EI4LCR: Wild Atlantic Way

The Wild Atlantic Way

The Wild Atlantic Way is a 2,500 Km route winding its way through the 9 counties on the Western Seaboard of Ireland. Along the route there are scenic areas, Towns and Villages, each with their own distinctive character.

Wild Atlantic Way QSL Cards

EI11WAW
EI22WAW
EI33WAW
EI44WAW
EI55WAW
EI66WAW
EI77WAW
EI88WAW
EI99WAW

LRC Wild Atlantic Way Awards

Award 1
Award 2
EI11WAW
EI22WAW
EI33WAW
EI44WAW
EI55WAW
EI66WAW
EI77WAW
EI88WAW
EI99WAW
EI3KE
EI8GS
EI5KF
EI6AL
WAW Award Banner

Echo Ireland December 2016

Echo Ireland The Wild Atlantic Way (WAW) is a tourist route that runs from Donegal to Cork along the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Following many years of effective marketing it is now well known internationally.

Next year will see the launch of a project initiated by the Limerick Radio Club and now taken up by seven clubs covering the west coast of Ireland from Donegal to Cork. The project involves nine special callsigns, from EI11WAW through to EI99WAW, issued by Comreg to the IRTS. Each callsign represents a county on the route. They go on air on 1st January and continue until midnight 31st December 2017 on all bands and modes.

To ensure there is never a situation where two operators are using the same mode on the same band at the same time, each callsign has its own co-ordinator in place, who will issue slots to operators wishing to use the callsign, and who will give full information on log-keeping requirements etc. All callsigns are available to all EI licensed operators, but only following prior agreement with individual coordinators.

Contact waw - irts if you would like to use any of these callsigns. Your request will go to all coordinators who will than contact you to agree a suitable slot. Please indicate if you have a specific band or mode you would like to use. If you have a specific callsign you would like to use, then you can make direct contact with the appropriate coordinator.

The clubs along the WAW will have a pool of operators they can call from within their membership. However, it will take many more to keep these callsigns active on all bands and modes throughout the year. We hope that individuals throughout EI will get involved to keep these callsigns alive. You can book regular slots, occasional slots - whatever suits you. It will be an opportunity to go on air with an unusual callsign, and if you wish you can generate a pile-up and practice your operating skills. These callsigns will generate a lot of interest worldwide as not only will they be sought by the prefix hunters, but there is also an award for operating all nine callsigns.

Regular updates will be published in the EI News and in Echo Ireland on the progress of these callsigns and the number of QSOs generated. You can therefore see the callsigns that are not as active as those at the top and maybe offer your help to up the numbers. It is also hoped that clubs that are not on the WAW list will get involved - they can either book a callsign or callsigns for individual members or a block booking for a day or weekend to run their own internal club competition. Requests for block bookings would need to be made well in advance to ensure availability. It should be noted that special callsigns are not generally permissible in competitions worldwide, so they should not be used for contest purposes.

The WAW project is a major initiative, and one that should put EI firmly on the map throughout 2017. We hope that well in excess of one hundred thousand QSOs will be generated in the full year, with a very large volume of QSL cards going out worldwide. Its success ultimately depends on keeping the callsigns on air as often as possible, on as many bands and on as many modes as we can. That's where you can help - a quick email to waw.irts.ie will get you on the volunteer list, then it's up to us all to light up the clusters.

The Limerick Radio Club wishes to acknowledge the support given by the IRTS committee to the project. IRTS has purchased the nine WAW call sign licences and has also incentivised the clubs to partially recoup the cost of printing each county's QSLs, by offering €100 when five thousand QSOs have been confirmed on that particular callsign.

The support of the seven clubs directly involved is greatly appreciated, Donegal (Carndonagh Radio Club), Leitrim and Sligo (ShannonBasin Radio Club), Mayo (Mayo Experimenters Radio Network), Galway (Galway Radio Experimenters Network), Clare and Limerick (Limerick Radio Club), Kerry (Kerry Amateur Radio Group) and Cork (Cork Radio Club).

We appreciate the generous donation from the Wild Atlantic Way office in Galway to help defray the cost of printing 40,000 QSL cards and to Clare Tourism for covering the total cost of the 10,000 Clare QSL cards.

We extend our grateful thanks to Colin and Shane Michael O'Neill, nephews of Alan EI8EM, who gave generously of their time in preparing the photos, logos and text for the printer, D2 Print, Ennis.

It is felt that the sequence of nine QSL Ccards will be much sought after, so it is expected that the QSL Manager, Dave EI6AL, will be a busy man during 2017. Dave has been immense in his support and guidance on the project.

www.irts.ie/waw

Taken from page 23 on Echo Ireland, December 2016 and written by Simon Kenny E17ALB.

WAW Radio Clubs

Call	County	Club
EI11WAW	Donegal	Carndonagh Amateur Radio Club
EI22WAW	Leitrim	Shannon Basin Radio Club
EI33WAW	Sligo	Shannon Basin Radio Club
EI44WAW	Mayo	Mayo Radio Experimenters Network
EI55WAW	Galway	Galway Radio Experimenters Club
EI66WAW	Clare	Limerick Radio Club
EI77WAW	Limerick	Limerick Radio Club
EI88WAW	Kerry	Kerry Amateur Radio Group
EI99WAW	Cork	Cork Radio Club

WAW Callsign Coordinators

Call	County	Coordinators	Call
EI11WAW	Donegal	Peter Homer	EI4JR
EI22WAW	Leitrim	Brian Canning	EI8IU
EI33WAW	Sligo	Tony Casey	EI3HA
EI44WAW	Mayo	Padraic Baynes	EI9JA
EI55WAW	Galway	Ciaran McCarthy	EI8IH
EI66WAW	Clare	Alan Cronin	EI8EM
EI77WAW	Limerick	Ronan Daly	EI4KN
EI88WAW	Kerry	John Costello	EI9ESB
EI99WAW	Cork	Dave Moore	EI4BZ

Wild Atlantic Way Stats

Total Stats 2017: January 1st - December 31st

Total certificates sent for working all 9 stations = TBC
Total QSL cards processed = TBC
Total QSO = 158,499

EI11WAW = 19,167
EI22WAW = 15,773
EI33WAW = 15,490
EI44WAW = 14,324
EI55WAW = 13,865
EI66WAW = 25,106
EI77WAW = 15,224
EI88WAW = 15,835
EI99WAW = 23,715

Clare FM Podcast: April 20th 2018

The Wild Atlantic Way is being promoted overseas through a unique initiative involving HAM radio enthusiasts. Simon E17ALB and Alan EI8EM joined Gavin Grace live in studio to chat about the project.