The design of the harp used by the modern Irish state is based on the Brian Boru harp , a late-medieval Gaelic harp now in Trinity College, Dublin.
The modern design is markedly different from earlier depictions. During the 17th century, it became common to depict the harp with a woman’s head and breasts, like a ship’s figurehead, as the pillar.
It is not necessary to show a full complement of thirty strings, provided that the numbers do not fall below nine. The strings are always silver and the harp is always gold.
The harp is shown on a blue background. The colour of the field is sometimes called St. Patrick’s blue, a name applied to shades of blue associated with Ireland. In current designs, used by the Irish state, the field is invariably a deep blue. The use of blue in the arms has been associated with Gormfhlaith , a Gaelic mythologicalpersonification of Ireland. The word Gormfhlaith is a compound of the Irish words gorm (“blue”) and flaith (“sovereign”);
…is on my FB friends list. I met both Helen and Steve in person on several occasions at radio club meetings that I went along to a few years back. They live not so far from me in Deeside, Flintshire.
Seems her and Steve are still well. But not active with SOTA.
Same time as me Gerald and I am still as keen both chasing and activating, although recently the latter has had to take a back seat for health reasons. Hopefully I’ll be back on the hills in the very near future. As Tom said, it’s kinda obsessive
I am still around.
I did switch to a bit of SWL , then got quite into digital modes, but before they became popular with SOTA.
Due to some of the family issues too, I don’t get out as much as I used too. Janes (my XYL) condition got slightly worse meaning she’s stuck in the house while I’m out at work, so its not really fair, if at weekends I go out again on a pleasure trip and leave her at home.
Obviously Covid had a major impact on everyone too.
I’ve also been doing a degree with the Open University (now halfway) which also requires some commitment.
I do remember though, when I was first licensed at 17 (1987/8), I was into radio every night, and with only a 2m handheld. Obviously other things like girls and beer came along to distract, but my license was always still there and available for use. I also was heavily into my climbing at the time too, so getting/keeping fit was a large part (French 7b+ / English E5/6). Ironically, that’s a trait that would have been very useful for SOTA (see comment on beer)
So while I am not very active, I still pop my head in at times
I am sure some of you will hear me on the air at times, and I may even surprise with an activation or 2.
I hope to hear QRP Mariusz again today. He never sends /QRP after his call. Good job, as the ones who do always go to the back of the Q and I ever repeat the illegal suffix when I go back to them!
Hello,
Yes Mariusz is back! I did QSO twice yesterday 21/09 from F/AM-602 and it was a great pleasure for me!
Now we’re waiting for the Lars’s come back.
Gerald F6HBI
Hi Phil, my friend. Long time ago that i was on the sota reflector. I hope you are doing well. My stop from sota is from a heavy accident, and it takes a long recovery for me till now. Life is not easy sometimes … If you have health problems, you get other problems as in job, private and so on. Now i am living in the city of Kempten, Bavaria with some low-summits around me. Health is better and better and i plan to do my first sota activations again this year. qrp and wire antennas… the extreme athlete transfer in a bad walking ham but i think i need this sota stuff again, with all these nice chasers and community around. negative is that my english writing is very bad after this long time without the use of it… maybe we have a qso again again on summits or as a chaser… in moment i train my old hearing in high speed telegraphy. i am now stuck at 250bpm in callsigns and 150bpm in text. i wonder about this cw thing. i am off for years and have no problem to listen to cw on the bands. all the best to you and all sota friends… greetings from DF2GN/P Klaus… and again, sorry for my english… i need some training;-)
Great to hear from you! I remember our meeting in the DM/BW area summits with Nick G4OOE who lives 30 Km away from me. We are in the same radio club. Nick is doing more activating than I am these days in the UK, I am doing more chasing than Nick. I like operating from “unique to me” summits the best to get SOTA Completes these days within the EU. I finished England years ago, and GW and GM take a lot of getting to from where I live in NE England. Scotland is easier for me to reach by car then Wales due to traffic congestion in the motorways. I intend doing some activating when the weather is a little warmer, but the itch might get to great soon and I may leave the shack and head to GW or GM maybe. Like you I have helath issues, partial heart failure and a degree of prostate cancer which is being monitored, but these issues do not stop me, I just do less extreme stuff than I did 5-10 years ago! The drugs keep me going very well, but I feel the cold with the blood so thin due to the drugs.
Really good to see you are contemplating activating again. You were a top man on CW and Roy G4SSH (SK now) was your main fan of course! Just pace yourself if you do get back into it. As we say in UK at your level the CW “will be just like riding a bike” after not doing so for some years. I don’t thnk the core skill ever leaves you once you are in the 25-35 wpm category as you were OM. You are in a good location at Kempten for the DM/BW summits. I remember it well when you showed NIck @g4ooe and me your lithium LIFePo batteries. I came straight back to UK and sourced some for myself from a firm in London! The two 7AH batteries I bought then are still usable now, although I haven’t used them for SOTA since I went over to a KX2 then a KX3 as I only need to carry 4 amps of power now.
I was at Friedrichshafen last year, but I cannot make it in 2023. It is not so far from your QTH. I did a tour with GI4ONL Victor, and we activated plenty of summits in June in Germany and Czech Republic. Some were close to Kempten.
All the best, and thanks for coming on here and writing in English, all fully readable, no problem. We Brits are lazy when it comes to language. Sorry about the Brexit by the way, which happened since we first met. It was a terrible thing to happen for ham radio, cross-border travel, fraternal relations with our neighbours and trade. We are stuck with it now. I am just about to buy Michel Barnier’s Secret Diaries book. He is still my hero.
73 for now Klaus, I hope we can meet again like we did in June 2014 sometime, when SOTA brought us togther as friends.
Phil G4OBK
Picture of Klaus DF2GN and Nick G4OOE with LiFePo batteries:
Hi Heinz, thanks also for nice cw qso´s. that was a great time. yes, the wire antennas up to 20m high in trees was fun. a lot of dx-qso´s in sota. ,aybe we will qso this year again… greetings
Thank you dear Phil for the kind words. When I heard about roy g4ssh, it hit me hard. he was a very good friend to me. I also like to remember the time I met you and Nick. my problem at the moment is that i start from zero. i don’t have any equipment, cables or soldering iron. I no longer have the time or knowledge to build my own devices. but you’re right about the cw. it’s like riding a bicycle, i don’t see any problems with cw operation. The first thing is going to be to look at the market and see what transceivers and batteries there are. I will build my own antennas. the aim is cw and from time to time ssb. brexit was never an issue for me, because friendship among radio amateurs is more important and politics was never an issue for me. I have to laugh a little when I see the old pictures. thanks for that. extreme running training/ marathon is not necessarily healthy. I don’t see anything on my ribs in the pictures. Today I am probably 30kg more and I feel good. 73 klaus
(see comment on beer)
for working and looking after someone/family and doing this as well.
