Goat On The Air

Almost immediately after I passed my amateur radio license test, I discovered the SOTA (Summits on the Air) program. The idea of challenging myself to win the highest reward, Mountain Goat, is appealing to me. I may want to attempt it. I need to keep activating peaks for the total of 1000 points which to my best estimates is going to take at least a decade. So here I'll be keeping my loose notes from the summits I activated.

If you prefer watching to reading, there is also a small YouTube channel "Goat On The Air" where I'll try and keep documenting each summit I climb for activation.

The trail is a straight line from the parking lot at 52.01173, -8.99523 all the way to the top. The climb is not difficult, but takes quite a lot of time. I think at least one hour. There are many friendly sheep along the way, and the views were beautiful in the evening. I set up my antenna and sat with the radio, leaning against a stone cairn close to the top. No trees anywhere on the summit, so it was a good idea to take the BuddiStick antenna on a tripod. I made a few contacts from there, and they were my first SOTA contacts ever. I stayed there until sunset, and didn't see anyone except for one person who looked like a farmer checking on his sheep.

All set up for transmitting.

When my back got stiff, I put the radio on the cairn and continued operating standing up.

It had already been past sunset when I was walking down.

Sheep continued to be everywhere along my drive back home.

Easy climb, walk rather. One can park at 52.100070, -8.426540. People go there for afternoon hikes, and there is a shabby Irish flag stuck in a pile of stones at the top. No problems making contacts from the top, cellular connectivity is also there for logging etc.

On the way up.

Antenna ready for transmitting.

The unimposing peak.

I parked at 52.234781, -9.841594, but it is not a great place to park. You leave your car by a narrow road, in a rather secluded area between two farmhouses. The peak is tougher than one might think when they google the images. First there is a long and tiring slow climb through ferns, then through the stony Derrymore River valley (just stick to the river's west bank, have the river within hearing distance), then walk around the 3 lakes on their west side. Only then the proper steeper climb starts towards the col between Baurtregaum and Caherconree, sometimes you need to use your hands to climb. Then from that pass the final flatter climb towards the Baurgregaum itself. I was walking that last part inside a cloud with very little visibility, using GPS to orient myself. There are a few stone circles at the top, I installed my antenna in one of them, and sat on a mat to do the transmission from the inside of the cold and moist cloud. I spotted myself on SOTAwatch and made contacts almost immediately. I hadn't been sparing my phone battery and then realized I could not use my powerbank because I took a wrong cable. Never make that mistake! I was lucky to have had my watch which tracked my trail -- I just followed the trail in reverse. Orientation on that mountain is not a problem... except when you're inside a cloud. I could see maybe up to 5 meters in any direction. I think the round trip was 5 hours or so, and sheep accompanied me everywhere.

On the way up.

View from the col.

Lakes as seen from even higher, just before I walked into the cloud.

Antenna on the peak. Everything moist from the cloud.

The walk down, albeit long, is much more relaxing.

There is a parking place at 52.123378, -8.843501. A rather uninteresting hill with ugly cell towers at the top. Really nothing to add here except mid-hike up the hill there is a car wreck by the trail. How did it get there? No clue. What is worse I operated in rain and everything got soaked. Lesson for future: take an umbrella or something similar if there is any chance for rain, to protect the gear while operating. Myself I was protected with proper rain gear but got soaked anyway. Anyway seems like IC-705 doesn't have problems working while a little wet. On the positive side, I made my first contact with a US station from that hill! And on SSB no less! It could have been thanks to a different antenna I took this time: the end-fed Chameleon. I stretched it from a trunk of a dead tree, sloping down to ground level. Very close to the cell phone towers, exactly in this spot.

Some stones on the way up. It wasn't raining then yet.

My antenna is in this picture! Yes that thin line.

The radio withstood the rain. You can't see it from here, but everything was soaked.

