Well, after some very considerable time chasing and a few halfhearted attempts at activating with a 2/70 handheld which never actually worked, I finally managed my first successful activation.
I had a few hours spare and had promised no. 2 offspring we’d walk up a (small) mountain (Camlough Mountain, GI/CA-002, 2 pts.) as part of his “get more active” drive. Cue bringing a linked dipole and fishing pole, a Bamatech paddle and a KX2, to take advantage of getting to the top.
We started at the bottom around 1200, knowing the cloud was forming around the summit already. It was still reasonable conditions and we decided we’d see what it was like when we got to the transmitter masts and decide whether to press on at that point.
When we got there, it was definitely cloudy but still reasonably calm so we decided to press on.
The going got a little steeper but we kept going. Visibility dropped but conditions were still fine just below the summit.
Once we got to the summit, we were hit by the wind, from which we’d been sheltered on the way up. We set up the antenna quickly, and I was soon spotting and on the air on 40m CW. Unfortunately it was very soon very cold in the wind, and no.2 offspring is not even slightly interested in radio, so we kept it short, and after 6 contacts he’d had enough.
We took the antenna down quickly and packed everything away, and we did not get any photos on the summit as it was too cold and wet in the cloud to linger.
We had a successful descent and had a great time, walked around 5.5km and climbed and descended around 250m, and no.2 offspring had a good enough time to agree to doing Slieve Gullion, (GI/CA-001) during the holidays.
So finally my first successful activation, after getting to 100 points chasing. There will definitely be more soon.
