Here is the faithful caboose, looking a heck of a lot like it did last year. The big difference was in the inside. Jan, NC8V's XYL, had finished painting in there just that week. She also fed the crew and went above and beyond the call of duty to help out the cause. A big "THANK YOU" to you Jan!!!!

The three element beams' reflector has a noticable "list" due to a little bit of rough erecting. However, that didn't seem to bother its operation. We amassed 1125 QSO's in 24 hours of operation covering 80 through 10 meters in both CW and SSB modes. Operators were: NC8V, W8MHV, N8XWO, AA8EB, WD8RIF, WD8JLM and me, NS8O.

Special note and a virtual "Gold Star" goes to John, N8XWO, who tended the generators during the night, without fail! John also provided the big deep cycle battery that ran the equipment. He had it charged via a solar panel before we started which gave us the 100 points for the natural power source. Thanks John!

Inside of the caboose, showing NC8V on the left operating, with N8XWO logging.

---

 

My favorite view of the site! Note my two homemade generators under the tarp shield. The Navy surplus one with the two handles is on the left and the Induction Generator on the right. The lamp stand was there to provide light at night. During the day, it provided an indication that the generator is still running by seeing if the light is on. The generators charge a big 12 volt battery powering the radio equipment. This way if the generator runs out of gas, the radio still will operate. We used about 5 gallons of gasoline for the entire 24 hours of generator operating time.

(Photos courtesy of W8MHV)

Thanks to all for the great time!