[NLRS] Terrace Bay report

[Fast Eddie]

Just like the commercial  "one DEM 10 Ghz transverter,$350.00, one
Qualcomm amp, $150.00, one Yaesu FT-817 IF rig, $600.00
Your first SSB qso on 10 Ghz. "priceless".

Well it's over and this newbie to 10 Ghz contesting got his feet wet as well
as Barry VE4MA, but that was on Sunday morning wx in Terrace Bay!.... Barry
VE4MA arrived in Thunder Bay, late Friday afternoon. We headed out that
evening to Silver Islet, which was about an hour away. Tourist vehicle
traffic, deer, porcupines slowed us down while in the park which made us a
bit late for our attempt at Wawa. Once setup, Murphy struck Barry's station,
as I listened to my "virgin" station which yet had to make a qso. All I knew
that there was RF coming out and hopefully capable of receiving... We didn't
hear anything and then proceeded to answer questions by the locals who
thought we were either chasing satellites, storms or listening to the wind.
One person did recognize we were hams from our licence plates and was amazed
we could operate from our mobiles or portable.. After that we headed back to
my QTH to prepare for Terrace Bay. We left early Saturday morning and setup
on the beach at Terrace Bay... boy, I didn't know carrying all of our stuff
across sandy beach would be so hard!.. It was cool and the wind was picking
up. It looked like windburned faces were on the agenda. Murphy struck Barry
again and now it was the 2 watt PA that went west... again my virgin station
looked for signals from along Highway 61. After listening and hearing
nothing we thought maybe the look angles to the north shore gang were wrong,
so we lugged everything to eastern edge of the beach and kept on listening
and calling. Nothing heard. It was getting colder or it seemed that way, so
we thought maybe being on the shore wasn't the answer, so we moved up about
100 feet in elevation to the Terrace Bay hospital parking lot area. We also
scouted out some other locations to get a better view of Wawa,Whitefish Bay
and North Shore, but trees, islands, buildings, terrain just didn't make it
happen. After telling the staff at the hospital what we doing and not to
worry about us we set up again. I really thought we were going to be
"skunked" and not make a qso all weekend. Calling and listening continued
on. Then, while Barry was tuning around for the Mt. Brockway gang, the
infamous "FZ" signal came through the speaker. I was ready to do
cartwheels!!
We then proceeded to work 12 stations from Brockway.
Everyone sounded great with great signals which really amazed me. Don
WA2VOI was heard with the dish pointed in the opposite direction!
We then listened around for Wawa and Whitefish but heard nothing, hoping to
get some reflected signals off Brockway. It was Miller time so we called it
day. That evening we looked at Barry's station and Barry decided to by-pass
the PA and run on the exciter. With that done, we hit the hay and awoke to
the predicted forecast.... rain, rain and more rain. We set up again at the
hospital covering up my rig with plastic and listened for the UP. After
learning about the rain delay there, we kept listening, but not much was
heard. Then we heard to be bits of signal here and there while pointing at
the UP boys. As we tuned, it sounded like rainscatter and there was W0ZQ
calling KC0P. We called but no replies... After listening for a Wawa sked a
bit we decided that conditions just were not good and packed it up. This was
alot of fun and great experience. I think we now know what changes we can
make to improve things for next time. Thanks to all the stations we worked
and to everyone that participated..

73,

Eddie VE3KRP