After returning from my coach tour to the Arrochar Alps yesterday I have submitted my four GPS tracks into the SOTA Mapping project as I always do. It’s good to share information and help others planning future trips and save others time in seeking out information from other sources when an expedition of this type is planned.
Out of the 1065 summits listed in the whole of Scotland we now have just 76 GPX downloadable tracks of which 48 have been submitted by me - albeit several of these routes were kindly passed to me by Terry G0VWP who asked me to import them on his behalf…
I think it is a pity that few activators use this facility which is so helpful to other activators venturing on to unique summits. So how about it guys, most of us are using GPS now so how about uploading a few of your tracks…please - let’s help one another.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone using my tracks as well, to see how they got along…and don’t forget, this excellent resource is run by Rob DM1CM at no cost and is not directly connected to the SOTA Management Structure.
If you use it then a small donation to Rob via Paypal would I am sure be very much appreciated.
Rob has put an awful lot of time into what is a terrific resource, which he continues to maintain to a very high standard.
Been doing the SOTA thing since July of 2014 and just logged into the reflector finally. I wanted to thank you for your post as I didn’t know this was an option. The SOTA webpage has so many features I have yet to explore but this topic definitely piqued my interest as I’m trailblazing some new summits in my area. After reading you post last night I logged in to see what tracks have been uploaded in my area. I wasn’t able to find even one track uploaded to the SOTA map which I’m wondering why that is. I have been putting screen shots into my new blog of the paths I’ve taken up the hill and it seems others in my area do the same with personal blog links. Being a recent convert to Mac I still am having trouble getting my Garmin files to do the handshake with the Mac to make this possible. I’ll be giving it a go as soon as I can figure out why my gps won’t talk to my Mac.
Thanks for your post as it let me know this was even possible.
@KG6HQD
Would be great if you could also upload the tracks to the SMP (SOTA Mapping Project). So others not knowing your blog can use them. Once you have a decent GPX-file upload is quite easy.
Regarding the Mac and Garmin: Many Garmin units connect as a mass storage device via USB. This can be set as default or you are prompted on connection. The data on the Garmin is directly available as GPX-files.
Existing files in Garmin data format (gdb) can be saved in the universal GPX format using Garmin Mapsource.
@G4OBK
Same situation here in DM. At least we have 133 tracks but still a small fraction of the activated summits. (Note to myself: Upload some more of my recent tracks).
As Phil stated propably many activators have GPS tracks but are not aware they can share them at the SMP. It’s really a pity all these tracks are lost or scattered in many different blogs.
i have uploaded about 80 tracks to SMP so far, most of them for summits in OE/OO-XXX. i hope that these tracks will help other activators to find the right path (if there is a path …) to the summit!