Now it is family holiday time, and I will be accompanying the three wholly or partly Irish other members of my family to County Antrim.
There are no firm plans yet, hence no alerts, but we will try to place these when we know what will be happening. I intend to do some dawn raids on the summits nearest to Larne - Agnew’s Hill GI/AH-005, Slemish GI/AH-007, Slievetrue GI/AH-010 (used to be called Carn Hill) and Big Collin GI/AH-008. Sometime in the week we hope to get a pass-out for a day down in the Mourne Mountains. Not sure which summit or summits yet, but Slieve Binnian GI/MM-003 is probably on the agenda.
It is possible that later in the week we will relocate to the Mournes, or even EI (Dublin area) for a couple of days. Keep an eye on those spots and alerts, because GI and EI summits are still relatively rare, although the Victors have done great work in putting them on more regularly.
I will be mainly on 12m (CW, SSB, PSK31), and just resorting to 2m or 40m if I have to. Jimmy will be mainly on 2m FM, and just resorting to 12m or 40m is he has too.
Slievetrue GI/AH-010, Big Collin GI/AH-008 and Agnew’s Hill GI/AH-005 all activated before lunch on Sunday 18th August 2013, me on 12m, Jimmy on 2m. Tomorrow (Tuesday) morning we will head to the steep sided volcano Slemish GI/AH-007.
On Thursday we hope to relocate to the Mourne Mountains area which should then see one or two days of SOTAing.
In reply to GI4KSO:
I purchased a map from amazon called The Mournes Activity Map for my trip home, it covers The Mournes in detail - tracks, cliff and climbs will give complete coverage at 1: 25 000 scale of the ‘Mourne Area printed waterproof material and cost only £8.
As we can’t find any accommodation in the Newcastle area, it looks like we will be travelling back to Macclesfield tomorrow instead of relocating to the Mournes. They will have to wait for another day.
We will not be in GI/MM region this week as there is no accommodation in the area. I was looking for your email address, but I was not able to find your email address. Please can you let me know your email address, so as we can arrange a meet up for when we are in the area?
sorry to hear you will not make the Mournes this visit. It’s the last week of school holidays so I guess many people having a late break before going back to work and school. I hope to be out Friday if wx fine. You can contact me by using my callsign and yahoo.com
Thank you for letting me know your email address. I hope to meet up with you for a joint SOTA activation when we are in the Mournes on a future visit. I hope you enjoy your SOTA activation in the Mournes this weekend.
Saturday 17th August 2013 saw the full quorum of the Read family driving north to Cairnryan and then on the ferry to Larne, home of Marianne’s dad, also called Jimmy. We had booked a nice apartment overlooking the sea 4 miles north in Ballygalley.
The following morning, Sunday 18th August 2013, Jimmy M(I)0HGY and I got up at 5am and made a serious start on some SOTAing. First we drove back through Larne and onto the country lanes for a crack at Slievetrue GI/AH-010. This used to be called Carn Hill, but was renamed in the latest revision of the Hills Database, and subsequently the GI ARM.
From the top of the transmitter road, it is a very short walk to the summit trig, and we were QRV before 0630z. I made 12 contacts on 12m, 10 on CW and two on SSB. Jimmy made the requisite four QSOs on 2m FM. We then made our way to Big Collin GI/AH-008.
Our second summit on Sunday 18th August 2013 was Big Collin GI/AH-008. Instead of the usual parking/picnic area on the B94, we pulled into to the wide entrance for the wind farm just beforehand, and a slightly higher starting point.
Jimmy and I made our way across the rough tussocky ground which was not easy going, but not overly difficult either. Around 15 to 20 minutes later, we were on the summit and selecting our operating positions.
On 2m FM, and using the SOTA Beams MFD atop a SOTA Pole, Jimmy made five QSOs. On 12m CW I also got five, plus one more on 12m SSB. For the descent, we aimed more directly to the wind farm access road rather than the parking spot, which gave a slightly better route. It was still before 10am, so we decided to sneak in an activation of Agnew’s Hill GI/AH-005 as well.
Our third and final summit on Sunday 18th August 2013 was Agnew’s Hill GI/AH-005, the most local SOTA summit to Larne, Co. Antrim. A bit of a pain of a “round the houses” driving route at least gave us some previews of the impressive looking Slemish GI/AH-007 which we would climb in the next few days.
