This was our sixth ILLW year in a row and the longest we've spent in the area. We usually drive up the Friday before ILLW, set up Saturday morning, operate the rest of the day and most of Sunday. On Sunday at around 2000UTC, we usually QRT and take down the station, making the long drive back home on Monday.  This year, we decided to spend the entire week in the Keweenaw, determined to see what we've only been driving past in the previous five years. Despite some setbacks, a-la some auroral activity, we had the usual, wonderful time.

This year, for the first time ever, we installed our radio in the car to try to operate from some of the many lighthouses in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. To start things off, we discovered that St Helena Lighthouse was viewable from a roadside park in Gros Cap, along Highway 2, just west of St Ignace. Not hearing much activity on 40 Meters, we tuned up on 20 Meters and called CQ Lighthouse. After about 15 minutes of CQing, we finally started making contacts. A good stream of stations was beginning to form...then nothing. Discovering that we'd spent an hour at the park and only had about a dozen QSOs to show for it, we decided to move on to our real destination.

You know you're getting close to Eagle Harbor when you pass the Last Place On Earth - an antiques store on M-26. Fire risk signs along M-26 north of Calumet showed the level was "HIGH." From Calumet southward, fire risk was low to moderate. Those copper-filled mountains kept the much-needed rains from reaching the areas close to the north shore. Earlier in the week, a forest fire in the Keweenaw Point burned well over a hundred acres of forest. It was dry, and the grass around the lighthouse and residences showed it.

This year, as members of the Keweenaw County Historical Society, we were allowed to rent the brown cottage that used to be one of the lighthouse keeper's residences, and before that, one of the residences at the radio beacon station that used to be on the grounds of the life saving station, across the harbor from the lighthouse.

The one thing that was truly disappointing about our return to Eagle Harbor Lighthouse was the news that 3.5 panels of the light tower were obscured by black covers. Apparently one of the locals complained to the US Coast Guard about the annoying light flashing at night (what else do you expect from a lighthouse). The USCG owns and operates the tower portion of the lighthouse and, for reasons unknown to the rest of the community, they installed the panels, which now allows the light to only be seen from Lake Superior. Compare the photos above and below with ones from previous years. 

This photo was taken across the harbor, as far into the Lake as one can safely step (on the rocks) and was the best-timed out of many photos which I took at the time. So people can no longer park at the life saving station at dusk and watch the light sweep the harbor. This, literally, is as good as it gets!

On Saturday morning, we assembled the main station and quickly set up the vertical antenna. This year, we placed it on an outcropping of rocks, rather than the usual plateau to the left and below the antenna in the picture above. This proved to be a good spot, and this year, we needed all of the signal strength we could get.

The equipment used for ILLW was a Yaesu FT-920, Heathkit SB-200 amp and a hefty antenna tuner. We also set up a dipole meant for 80 Meters, but for some reason, we could not get it to tune up properly this year. This was not a problem, as the vertical proved once again to be a formidable player on the main bands of 20 and 40 Meters.

Despite the beautiful weather, we had terrible propagation. Operating was a struggle all week long, as the signals we heard seemed to fade in and out. Even so, we managed to contact ZL6LH, at Manukau Heads Lighthouse in New Zealand - our first ever ZL QSO. However, the QSO count was 157 for the weekend - about half the usual number. This really must be the bottom of the solar cycle.

On Sunday, after the ILLW, Vince and Ange were nice enough to leave behind the vertical which brought us the bulk of our QSOs, and the dipole. We used both during the week to activate the Eagle Harbor Lights, making up for lost QSOs over the weekend.

We used the Yaesu FT-100D and MFJ-949E that we used for our mobile HF operating. It was surprising how many people we contacted from the lighthouse during the week following ILLW. The total number of contacts we made from Eagle Harbor for the week was 281.

But we did not limit ourselves to operating all week long. We took the opportunity to see some of the sights that we had only heard about and saw briefly while passing in the car in previous years. We were able to stop and walk around in places like Calumet, which has more churches in it than any other small town that I've seen.

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Calumet also has the distinction of having strict laws against spitting on the sidewalks. They take the law seriously enough to imprint the warnings into the concrete.

We also took in Houghton, Hancock and Lake Linden, all interesting towns. We also explored the areas around the lighthouses we activated. With propagation being bad, we packed in as much sight seeing as we could each day.

The Delaware mine visit was the first we'd ever been to. They allow pets into the mine, and Sal found the 45-degree temperatures quite pleasing. In the main office of the Delaware Mine, the owners had two pet skunks (with scent glands removed), which they kept in separate cat crates. 

Ruin from the long-gone mining industry were everywhere. It is hard to imagine that such a clean and seemingly pristine environment was once bustling with copper mines. Many of the lighthouses around the Keweenaw were set up at harbors that saw a lot of shipping and railroad activity.

These days, the industrial ports, such as Eagle Harbor are now quiet, reflective places and the once smoky train stations like the one in Mineral Range/DSS&A in Calumet are silent. There are no railroads in the Keweenaw peninsula these days, and almost all of the tracks have been removed. The old roadbeds are now used as trails for hiking and snowmobiling.

Due to the propagation conditions as well as the inherent antenna inefficiencies of a mobile setup, we only made minimal numbers of contacts from lighthouses other than Eagle Harbor. We stopped once again at the roadside stop within a very foggy view of St Helena Lighthouse and made a few more contacts before proceeding home, participating in the Ohio QSO Party on our way back to the Detroit area.