Slievemore, GI/SM-021 - 314m ASL - H 593 615 - OSNI Discoverer 18 - 1 SOTA point            

GI SOTA Trip - Activation #1 - Slievemore GI/SM-021 - Monday 30th May 2016

The pattern of limited sleep time started just before this SOTA trip. We were booked on the Birkenhead-Belfast ferry for the Sunday morning, but I had a gig on the Saturday night with Darren Day at Alvaston Hall in Nantwich, fortunately only 45 minutes drive from Macclesfield.  So the alarm went off, seemingly, all too early on the morning of Sunday 29th May 2016, but I couldn't roll over and ignore it. We had a 50 mile drive to Birkenhead for the ferry, and needed to be on the road by 7.45am.

Safely on board the Mersey Lagan, it was time to relax with a nice breakfast.  The daytime crossing was boring and tedious at 8 hours, but at least calm and smooth. We stayed with Jimmy's grandad in Larne that night.  We agreed a 5am get-up for Monday 30th May 2016, and got on the road out to the South-West of Northern Ireland - if that makes sense. It would turn out that the holiday would take us through all six counties of Northern Ireland - Antrim, Down, Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry, and 8 of the 9 of Ulster, adding in Monaghan and Donegal.

The main objectives of the holiday were:

1) Activate all 9 SOTA summits in the GI/SW (South West) region. 2) Activate a further 8 SOTA summits in the GI/SM (Sperrin Mountains) region. 3) Activate one EI summit (in order to claim that Association for Mountain Hunter) 4) Drink Guinness.

As usual, Jimmy M0HGY had done all the planning and alerting, and I just followed his directions and instructions each day, although I did have some input to the final day to add in summits we'd dropped from previous days.

From Larne, we returned to Belfast via the A8 and M2, before taking the M1 westbound. A shiny new looking service station was serving up Ulster Fries, so that was breakfast taken care of. After Dungannon, we continued on the A4, A5 and minor roads around to the west of the summit. There was enough space to pull the car onto rough ground adjacent to gate, from where we started the relatively short walk.

The paths were very rough, boggy and indistinct in places, but you could just about follow them as they looped around to the right and up onto the summit. The usual for this holiday was Jimmy MI0HGY/P starting on 2m FM and me (Tom MI1EYP/P) on 40m CW. If other band/mode combinations were required, we could address that later.

It was an unremarkable 4 QSOs on 40m CW for me, but pleasing that all were into G-land, indicating that 40m SSB would be a good insurance for Jimmy if needed. He didn't, he made four QSOs all 2m FM. We decided to pack up up and press on with our ambitious schedule. Next on the agenda was Slieve Beagh GI/SW-004.