EI/IE-061 – Tory Hill

EI/IE-061 – Tory Hill

06/11/2018

Another wet and windy day (3^rd EI activation)

Another dismal day so we decided to go down to Waterford to look around and have some lunch. It wasn’t very pleasant to walk around the town as the rain was being blown by a very strong wind. We visited the Waterford Crystal shop  https://www.waterford.co.uk  and enjoyed the amazing craftsmanship that was on show and the items that were available to buy…no purchases made £££.

 Churchill Downs 2006 and Ryder Cup 2008

Irish Open - Memorial Trophy

Time was moving on so we decided to head back towards Knocktopher but taking in the car park for Tory Hill for future reference.  As we approached the car park the rain stopped and it looked a lot brighter with very little wind…we decided to head for the summit.

Information board at he parking spot

It was good to be back on a traditional SOTA activation i.e having a nice walk to the summit. We put on our wet weather gear and headed upwards on a forest road, leaving this after about 15 minutes and diverting on to a small path. I’ve loaded up my GPS track on to the SOTA Mapping site.

On our way... 1.6 km to the summit

Summit in sight

We were glad of the protection given by the circular wall that surrounded a large cross as the rain had now returned.

Antenna up and ready to activate from inside the circular wall.

As soon as my spot hit Sotawatch I qualified the summit easily with good signal reports all round…thanks everyone.

15:16z	G3RMD	5MHz	SSB	Frank
15:17z	G0RQL	5MHz	SSB	Don
15:18z	G8ADD	5MHz	SSB	Brian
15:20z	G4OBK	5MHz	SSB	Phil
15:20z	M0JLA	5MHz	SSB	Rod
15:21z	EI3GYB	5MHz	SSB	Michael
15:22z	M0BKV	5MHz	SSB	Damian
15:23z	G6LKB	5MHz	SSB	David
15:24z	G4OOE	5MHz	SSB	Nick
15:24z	M0TMD	5MHz	SSB	Helen
15:25z	EA2LU	5MHz	SSB	Jorge

 Wet weather gear was the order of the day

and

Umbrellas

A quick visit to 80m brought in a few new chasers . Even though we were protected by the wall it was getting rather chilly and the wind was once again beginning to blow quite strongly….time to pack up.

15:36z	G3RMD	3.5MHz	SSB	Frank
15:36z	G0RQL	3.5MHz	SSB	Don
15:39z	EI3GYB	3.5MHz	SSB	Michael
15:39z	GI4TAJ	3.5MHz	SSB	Joe
15:40z	MI0RTY	3.5MHz	SSB	Martin
15:41z	G4KRN	3.5MHz	SSB	Alan

Another band of rain approaches

Rain again

Happy but wet VPX after successful activation

It was rather a wet and windy descent and the nice cup of warm coffee back at the car was welcomed. I gave a call out for Don GW0PLP on the repeater network which I’d programmed into the hand held…no joy but had a nice QSO with Hugh EI2HI…the linked repeater network really works well and covers a wide area in SE Ireland and beyond hence my trying to get hold of Don. 

Coffee finished then along comes the farmer with his dogs…10 minutes of cross examination ending with “Make sure to come back and visit us”…wonderful.

My activation set-up

HF) Elecraft KX2 (10 watts) and 4Ah LiPo

Antenna - 3 band link dipole (60/40/20 (+15m extensions +80m loading coils)

Antenna support - 7m Fishing pole.

Thanks everyone for the contacts

73 Allan GW4VPX

EI/G4VPX/p in Ireland