Hi all, just a funny report from last Saturday’s Mullaghanattin (EI/IS-015) activation.
The climb itself is not difficult, but quite tiring because of unmarked trail and the need to hike through grass, mud and loose stones in the first part of it. It is best to do it as a part of horseshoe walk around the valley colloquially called “The Pocket”, and activate both Mullaghanattin and Beann (EI/IS-018) in one go. I only did the former because of what happened:
When I reached the Mullaghanattin summit I realized I had lost the entire telescopic part of my Buddistick antenna. It must have disengaged from my backpack somewhere during the climb. I was heartbroken because I was sure I wouldn’t have activated the mountain. Then I started thinking and asked myself what I could have used for an improvised antenna.
Ultimately I came up with a plan to stretch the Buddistick’s counterpoise wire from the trig benchmark all the way to my backpack. I cut the counterpoise and made an improvised connection with the center pin of my tuner’s BNC connector. The biggest problem was to make this whole contraption structurally sound – it had to be at the same time tensioned, attached to the center pin (I had no soldering iron) and resist the very strong wind on Mullaghanattin. I ended up looping the wire over my backpack’s shackles to ensure mechanical tension while at the same time precisely positioning the end of the counterpoise wire within the BNC’s connector.
I didn’t connect anything to the BNC’s ground pin.
To my surprise I was able to tune to both 20- and 40-meter bands, and made connections on both. Six QSOs total with the worst antenna possible! Including with people doing lighthouses on the air (which I didn’t even know was a thing).
This just goes a long way to say that one should not give up when faced with hardware issues. Before giving up and walking down, think of what’s available in your backpack.
The video from the activation is here if anyone is interested.
Thank you for commenting! I’m honored – have been following some of your activations since the moment I got interested in SOTA last June. Your achievements are inspirational, and whichever summit I pick, there’s EI3KA somewhere on activators’ list! So basically I’m following your steps My goal is to score 1000 points and get the first Mountain Goat in 10 years from now – a realistic estimate based on how much time I can devote to climbing each year.
Yeah, Mullaghanattin was an unexpected save. And regarding Beann, nothing’s lost. I’ll activate it on some other date!
many thanks for a very interesting report and the video is very informative and enjoyable. Congratulations on both and on your ingenuity in solving the antenna problem. I did try to listen for you but unfortunately the propagation was just not working. Hope you can make it to Hamfest, a lot of the regular EI activators plan to be there.
Adam, I was also listening on your freq with headphones but could not hear you. I saw on your spots that you were having Antenna issues. Well done on finding a fix and got your points.
Declan, Don — thank you both so much for trying. I really appreciate the effort and I know gave chasers hard time last Saturday.
Before I came up with the “counterpoise as active element” idea, I tried other approaches, among other things just tuning the half of my antenna which obviously didn’t work. For each of these approaches I spotted myself (with the panicky comments like “very bad antenna”, etc.), so you might have been trying then, and obviously you could not hear me. But even with my ultimate solution not many people heard me, and in addition to 6 confirmed QSOs, I had several ones where people just gave up on trying to repeat my callsign. My signal was just super weak. Also, I think the QSO with EI1K was really a line-of-sight contact! So a bit of luck. He was doing one of the lighthouses which might have been within my circle of sight. But I may be totally wrong here, I’m very new to radio and don’t even know if that’s possible.
Unfortunately I won’t be attending Hamfest due to family plans. My activations throughout the school year will also be patchy for the same reason… hope you have fun at Hamfest! Also, what an amazing SOTA score you have. I am full of admiration for those who got to mountain goat level. Even being the newbie I am, I do know already how much effort it takes to get to that level.
My father was a radio operator in the Royal Artillery when doing his training in late WW2 they used to throw all the radio equipment off the back of the truck they were travelling in ( whilst it was moving) it would all bounce down the road and then they would drop them off and tell them when they got a signal back to camp and worked out where they were they would pick them up ! Your activation is in the same spirit, well done!
Not directed at me I know, but I am hoping to be able to attend on one of the days. Flat out training for an ultra in September and some other stuff going on but will try.
Keen to see can we rustle up some 2m and 70cm CW QSO’s. Looking forward to seeing what bits and pieces people bring to sell as I would love some antenna parts or some microwave stuff (of the Ham kind, not the Hinari Sunrise kind), maybe even a new key or some interesting CW-related gubbins.
I heard a few of the microwave folks might be there and possibly doing demos? Wondering if anyone might be able to share knowledge on 5 and 8 too!
US Marines have an Antenna handbook, which also has a section on improvised antennae. It also has siting instructions. It is available on the interwebs.
At least you didn’t try ascend from the Ballaghbeama gap. I heard of some idiot who spent about an hour trying to navigate up that way, getting almost cragfast a few times. That idiot was me btw.
As you’ve discovered there are many ways to make an ariel work. I’ve often used just the hiking sticks as supports or just put the wire on the ground. It’s amazing how little you need when you have the height doing a lot of the work.
If you’re ever up Waterford way, give me a shout.
73 Colm.
@EI9KY, @K7GUD, amazing to see comments from two more Mountain Goats! This is so inspiring!
Colm, I actually did consider climbing from that steeper side, but ultimately decided against it as I was carrying a rather heavy camera with me (in addition to everything else). Sure, I’ll reach out when I’m in Waterford, or you let me know whenever you’re in Cork and we can have a coffee or lunch in town, I’m not far (in Ballincollig).
My goal is to score 1000 points and get the first Mountain Goat in 10 years from now – a realistic estimate based on how much time I can devote to climbing each year.
which obviously didn’t work. For each of these approaches I spotted myself (with the panicky comments like “very bad antenna”, etc.), so you might have been trying then, and obviously you could not hear me. But even with my ultimate solution not many people heard me, and in addition to 6 confirmed QSOs, I had several ones where people just gave up on trying to repeat my callsign. My signal was just super weak. Also, I think the QSO with EI1K was really a line-of-sight contact! So a bit of luck. He was doing one of the lighthouses which might have been within my circle of sight. But I may be totally wrong here, I’m very new to radio and don’t even know if that’s possible.