ILLW 2002

The K8E 2002 Team (left to right) Vince KA8FFM, Ange (XYL), Jerry K8CFY, Denny K9GIR, Mike N8MR and Lynette KC8NAH.

If you would like more information the Eagle Harbor Lighthouse and it's surrounding area, please see Eagle Harbor Links

Our primary callsign:

K8E

County:

Keweenaw

Grid Square:

EN57

Modes of Operation:

SSB, FM Voice Satellite

Bands of Operation:

80 – 10 Meters, 2 Meters

Antennas:

G5RV

40/15 Meter Dipole

80 Meter Dipole

Vertical for 2 Meters

Arrow antenna for UO-14

Whatever else we can get up in the air.

QSL via the bureau or direct to:

N8MR

14071 Fairway

Livonia, MI 48154-5227

U.S.A.

NOTE:

For all QSL and certificate requests, please send a self-addressed stamped #10 business-sized envelope (or larger). Our QSL cards are 4 1/8 inches x 5 7/8 inches (105mm x 150mm). They are larger than usual, but they're worth it!

Questions or comments: vtarnow@up.net

We want to once again thank George Hite, Peter Van Pelt and the Keweenaw Historical Society for allowing us to operate on the grounds of the Eagle Harbor Lighthouse. We also want to thank Denny K9GIR for being our lighthouse liaison and Vince KA8FFM and his XYL, Jerry K8CFY, Betty N8SIH and everyone else for allowing us to share this special event weekend with them.

We arrived at Eagle Harbor on Friday evening. The town looked just as we had remembered last year - sunny, warm, a slight breeze and quiet.

People were on the beach having fun and enjoying the summer. We asked the proprietor of the Shoreline Resort (center) what the weather was going to be like for the rest of the weekend. He said that there were forecasts of heavy rain into Saturday afternoon and very gusty winds through Sunday morning. Surely they were mistaken. Does this look like threatening weather?

The Saturday morning forecast turned out to be right. Heavy rain prevented us from setting up our operation. But that was not the biggest hindrance to us. After breakfast, the high winds had taken out a power line down the road, leaving the upper half of the Keweenaw Peninsula without electricity. At noon, the rain stopped and the clouds started to move out, but the high winds picked up.

The 30 MPH wind gusts made the station setup a challenge, but at least it wasn't raining. UP Power was known for its 2-hour repair time for the power and we wanted to be ready for it when it was restored. We quickly set up our operation in the usual position.

Just at the time we finished setting up the station, the power was restored and we hit the air.

The North American QSO Party SSB was in full swing and we were careful not to interfere with the contesters. Propagation was not doing well and the wind gusts had picked up to 40 MPH. After twenty hard fought contacts were logged, the power went out a second time.

But that was okay. We needed to regroup, secure our dipoles a little better and plan our strategy for the rest of the wind-battered weekend. Two hour later, right on cue, UP Power restored the electricity and we were off and running again.

Thirty contacts later, we were getting hungry and decided to break for supper. We left Vince and Jerry at the lighthouse while we walked south on North M26, toward the Shoreline.

As we arrived at the Shoreline, through wind gusts that were now up to 50 MPH, the ominous "CLOSED" sign in the window told us that the power had once again been disrupted. We were almost getting used to this situation, only this time we were hungry. We had to drive down M26 to the town of Mohawk in order to get to an area of the Keweenaw that had electricity.

On our way back to Eagle Harbor, we decided that the combination of high winds, power outages and poor propagation made the rest of Saturday's operation all but hopeless. When we arrived at the lighthouse, we found that the rest of our team was in full agreement. We decided to wait out the storm till Sunday.

Sunday morning was not quite as windy as Saturday and the forecasters all said that the high winds would diminish through the late morning. We had enough time to have breakfast and get up to the top of Brockway Mountain for a concurrent FM Satellite operation.

Brockway Mountain is about twenty minutes east of Eagle Harbor, close to the town of Copper Harbor. It offers great views of Eagle Harbor, Copper Harbor, Great Lakes freighters and, in the middle of August, two people calling themselves amateur radio satellite operators, waving a funny looking antenna at the sky and hurriedly blurting out strange letter/number combinations into a microphone. Brockway is in the Maidenhead Grid Square of EN67 and not many amateurs operate from there, let alone on satellite. We made the trip up the mountain three times throughout the weekend, making contacts with many happy grid square hunters during UO-14's fifteen-minute passes, using the callsign N8MR.

On our arrival back in Eagle Harbor, we found the rest of the crew ready to operate. The high wind brought down our 40/15 Meter dipole, but the rest of the dipoles, not unlike our spirits, remained fully intact. The North American QSO Party SSB, like the winds, had died down and the world was ready to hear K8E back on the air. The rest of the day went swimmingly. We had so many pileups on the HF bands that we didn't want to switch modes to CW or Slow Scan TV. To make up for the time we lost on Saturday, we extended our operation two hours past (and outside of) the official International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend in order to satisfy the steady pileups of lighthouse fans from across the globe.

In all, we contacted over 330 stations in twelve countries, many of which were lighthouses. We contacted many FM satellite operators handing out contacts from the semi-rare Maidenhead Grid Square of EN57.

Next year, we will return with the same special event callsign, K8E. Our goal is to contact more DX stations and get more CW operating, as well as the digital modes. We will also make several more trips to Brockway Mountain, for more satellite operating outside of the ILLW.