We pulled into the usual rectangular walled parking spot, a couple of hundred yards or so up from the waymarked Ulster Way path to the summit. This is a bit of a peaty slog to be honest, and would never class as a favourite walk, although the view from the summit is nice when it is clear, as it was on this occasion.
It was six QSOs for me on 12m, three each on CW and SSB. A S2S with Steve G1INK/P on Birks Fell G/NP-031 was the highlight. On 2m FM, Jimmy recorded five contacts. It was now a case of getting back down to Larne to collect Marianne’s dad in order to take him to our holiday apartment in Ballygalley for Marianne’s scrummy Sunday dinner. Another good day.
Monday 19th August 2013 saw us take a fascinating trip out to Rathlin Island, off the north coast of Northern Ireland. I know that this has been a site used by the GI Association Manager, Colin GI0RQK, for an IOTA contest in the past.
Our next SOTA early morning raid was Tuesday 20th August 2013, and Slemish GI/AH-007 was the target. We parked in the usual visitor car park by the toilet block at the foot of the extinct volcano. The initial walk is steep enough up some stone steps, but the gradeint gets much steeper! There are two routes to choose from - steep, or very steep. We opted for steep, so followed a bit of relatively level ground over to the far end of the mountain.
The steep ground was attacked with gusto as we alternated between balancing on our trekking poles and getting hands down onto rock for some mild scrambling. Much effort, breathlessness and a little bit of under-my-breath cursing later, we were on the ridge and walking up to the summit.
This time, 12m was really not playing ball, and it was a relief to get just one CW contact from Manuel EA2DT and record the 12m Challenge multiplier. But I soon gave up on 24MHz and put my 40m dipole up instead. A good run of 22 QSOs on 40m CW included S2S with Michael MM0ROV/P on Conachcraig GM/ES-019, Frank DL6UNF/P on Ziernberg DM/BM-302 and Mike G0HIO/P on Ruardean Hill G/WB-021.
That was to bring an end to this GI SOTA effort. Plans to visit the Mourne Mountains were cancelled when we couldn’t find any accommodation whatsoever to move onto, and we got an early ferry back to the GB mainland instead. But we will be back…
In reply to M1EYP:
“There are two routes to choose from - steep, or very steep”
I know, last time we did this was in the dark, sub-zero temperature and we chose the very steep route, probably not a good decision but we survived. Best part was emerging out of the gloom at the car park with head-torches on and surprising a young couple in a car who probably had less than all their clothes on :0
First we
drove back through Larne and onto the country lanes for a crack at
Slievetrue GI/AH-010. This used to be called Carn Hill, but was
renamed in the latest revision of the Hills Database, and subsequently
the GI ARM.
From the top of the transmitter road, it is a very short walk to the
summit trig, and we were QRV before 0630z. I made 12 contacts on 12m,
10 on CW and two on SSB. Jimmy made the requisite four QSOs on 2m FM.
We then made our way to Big Collin GI/AH-008.
Tom M1EYP
Nice write up Tom.
Strangely enough I’ve never been on Slievetrue, even though I was born and bred withing spitting distance! The local VHF spot was always the Knockagh, a few metres lower on the edge of the scarp. I 'll definitely activate it on my next visit.
On my last visit I was surprised to see how Big Colin had changed with the industrial bird scarers. Many a day was spent up there slope soaring (RC models) in my youth.
Indeed! The last two posts remind me of my pre-licensed SWLing days. I had found the Knockagh spot as a good one for mobile VHF broadcast station DXing. Once I was up there pretty late on a Saturday night and was pretty unnerved with the apparent goings on in the adjacent cars! So much so that I decided to abandon compiling reception reports of a few new stations and drive back to Larne and go to bed.
The following morning, keen to get the rest of the programme details needed for reception reports, I returned to the same spot. The car that had been next to mine, with people getting in and out and the suspension being thoroughly tested in between, was still in the same spot - but completely burnt out. Looked like my “sharp exit” decision was a wise one!
On returning to the car following my activation of Slemish in 2011 I found a middle aged couple in a car parked next to me in an interesting position. This was at lunchtime and my appearance caused no concern as I changed from boots and rain gear.