EI/NO-149
Points: 2
Height: 645 m
Antenna: Chameleon LEFS 8010 EFHW portable antenna 80-10m

Family outing! We parked in Gießhübl at 48.099693, 16.226045 and walked for about 1 h 45 min. It is an easy walk, it gets slightly steeper only in the last 15 mins. Beautiful cornflowers (Polish bławatki!) on the way, and equally beautiful butterflies which the AI tells me are called silver-washed fritillaries. The mountain lodge on the top (48.096182, 16.187614) has a folly tower from which I dropped my end-fed antenna. It was a Wednesday and either there was nobody in the building or nobody showed up. Apparently they open to customers from Thursdays onto the weekend. We were still able to get cold drinks by grabbing them from a fridge in the hallway and leaving money in a small basket which was there for that purpose. I imagine that on a weekend there would be many more hikers there, and throwing an antenna off the tower would cause nuisance to others. But with nobody around I was able to stretch the wire to one of the tables and operate from there. HF bands seemed closed and I barely made one SSB contact with an operator in Barcelona. So I resorted to FT8 which does not require good SNR or strong signal. Bad band conditions might have also been caused by my wire running very close to the mountain lodge wall. Anyway, on FT8 I made a few more contacts easily, with France, Italy, Montenegro among others, so the activation was successful.

The Polish name, rusiniec górski, sounds closer to the heart than the English one, silver-washed fritillary.

Cryptic way of marking directions on a rock: H shows the way to Höllenstein, G to Gießhübl.

Turns out the hiking trail is a part of "Via Slavorum" pilgrimage route from Rome to Kraków.

My daughter took this when I successfully operated Spain on SSB. Success!

A woodpecker was feasting here.

On a random tree.

Directions to the mountain lodge, the Höllensteinhaus, are hell themed. Because Höllenstein = hell stone.

9A/DH-160
Points: 1
Height: 237 m
Antenna: Chameleon LEFS 8010 EFHW portable antenna 80-10m

I "climbed" this summit during family vacation on Šolta island. "Climbed" is in quotes, because it's a short walk rather than any kind of climb. Really a 5 min walk from the parking spot by the cemetery at 43.360832, 16.348920. The top is covered with dwarf medditerranean pine trees, stones, and bushes. There is also a cross restored in 1992 (the year Yugoslavia broke apart into individual states, including Croatia), and two telecom towers. Since it was July, it was very hot there already around 7 am when I reached the summit. I managed to throw the antenna over a low branch without scratching more than one leg against the many low, dry bushes. Then I sat in a shadow and had to cool down before doing any radio work. FT8 was successful and so was SSB on 40m. I quickly made several QSOs with Poland, Hungary, Germany, Slovenia, including one contact with someone doing Fauna and Flora (it was the first time I heard about that program). All in all, an easy 1 point, but the heat became unbearable around 9-ish.

The route up the hill is also the Way of the Cross, with stations leading up from the church by the graveyard all the way to the cross on the top.

In addition to the cross, there are two communication towers on Vela Straža.

View from the top towards south east, on Gornje Selo and the Adriatic Sea.

This Chameleon antenna is sloping by design, but it wasn't really sloping in this case. I stretched it between two low branches. My priority was to sit in a shadow, because it was hot despite early hour.

Initially I planned to climb the mountain via a short and steep kath from 52.22196, -7.94140, but it had been raining all morning, and that path was covered with thick overgrowth, so I chose to use the long (but also steep) path from "The Vee", a picturesque mountain pass at 52.242255, -7.956065. That longer path involves first climbing Sugarloaf, and only then trekking towards Knockmealdown via a saddle; that latter trek is easy, the biggest difficulty is in the first stretch onto Sugarloaf. On the top, there is a concrete block of an OSI benchmark, and an old burial place of an eccentric who wanted to be buried there with his horse (or so I've read -- I could not locate the grave unless it was the heap of stones not far from OSI's marking block.

Black slug -- they can be often seen in wet terrain in Ireland, and even more frequently on mountain slopes.

The slopes of Sugarloaf and Knockmealdown are covered in beautiful heather.

Trail from Sugarloaf to Knockmealdown. The sky was only about to clear up.

The purplish tint is all heather -- plenty of it on Knockmealdown slopes.

View from the saddle between Sugarloaf and Knockmealdown, facing north.

Knockmealdown in person, with its steep northern cliff visible.

