I have some notes from our trip earlier in May that I’ll turn into activation reports at some stage, but my current priority is planning for our next trip to Skye.
Yup, I used that a lot in my planning. The guidance on SM-004 didn’t entirely work and we ended up fighting through trees and trying to avoid what I suspect was a recently erected barbed wire fence.
Yes indeed, I know what you mean. I’ve a report to finish for the Mull activations, but planning the next outing is taking what spare time I have at the moment. I need to study the Skye summits as well as my XYL is really keen to go there and I don’t want to “lose the moment”. ;-).
GI SOTA Trip - Activation #1 - Slievemore GI/SM-021 - Monday 30th May 2016
The pattern of limited sleep time started just before this SOTA trip. We were booked on the Birkenhead-Belfast ferry for the Sunday morning, but I had a gig on the Saturday night with Darren Day at Alvaston Hall in Nantwich, fortunately only 45 minutes drive from Macclesfield.
So the alarm went off, seemingly, all too early on the morning of Sunday 29th May 2016, but I couldn’t roll over and ignore it. We had a 50 mile drive to Birkenhead for the ferry, and needed to be on the road by 7.45am.
Safely on board the Mersey Lagan, it was time to relax with a nice breakfast.
The daytime crossing was boring and tedious at 8 hours, but at least calm and smooth. We stayed with Jimmy’s grandad in Larne that night.
We agreed a 5am get-up for Monday 30th May 2016, and got on the road out to the South-West of Northern Ireland - if that makes sense. It would turn out that the holiday would take us through all six counties of Northern Ireland - Antrim, Down, Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry, and 8 of the 9 of Ulster, adding in Monaghan and Donegal.
The main objectives of the holiday were:
- Activate all 9 SOTA summits in the GI/SW (South West) region.
- Activate a further 8 SOTA summits in the GI/SM (Sperrin Mountains) region.
- Activate one EI summit (in order to claim that Association for Mountain Hunter)
- Drink Guinness.
As usual, Jimmy M0HGY had done all the planning and alerting, and I just followed his directions and instructions each day, although I did have some input to the final day to add in summits we’d dropped from previous days.
From Larne, we returned to Belfast via the A8 and M2, before taking the M1 westbound. A shiny new looking service station was serving up Ulster Fries, so that was breakfast taken care of. After Dungannon, we continued on the A4, A5 and minor roads around to the west of the summit. There was enough space to pull the car onto rough ground adjacent to gate, from where we started the relatively short walk.
The paths were very rough, boggy and indistinct in places, but you could just about follow them as they looped around to the right and up onto the summit. The usual for this holiday was Jimmy MI0HGY/P starting on 2m FM and me (Tom MI1EYP/P) on 40m CW. If other band/mode combinations were required, we could address that later.
It was an unremarkable 4 QSOs on 40m CW for me, but pleasing that all were into G-land, indicating that 40m SSB would be a good insurance for Jimmy if needed. He didn’t, he made four QSOs all 2m FM. We decided to pack up up and press on with our ambitious schedule. Next on the agenda was Slieve Beagh GI/SW-004.
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There were a few occasions when I couldn’t hear Jimmy on 7 megs SSB but could copy Scottish portables at much the same distance. There were a few instances when I even listened on 40 CW but could only hear the chasers! Strange propagation indeed, and of course it would have taken really powerful ducting for me to hear Himmy on FM!
The most reliable band in these conditions has been 5 megs…
Brian
Bit of an anomaly there:-
Carnanelly is GI/SM-004 - GI/SW-004 is Slieve Beagh
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I’m delighted to see that both you and Jimmy look as daft as I do in that style of hat!
Victor GI4ONL is correct, our second summit on our first day was Slieve Beagh GI/SW-004. Carnanelly GI/SM-004 is one of the summits scheduled to do on our next GI trip.
Jimmy M0HGY
Andy anybody looks daft in that style of hat!
For summer use I can recommend the legionnaire’s cap for just the right degree of practical chic 
I can just picture you climbing Ben Nevis wearing a white Kepi, Paul.
73,
Walt
My Summer SOTA hat is one the wife bought me in Australia - white in colour with a large brim. Often worn by people taking part in Crown Green or Flat Green Bowling.
Very practical that wide rim in summer - now all I need is summer!!!
Ed.
Indeed.
It’s got to the stage now where I can’t remember the names of all the summits. It was OK up to about 300 activator uniques, but after that, forget it. So I have to look them up every time I write about them. It helps if I enter the correct reference while doing the looking up of course. I blame the sleep deprivation. At least the photos will confirm we were on the right summits!
I have edited the summit name in any case.
Yes, my wife hates us wearing those hats. But they are comfortable and keep the sun off our faces. Functionality, not fashion.
Neither of our 817s have been modded for 5MHz Brian. Perhaps should have got that sorted as that would have been the best band, I agree. Then again, we tended to find that 2m worked if 40m didn’t, and vice versa, so we were covered, and for most of the time, 40m was working for us back to G-land, if not consistently for all chasers.
