From 1st January to 31st December 2017 Irish Radio Amateurs will be on air with nine special calls – EI11WAW through to EI99WAW. Each call will be associated with one of the counties making up the Wild Atlantic Way. Each call will have its own distinctive QSL card depicting a highlight of the county linked to the call.
On Friday the 3rd of February 2017, I worked two more of them in the space of an hour.
First up was EI88WAW on 20m cw. He was busy working a pile up of stations and operating split. The signal with me was pretty weak so there was no hope of getting through a large European pile up. After he returned from a break, he was operating simplex and I managed to get in for a quick contact. WAW #6 on cw.
Within the hour, I found EI66WAW on 80m cw.
One thing that has suprised me is just how difficult it is to work some of the counties on cw. I have seen EI66WAW spotted loads of times but on 20m, 30m & 40m, he was way too weak. On 80m in the late evening, the skip has lengthened and Co.Clare is in the skip zone.
This time around, EI66WAW was on about an hour before sunset so he was very easy to work.
Just two more to go now on cw....EI11WAW and EI55WAW. The cluster doesn't show that many cw spots for them so it might take a while.
More info about the Wild Atlantic Way award in this previous post.