OSI benchmark on top of Knockmealdown.

Antenna set up with a view towards south.

Knockmealdown (left) and Knockmoylan as seen from the trail heading to Knocknafallia.

The activation was successful, but the hike turned out to be strenuous, and totally thanks to myself... I hiked from Knockmealdown which I activated on the same day, and after walking through countless peat bogs, I reached Knocknafallia whose top is pretty flat, and where one can shelter from the wind in a round cairn. That's where I set up my antenna and did the activation. Self-inflicted problems started later, because it seemed too boring to hike back using the same route, and I improvised my own way down from the hill. Instead of going north-east to where I came from, I went south, and it all went south from there. Not only did that decision cost me a long descent over unmarked trail, often through bogs and tall grass, but also resulted in me finally meeting the paved road as at 52.194455, -7.899266 which was far from where I parked! To reach my park, I practically had to go around the entire south-west of Knockmealdown mountain range. I tried to hitchhike but nobody stopped for a weird-looking person with antenna poles protruding from the backpack, all dressed in green. It was evening when I reached my car, and I did close to 22km on that day, and you know very well that 22km on flat surface does not equal 22km in the mountains. I was totally exhausted.

Cinnabar caterpillar; I've seen a few of them along the hike.

This is a view of Knockmealdown, from which I descended, taken from the path onto Knocknafallia.

Cairn on the top; otherwise the top is rather flat and boring.

Despite counterweights, I had to hold my antenna for it not to fall. So I had to put it up close to me, in the same cairn where I sheltered and operated.

At least my strenuous walk down was rewarded by the sympathetic look from sympathetic sheep.

From the parking lot at 52.2147782, -10.2921590 the trail is very clearly marked. What is more, the trail is at the same time the Way of the Cross with fourteen stations (the crosses are even marked and numbered in OpenStreetMap!), so the entire climbing is a matter of going from cross to cross, with the largest one on the summit. GSM coverage is good on the top. After climbing from the west, there is a dramatic and dangerous cliff on the eastern side, so careful there. Throughout my entire hike and at the top I was in a cloud, so I could not see the precepice in front of me when I operated the radio... but I knew it was there, and the feeling was uneasy. The activation was difficult as it was very windy, moist, and cold. I spent there a lot of time before anyone answered my call, and when they finally did answer, it was four stations one after another. I was all tired and wet when I started walking towards the second summit of the day, confusingly named Brandon Peak.

Near the parking lot.

The route is also the Way of the Cross with 14 stations.

Sheep are a part of Irish mountain landscape.

Crosses accompany hikers all the way to the top.

More crosses.

View towards the western end of Dingle penninsula.

Conditions on the top were not so great!

From Brandon Mountain I continued my hike to Brandon Peak. Almost all of it, including activation itself, in dense cloud. Only occasionally did I see the precarious cliffs on the eastern side (to my left). Activation-wise things were good, I made 8 contacts, but as far as hike enjoyment goes, it was very limited because I could not see further than a few meters. At least it wasn't as wet on Brandon Peak as it was on Brandon Mountain.

Most of the hike looked like this. I've heard the views from there are breathtaking... just not on that Saturday.

From time to time the eastern cliff showed its teeth.

My operating station on the top.

EI/IS-015
Points: 10
Height: 773 m
Antenna: Improvised antenna made of the counterpoise wire (due to the main antenna being unusable)

