs in 2 places, such as last activator, as it it’s quicker than having to perform multiple queries. Although it probably would be better to do multiple queries because there’s now a lot of code to ensure the duplicated data is kept consistent across activation entries, deletions. It also has to ensure consistency should any database op fail. So we don’t store locator anywhere, we make it when needed.
The locator was added to the database displays when some of the US chasers pointed out it was shown for UK summits but not their summits. Bish, bash, bosh and a few lines of C# later the locator is available. It’s not been added to SOTAwatch because other things have been done/are being done instead. There’s a lot going on in the background to ensure future scalability and sustainability of the web based services so adding locators when it’s available already is just one of things that’s not really worth the effort at present.
I don’t really go along with that, Andy. There are only two circumstances where I use the summit page: firstly if I am planning an activation, and secondly if I am curious about a summit that I have just chased, when I click on it in Posts to bring the page up. At a time like that I just want a quick click solution rather than go ferreting about in the database! In that type of use I would hardly say that the locator is available already, it may be available but you need to do extra work to winkle it out, so the system is less user friendly than it could be. I cannot judge if it is worth the effort at present but it is certainly desirable for all summits within my reach as VHF DX!
I guess, 99% of the time(*), the first place I end up when I’m checking something about a summit is the SOTAWatch summit page. It is, after all, where the links in spots and alerts go. Also, usually, it’s where extra information (like activation reports and hints) gets linked…
I’ll now know I can go to the database for locators (rather than determining them the hard way when they’re not shown on the SOTAWatch page) if I need them…
73, Rick M0LEP
(* I suspect it’s probably more like 99.9% of the time…)
If you follow a link to a SOTAwatch page about a summit then you can click the SOTA Map link and read the locator off the box that comes up for the summit when the map is drawn.
If you aren’t looking at a page on SOTAwatch for a summit or don’t have a link for the page for the summit then I can guarantee you from SOTAwatch:
Summits->scroll associations page]->[scroll regions page]->click summit link
If you have a SOTAwatch summit page open, 1 more click gives you the info and if you don’t, one more click on the database gives you the same data faster.
Of course I don’t expect anyone to believe me or agree. But there again, what do I know, I only write some of it and keep it running!
If you follow a link to a SOTAwatch page about a summit then you can
click the SOTA Map link and read the locator off the box that comes up
for the summit when the map is drawn.
There are, inevitably, many different ways of getting the information you’re after. Some will be quicker than others, and the old familiar ways will continue to be used long after newer better faster ways are introduced because folk are creatures of habit…
When I’m after lists of summits (which isn’t often), the lists SOTAWatch generates (flagging the ones I’ve chased and activated) are usually exactly what I’m after.
I’ve tended not to use SOTA Maps when checking a single summit because it does a whole lot more work (and takes a whole lot longer) than just going to Google Maps (which presents me with most of what I’m after most of the time).
Now that I know the database gives locators even when SOTAWatch doesn’t I’ll likely use that route to find them when I want them, 'cos it’ll certainly be quicker than the way I’ve been finding them up til now (having made the obvious (but, it turns out, incorrect) assumption that if SOTAWatch didn’t show it then the database didn’t know it)…
…and, one of these days, I hope SOTAWatch’s summit pages will catch up.
Yup. I look at the grid every time. EVERY TIME! The grid is available for every summit, but not on every summit page. It would be so easy to click on the summit listed in the SPOT, but that doesn’t get you the grid. Instead - you need to come around to it the long way!
I too wait for the day.
Vy73 - Mike - KD5KC.
El Paso, Texas - DM61rt.
W5-SOTA association manager.
In reply to who ever
I am with Andy on this one the Summit list is easy to get to from the main SOTA page you don’t even need to be logged in to chase up the grid locators on that page .I spent more time fixing typos on this reply than it took me to look up the region closest to me via that summit list and found the locator along with all the relevant info.
You guys must be hard up for something to do to be dreaming up some of these things you probably expect others to do.
73 de Ian vk5cz …
It is simply a matter of just 1 click from the spots page, or navigating to a whole different page and either doing a few drop-down boxes or typing in the summit designator. Neither is difficult, but which is easier? Look up 20 summits in a day, and then consider the difference. Just one click, or a click here, scroll down, a click there, scroll down… and another… What seems petty to one is of importance to another, as I am sure you also have you “wishes”, probably petty to the rest of us.
I can’t find a place in this thread where anyone said they “expected” anything, or I would quote it for you. Please point it out.
Thinking it over, you probably don’t see enough activity on your end to where you wish you could pull up the data on more than one summit in a 5 minute period. Especially on weekends, we get that here. During NA prime-time, I sometimes wish I had 4 radios on 4 bands so I could chase 40m, 30m, 20m and 12m all at once.
I am certainly no programmer, and I highly respect and appreciate the guys who are. That said, I can’t get my head around the idea that the summit pages are actually different, depending on how you navigate to it. My little trials in web pages, I wrote one page of data and just linked to that.
Indeed, the locators are on the database pages which (I must confess) I have never used before. I had looked at the summits lists generated from “Summit search” on SOTAwatch in order to see which summits are nearest to a place I was interested in, and there are no links to the database entries.
Well, now I know where to look, instead of using Alun Jones’ “Find out where you are” page to calculate the locators, but if somebody finds the time to add a few lines of code so that the locator is calculated on the SOTAwatch summit pages, too, it would be nice.
You guys must be hard up for something to do to be dreaming up some of these things you probably expect others to do.
TL,DR? “Don’t take suggestions for improvements as complaints.”
In quarter of a century working on software development, I generally found that if folk just use a system because it more-or-less works and they need it to get stuff done, they’ll not give any much feedback; they’ll just find their own work-arounds for the bits that don’t work so well, and muddle through. However, if they really like a system they’ll often suggest improvements, so when I see folk here suggesting improvements (and practical, relatively simple improvements, too), then I take it as a sign that the system’s a good one. There isn’t a good system out there that can’t be made better.
…and as for helping with changes; I know what I’m good at, and what I won’t touch. If folk ask for help with something I know I can do, then I’ll offer to help, but huge databases, .NET and C#/C++ are in my “rather you than me” category…
There is another way to see which summits are near a place of interest. The SOTA Mapping project has a “Range” page - http://sotamaps.wsstvc.org/range.php - where you can enter the name, or address, or coordinates, or locator of the place of interest; choose then a radius in miles or kilometers, and you will see all SOTA summits which fit your search parameters, contained in a circle on the map.
Locators for each of them will be listed in a popup window if you click on any one of the summits; in addition, if you click the “Position” button at the top of the map area, you will see a locator grid covering the entire area (and if you zoom out, you’ll see the grid covers the entire earth) which will give you more of an overview of the locators covered by the summits in your query.
