09/12/2006 | N0EDV I can't recall worse band conditions during a contest! We fought the cold and wind up on top of Brockway Mountain in Copper Harbor, Michigan, in one of the more rare grids in the U.S.

EN67 is mostly out in Lake Superior with a very small piece of land sticking out into the lake from the Keweenaw Penninsula.

We battled intermittent SWR problems on 6M, 2M and 432. 222 worked flawlessly, but what can you do with 5 Watts and a homebrew 6 element Yagi (we did make 2 QSOs with W9FZ on 222!)? I guess all the years of operating from up there without incident finally caught up with us!

I had just finished up my DEMI 902 transverter a few days before the contest. During checkout, the night before leaving for EN67, I discovered one of the PIN diodes in the IF switch was open. Thanks to Bruce, W9FZ, who came up to start his rove from there! He brought a PIN diode (not the same part number, but it appears to work) and I did a field repair. Then I found I was one N connector to UHF adapter short, so I couldn't hook the coax to the transverter. Forgot I had a couple spare crimp on N connectors, so missed working Bruce before he was out of range! :(

Oh well, looking forward to the June VHF QSO Party from EN67!! -- N0EDV