The plan was to hike the entire Mullaghanattin Horseshoe walk, i.e. start from the parking spot by the junction at 51.910715, -9.821005, walk around the entire valley colloquially known as The Pocket, activating both Mullaghanattin and Beann, and come back to the car from the other side. The plan worked only partially, and that's due to the fact that I lost half of my Buddipole antenna somewhere on the way. It must have disengaged from my backpack, and I realized that it was missing only after reaching the first summit, Mullaghanattin. I was exhausted and disappointed, and I was sure I wouldn't have been able to activate the summit. The 2- or 3-hour hike seemed in vain. But then I rested a little, started breathing, and started thinking about the items I had with me which could potentially have been used as an improvised antenna. I ended up using the Buddypole's counterpoise wire as the active element, stretching it a few feet above ground, and connecting to the trig benchmark on one side, and directly to the tuner (with no feed cable) in my backpack on the other. Mechanically the whole structure was very feeble; I had to somehow structurally ensure that the tiny wire does not slip out of the BNC center hole, and yet is tensioned and withstands very strong gusts of wind that were there at the top of Mullaghanattin. I did not connect anything to the BNC's ground. With this extremely primitive antenna I was able to make 6 contacts, including with people doing lighthouses on the air in Normandy! How cool is that! However, because all this took me a lot of time, and I was exhausted, I did not go to activate Beann. Activating Mullaghanattin with this ad-hoc antenna was a huge success for me already. Instead of doing the horseshoe, I went back the same way. Also, this is the first SOTA activation on which I took my DSLR; it added a lot of weight, but allowed me to take much better pictures of some of the fabulous views there are on that trail.

The "parking lot" visible from the slope of An Cnoc Riabhath.

Heather flowers. I thought this spieces was one belonging to the so called lusitanian flora, but it turned out to be common heather.

Skellig islands are visible from Mullaghanattin.

With a strong telephoto lens, the cross on Carrantoohil, Ireland's highest mountain, is visible.

Stumpa Dúloigh, the highest peak of Dunkerron Mountains.

Another view of MacGillycuddy's Reeks.

View from the slope of Mullaghanattin towards the north.

View from the trail towards east and Kenmare town (which is behind these peaks).

The valley surrounded by the horseshoe-shaped ridge is locally known as "The Pocket".

Mullaghanattin itself. Trig benchmark and steep northern cliff visible.

EI/IS-006
Points: 10 (total points: 85)
Antenna: Chameleon LEFS 8010 EFHW portable antenna 80-10m

The hike from the parking place at 52.006822, -9.480356 is not a difficult one, and the trail is obvious with no risk of losing your way even in mist. There is a lot of fern, tall heather and gorse along the first part of the trail, but the path itself is not overgrown. If anything, one nuisance is the millions of tiny, biting flies, but these are fewer and fewer as one progresses further up the hill and away from the small Finoulagh river. Regarding fauna, the area is a natural habitat for two spiecies of deer, the red deer and sika deer. Two of the sika deer followed me soon after I set off, and I was able to take a snap with my DSLR. Later I learnt from an acquiantance in Killarney that they are pretty common there, and are not much afraid of people.

The well-defined trail is punctuated with cairns and shapes made of stones. I was there early, and I walked the entire trail without meeting a single person.

The sky was overcast and Mangerton was hiding in one big cloud. I had already come to terms with the fact that I'd be activating the summit inside a cloud, and I had done that before. I was fine with the lack of visibility, but wasn't looking forward to all the moisture on my radio and everything else. The weather wasn't improving as I was climbing. When I reached Devil's Punchbowl, it didn't look at all the gorgeous way Google had shown me when I was researching the hike -- it was grey and dull.

The last part of the hike, from Devil's Punchbowl to the summit, is the steepest, but I wasn't bothered by that. What bothered me were the peat hags on the summit. Mangerton's top is a large flat area, and peat hags from the Devil's Punchbowl side succesfully prevent people from actually reaching the summit: most hikers content themselves with the view from the trail onto the lakes and Killarney, and then continue around Devil's Punchbowl. I, however, did want to reach the summit, so I first ventured onto the grassy area through the peats, but backed off quickly after the ground got softer and softer. Then, back from the trail, I walked further along the ridge and around that boggy area, on slightly drier grass and stone. Again there was a lot of grass closer to summit, but ultimately I made it. If it wasn't for the trig benchmark, I wouldn't have known where the summit was.

