During a four-day period in November, 1838 British troops and local militia defeated an invasion force of 300 American "Hunters" and Canadian rebels. The Battle of the Windmill victory prevented the invasion force from capturing nearby Fort Wellington and cutting the St. Lawrence communications link, which would have left Upper Canada open to invasion.
The windmill was built in the 1820's to grind grain and was converted into a Lighthouse in 1872 that remained in service until 1978. Today the mill (Lighthouse) and adjacent land are a National Historic Site. This site is located in New Wexford, Ontario which is a small village east of Prescott on the St Lawrence River (across from Ogdensbug, NY).
I had intended to operate from one of the picnic tables to the right of the Lighthouse, but weather conditions were closer to FYBO (Freeze yer Buns Off) than QRPTTF so I wimped-out and operated from the drivers seat of my Subaru Forester in a small parking lot just across the road from the site.
I managed to get in about 2.5 hours of operation, although I wasn't on the air for all of that time. I had a visit from "Murphy" in the first hour, in the form of a sudden violent wind gust that toppled my W3FF Buddipole doing some damage to the antenna and the mast, so I spent a lot of the last hour and a half fiddling with my broken antenna and trying to make it work properly.
Fortunately I had a spare whip to replace the broken one, but I was plagued by intermittent high SWR, due to some damage to the center tee (I discovered later on). I still managed to work 8 stations (4 on 40M and 4 on 20M), including AA5B in NM. This was the maiden voyage for KX1 #290 (running on 10 AA NiMH cells at 3Watts) and it performed flawlessly. Also this was the first time that I used GOLOG on my Palm Pilot and it worked great for me. I used the Buddipole in a horizontal position at 10ft for 40M NVIS and, with the accessory Rotating Arm Kit, as an L antenna for 20M.Thanks to those few folks that managed to pull me out of the ether! Next year I'll be better prepared for the wind!
Michael (VE3 Wind Mill Battlefield)