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Support for GMA

Posted: 28 Dec 2017, 09:43
by HB9DBM
Hello all
I consider participating in the Global Mountain Activity program (GMA)
GMA uses the SOTA ADIF fields.

Unfortunately the GMA refs are slightly different

Example
SOTA Ref in HB9 could be
HB/UR-063

whereas a nearby GMA Summit is
HB9/UR-1004

All is ok if importing ADIF's with GMA refs in the SOTA fields.
But it is not possible to enter GMA refs into the SOTA_REF field because of the strict SOTA validation.

May I ask for either the option to release this validation or even better build GMA support into LOG4OM?

http://www.cqgma.net/

Thanks in advance
73
Mark,HB9DBM

Re: Support for GMA

Posted: 28 Dec 2017, 11:11
by G4POP
Mark,

Firstly I have moved this thread to the more appropriate 'Feature suggestions' section.

The correct way to have this award supported would be for you to request special GMA fields to be added to the ADIF specification by contacting ADIF.org once the fields are added then software developers can add a feature to support it.

For us to include GMA in the same manner as SOTA we need the following.

1. ADIF to include GMA fields in their specification
2. A download facility at the GMA awards site for a txt or csv database file containing all of the GMA summits matched to a DXCC reference with full summit information like Lat/Lon, Name etc so that regular automatic updates can be included

Having a mixture of SOTA and GMA references in our existing SOTA support will of course cause problems when uploading to SOTA because some of the references will not be relevant so I don't think we can add that to our existing SOTA facilities.

If you have a complete list of GMA summits then you have two options, but for your personal use only.

1. Create a substitute summitlist.csv file to use in place of the normal SOTA summitlist.csv this way the Log4OM SOTA facility would contain the GMA references.

This would however make the facility useless for SOTA! and the SOTA mapping system would no longer function.

If you do this then remember to turn off the auto updates for the SOTA database or it will be over written.

2. Use our Award manager and create a user defined award for GMA you could also include the summit points score in this!

You would not however have the GMA references displayed in the SOTA fields, they would be in the 'Award Program' list of the F3 'Club and Awards' tab.

Any ADIF export would contain the GMA information in an 'Application designed field' not in the SOTA fields

I hope this helps clarify the possabilities available, let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Re: Support for GMA

Posted: 28 Dec 2017, 14:53
by HB9DBM
Terry,
Thanks for the quick rely.
I see the problems :-)

Will try the routes you suggested.

73
Mark

Re: Support for GMA

Posted: 18 Jan 2018, 14:17
by IW3HMH
by the way is completely dumb, from those award managers, to use SOTA fields for their own references...
this will screw up both sota and their award...

SOTA fields are used only for SOTA information