The trig point has an old and rusty vertical pipe attached to it. I don't know the original purpose of that pipe, but several earlier activators suggested using it as an antenna mast. That was my plan, but it didn't work, as it was too windy. I was unable to toss a rope over the bent part of the pipe, or to loop it using my lightweight sticks from my (now broken) Buddystick antenna. So I ended up stuffing the sticks into the opening in the trig point, and attaching my EFHW antenna to this improvised mast. The other side of the antenna was attached to a stone on the ground. It didn't look great, and it was not set up as this antenna was supposed to be set up, but it worked. The moment I turned the radio on and heard very clear transmissions from others I knew mine would have been heard too. And indeed I made several contacts pretty fast. After several summit activations I am starting to notice that it is usually roughly the same group of chasers that find me... I'm starting to feel at home the moment I hear their call signs!

As I was working the stations, the weather started improving and even sun came out! Since I was on top of a mountain, the clouds were being blown onto the peak and down from it, and it made for a very dramatic spectacle. I had something to eat and felt great watching it! Then the weather improved even more, and I was finally able to admire all the views Google was telling me about on my way back.

You've been warned.

Gorse in between heather and ferns. The morning was misty and grey, but the flora on that hike added a lot of beautiful color.

Two sika deer were following me for a bit. Beautiful creatures.

Solitary rowan tree.

It was cloudy both above and below me.

Peat hags on the expansive flat top of Mangerton. Both beautiful and difficult to walk around.

I hoped to attach the antenna to the existing old metal pipe, but was unable to do that due to wind. I ended up sticking my old Buddystick's legs into the hole in the trig point, and improvising a mast.

Flat Mangerton top as seen from Devil's Punchbowl. There are people in this picture which gives an idea of the scale.

The dull version of Devil's Punchbowl as I was climbing up, and...

...the spectacular one as I was walking down.

View from the ridge between Lough Erhogh and Devil's Punchbowl towards south.

Mangerton's cliff over Devil's Punchbowl. Humans for scale.

When the sun comes out, butterflies come out too.

MacGillycaddy's Reeks as seen from the Mangerton trail.

After activation I went to Killarney to have lunch, and to confirm what I had read about Mangerton being visible from the town's main street.

And this is how Mangerton sees Killarney.

EI/IS-020
Points: 10 (total points: 95)
Antenna: Chameleon LEFS 8010 EFHW portable antenna 80-10m

Some say driving on Priest's Leap pass is dangerous, but it isn't. One needs to pay attention, because the road is narrow and may require reversing to allow opposite traffic to pass, but there's no danger. The steepness, ups and downs, steep turns, and expansive views into the valley may create the illusion of somewhat of roller coaster-like ride, but the car is in no danger of accident at any point, at least no more than on any narrow road. I was there early morning and the biggest obstacle for me were the dozens of sheep I woke up from their slumber in the middle of the road.

The parking spot is close to the high point of the pass, at 51.793446, -9.471237. There is a stone there with an inscription commemorating the legend of a giant leap a certain priest running from hunters made on his horse from here. Apparently he reached as far as Bantry with that single leap.

To start the hike, one needs to walk over a stile. Then I just stuck to the fence until it turned sharply left. At that point I went north-east to reach the Lough Boy and cross the little stream at 51.796729, -9.460481. From there I climbed along the fence again and reach the summit before I wsa even properly warmed up. It is quite a short and straightforward hike really for 10 points, mostly because of the high elevation of the starting point at Priest's Leap. The entire hike up, and the entire time I was on the summit, I was in thick mist.

Knockboy is geographically interesting because it sits at the border between County Cork and County Kerry. Interestingly, it is also the highest point of County Cork. The views from the peak are supposed to be marvellous, but I did not get to experience them -- again today I was operating inside of a cloud.

The radio work was uneventful and I made several QSOs quickly, upping my total points to 95. I was working with my EFHW suspended between a fence and... a mast with a Meshtastic router on it. Yes, radio people were there, and installed a permanent mast with a LoRA device on it. The solar-powered meshtastic router must be acting as a repeater between two or more Meshtastic stations. I need to find out who installed it and how successful they were with the project, especially range-wise! Additionally I noticed a SOTA sticker on the mast. So the meshtastic router might have been installed by SOTA people. Interesting.

On the way back the sky cleared a little, and also I walked out of the cloud above me. I could finally see the Bantry bay and the surrounding mountains. All in all, a rather uneventful activation, with the only surprise being the LoRA equipment found on the top.