GI SOTA Trip - Activation #2 - Slieve Beagh GI/SW-004 - Monday 30th May 2016
Well this one certainly got me “acclimatised” to the demands of many of the summits we were to tackle during this week. From Slievemore GI/SM-021 it was a fairly short drive south. There was a spacious parking area beside the minor road at Eshnaglogh, just before a locked barrier across the road.
We walked past the barrier and continued as the cul-de-sac road deteriorated to rough track and reach a T-junction. From here it was necessary to bear left up to the end of the track before turning slightly right onto the moorland and contemplate a further 3km of energy-sapping tussocky featureless walking. Fortunately, the very dry and hot weather conditions meant that the ground underfoot was mostly solid, although there were still some very “liquidy” boggy sections that required vigilance.
The progress was slow, not helped by the oppressive heat of the day. Jimmy was my guide as he plotted our line of attack over undulating spongy ground. We passed over Eshbrack 365m, which Jimmy advised me was the highest point in County Monaghan. In fact most of the approach to this summit was in EI.
As I grew increasingly tired, but realising the very slight gradient (only around 25m height gain to the summit in the final 2km of walking) I asked Jimmy about the activation zone, and the possibility of me quitting there to operate, while he continued (as the purist he is) to the summit true. However, he rightly pointed out the possible difficulty of me being set up in EI and him commencing his activation in GI. That would make it difficult for him to come over to my set up to continue should he require HF back up. So I plodded on to the summit!
However, this was not necessary as Jimmy qualified with five QSOs on 2m FM. My qualification was also easy with 3 QSOs on 30m CW followed by 6 on 40m CW, including S2S with M0OAT/P on Shining Tor G/SP-004.
We got cracking with the long return walk, and just as I began to relax with the track/road coming back in sight, the phone rang. It was the Castle Inn in Newtownstewart where we were booked to stay. They had a problem with damp and could not accommodate us! However, they had made arrangements for us to stay in a B&B for the same nights and same price - phew!
The day was going pretty well to plan, and we continued with our schedule, moving onto Brougher Mountain GI/SW-007. First though, we had our lunch in the car - a flask of ham, chicken & sweetcorn chowder. Only thing was, it was cold. Was there a problem with my flask or had I not properly checked the soup was warmed through?
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Its an easy mod - I did mine in about thirty minutes including partial dismantling and reassembly.
I’ll make sure Gerald gets a photo for you Walt
I’m impressed Tom! I managed about 120 before they started to merge into an amorphous mass of memories, it takes a fairly powerful memory jogger now to help me recall details of particular summits. Old age creeping on I suppose or in my case feels like galloping forward 
73 de Paul G4MD
You must be been looking at a log of another activation as I qualified this one with ease with 5 QSOs on 2m fm.
Jimmy M0HGY
OK edited. You tricked me by entering one of your activations for 31st May also as GI/SW-004. Correct that and you’ll get more points 
GI SOTA Trip - Activation #3 - Brougher Mountain GI/SW-007 - Monday 30th May 2016
This was a very easy and short walk as Jimmy had researched that it was possible to drive up the transmitter access road and park close to the compound. From here, it was a walk of about 100m with 30m ascent to the trig point.
While setting up my longwire, I noticed Jimmy was in S2S QSO on 2m FM, with GI0AZA/P and GI0AZB/P on Gortmonley Hill GI/SM-024. I dived in and made these my own first two QSOs. Jimmy went on to qualify with five on 2m FM, while I added one on 40m CW and three on 20m CW.
No further callers for either of us, so we took the decision to make a sharp exit and press on to complete the schedule of a fourth activation on the day, which was to be on Pollnalaght GI/SW-008.
GI SOTA Trip - Activation #4 - Pollnalaght GI/SW-008 - Monday 30th May 2016
From Brougher Mountain GI/SW-007, it was a short drive north via Dromore. Pollnalaght, also known as Pigeon Top was a potential “drive to the top”. The road runs right through the activation zone at just 8m lower than the summit height. However, rather than activate roadside, we walked onto the moorland and tried to make our way to the summit itself.
This was tedious and tricky, working our way around large peat hags and bogs. We chose to activate in the vicinity of the trig point. Jimmy enjoyed the “teatime” effect, easily qualifying on 2m FM. I struggled to squeeze any life at all out of 40m, but when I went onto 30m CW, I made the requisite four contacts within minutes.
The bed & breakfast we had been rebooked into was the Mountjoy, around the corner from the Sperrin Restaurant, 3 miles north of Omagh. It was lovely. Immaculately clean, excellent facilities and a lovely couple living there and running the place, who couldn’t do enough for us.
We were also told we could use the kitchen whenever we liked which was really handy for flask and bladder preparation. Also at the B&B was a very placid and friendly 10 year old dog called Jack, who greeted us with an furiously wagging tail every time we pulled into the driveway.
That night we went into Omagh for a curry and a couple of beers, before getting back for a much needed sleep.
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