ILLW 2004

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:

CW, SSB, FM Voice Satellite

Bands of Operation:

80 – 20 Meters, 2 Meters, 436 MHz

Antennas:

Vertical for 40/20 Meters

Long dipoles for other HF bands

Arrow antenna for SO-50

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: n8mr@hotmail.com

We want to thank George Hite, Dave Thomas 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, and everyone else for allowing us to share this special event weekend with them.

Once again we converged on Eagle Harbor for our annual International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend. This time, on our way up, we stopped along the way to attempt some FM satellite contacts in semi-rare grid squares. Nothing was heard from AO-27 but telemetry and AO-51, being a newly-launched satellite, was far too crowded with people trying to get their fill of the new FM sat. Maybe we'll get lucky on the way down.

This trip seemed to go by quicker than usual, and before we knew it, we were passing by the world famous Snow Thermometer.

We passed Holy Transfiguration Skete - Society of St John, home of the Jampot. One of these years, we're going to have to tour this place and take home a jar of their Thimbleberry jam. But as we traversed further up North M-26, we detected that the winds had picked up considerably.

Bending trees and white caps on Lake Superior told us that we would not be greeted by the same perfect weather we had for the ILLW last year. We also noticed one other thing; relatively few people at the beaches.

But despite the ominous forecasts, a breezy Eagle Harbor greeted us with sunshine.

We arrived at the hotel and unpacked without having to avoid tripping people with our baggage - nobody on this beach either. Maybe the 65 degree weather and strong winds blew the less-hearty tourists out of the Keweenaw peninsula. With wind gusts of over 40 MPH, this was considerably different weather than we had in Houghton, just a 30-minute drive south of here. It sure was nice to see Vince, Ange and Denny again. But where was Jerry and Betty?

A quick check of the lighthouse revealed that someone had already strung up ropes for us. The U.S. Coast Guard had an officer on call specifically for us and our use of the lighthouse tower. The Keweenaw Historical Society no longer owned a key to the tower and any work that we needed to do on or in the tower had to be performed by this U.S.C.G. officer. He placed two ropes around the rails of the tower. They weren't in the places we really wanted them to be, but they were placed good enough for one weekend.

In the morning, the winds had died down and the sky remained clear. We planned our antenna placement and assessed the modes of operation we had planned on using. One thing was for sure; as far as I was concerned, we only had one FM satellite to work with - SO-50. That would leave more time for me to operate HF.

Vince brought an extra-long dipole that tuned up nicely on 80, 40 and 20 Meters. It was fed with approximately 30 feet of 400-ohm ladder line, which terminated into a remote balun. We connected one end of the dipole to the lighthouse tower - in keeping with our tradition - and the other to a rope tied off to a fence at the far southern side of the property. Once in position, the dipole wasn't very high off the ground, but it looked long enough to be effective.

Vince retrofitted the vertical we used last year with a different tophat configuration. He replaced the "salad bowl" with a tophat consisting of five wires - one being vertical and the other four sticking out horizontally from the base of the vertical portion. The antenna was placed in its usual stand - a manhole cover close to the water. Several more radials were added to the bottom of the vertical - more than we had last year. With everything in place, and temperatures climbing to above 73 F, we were ready to go.

About a dozen contacts into the event, the end of the dipole attached to the lighthouse tower broke loose from the end insulator and dropped to the ground. With the lighthouse tower being locked, the key with the U.S. Coast Guard officer who was enjoying his weekend in Calumet, we had to think fast. With a little ham radio ingenuity, a dose of luck and a loose, unused rope around the railing, we had the antenna secured and back up in about 30 minutes. We were back on the air.

It was nice to see Cecil, WE8D, show up to supervise our operation with Denny, K9GIR. Cecil demonstrated a few nifty gadgets with him, including a portable, telescoping mast that expanded to over 30 feet in length. But where were our other operators, Jerry and Betty?

As the FM satellite, SO-50, passed over us, I was quick to assemble the necessary equipment and contact several stations wanting to have a QSO with us in grid square EN57.

As I waved the dual-band Arrow antenna around, adjusting for the motions of SO-50, the Keweenaw Star of Keweenaw Excursions sailed past Eagle Harbor Lighthouse. The excursioners probably felt safer on board the ship than they would have where I was standing.

HF band conditions fluctuated wildly. Signal strengths rose and dropped - sometimes dropping out entirely. At times, the bands would be silent for 30 minutes at a time. This gave us all opportunities to take breaks. Vince discovered a steady pulsing noise like that of a data carrier on some of the bands. This noise was most evident within the lighthouse complex and was S-7 on 40 Meters. We hoped the noise would be a temporary setback, as 40 Meters was traditionally one of our most reliable bands.

In the mean time, weather forecasters predicted rain during the night and into Sunday. As evening descended upon us, we packed up the most important of our equipment and retired for the evening.

We awoke Sunday morning to the sound of pouring rain. Gone were the clear skies, and the clouds would stay with us till Monday morning. We started re-assembling the station at 15:30 UTC and quickly found that the data noise that had plagued us on Saturday was gone! 40 Meters was quiet, except for the sounds of fellow amateurs, some of whom were no doubt looking for lighthouse stations to work.

45 minutes later, the data noise returned, only this time, Vince detected it all over the village of Eagle Harbor. We had to battle the noise by listening for the strongest of signals, hoping that they would not fade into the noise. We pressed on, operating on both 20 and 40 Meters. This is where all the training as a weak-signal DXer living in the city pays off.

At approximately 20:00 UTC, the winds shifted, now blowing from the north and the temperature began to plummet. The wind gusts began to increase as the bands began to yield fewer workable stations. We had one operator at the station as the rest of us kept warm by packing up the unused equipment.

By 2359 UTC, our QSO rate was such that it made no sense to continue. Winds were once again gusting well into the 40 MPH range. Packing up the last of our gear, we bid adieux to Eagle Harbor Lighthouse as the sound of the buoy bells rang out yet another successful year of our International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend.