EI0EL

The third full weekend of August has become the regular date for the International Weekend for Lighthouses. Countries all over the world have become involved in lighthouse activations on HF. A few years ago the United States Congress declared the 7th of August as their National Lighthouse Day and during the event amateur radio operators in America set up portable stations at lighthouses and contact each other. Their objective is to encourage Lighthouse managers, the keepers and owners to open their lighthouse or lightstation and associated visitors centres to the public, thus raising the profile of lighthouses, light vessels and other navigational aids, and preserving their maritime heritage. This event is known as the US National Lighthouse Week. In Britain the Association of Lighthouse Keepers, ALK, conducts their International Lighthouse Heritage Weekend on the same August weekend as the ILLW. It came into being in 1998 as the Scottish Northern Lights Award run by the Ayr Amateur Ra

We continued the travelling nature of the station and transmitted from Kippure in the Dublin Wicklow Mountains, Grid IO63ue, SOTA Summit Reference EI/IE-005. Arriving at the base of the summit about 8:45am we re-checked our gear was securely packed and made out way to the top. The weather was dry and overcast. It was pretty windy at the summit so we set the station up in a suitable location and improvised a shelter with a tarp in a effort to limit the wind noise. This also helped with sheltering the stove while brewing the all important coffee. Members of the Dublin Wicklow Mountain Rescue team who were on routine patrol in the area dropped by for a chat and showed great interest in what we doing. We're not sure but it might have been the smell of freshly brewed coffee and chocolate biscuits that piqued their interest. The club would like to thank all callers but especially SWL's and those who get out and operated mobile to call in to the service. A rough map of todays call in