A great day to be in the Mourne Mountains in Co Down, great weather, great views and some QSOs at the top!!
The assent took one and three-quarter hours and the descent one and a half hours, a round trip of about 4.9 miles according to the iPhone app, if you can believe them.
The summit was quickly activated with five QSOs in FM mode, after which I tried SSB, although with zero sunspots over the last two days I was not hopeful, however a good contact was made on 20m to Slovenia on just 5 watts using the FT-817ND
The photographs are by Rennie Gribbin, a gifted photographer, I told him he takes better photographs than my iPhone
Thanks Ian, the 817 setup was simple, just the BandSpringer antenna, I was pleased at getting Slovenia on 2.5 watts, but the HF bands generally weren’t good.
You’re like me - you should be looking at the scenery more whilst activating! The number of times I’ve caught myself engrossed in the radio with my back to the fantastic view!
Out of interest what is the handheld, and the antenna?
The handheld is an old Kenwood, which really didn’t work in this environment, it just made a good photograph! I used. FT-817ND and 2M coax antenna from Sotabeams. For HF I used the band springer also from Sotabeams.