MGEF - June 2002

After another beautiful weekend on Mount Greylock this year (but only the end of it) we have a new all time high for the June contest. The "fun" in this contest was the travel to and from the mountain...

It began when one of the drivers reported that the truck was running hot on the highway. This then precipitated to smoke out the tail pipe and a very hot engine. The culprit? A broken fan belt. After the engine had time to cool, the coolant was refilled (it had spewed all over the engine compartment) and the belt was replaced with the spare. During all of this the skies we pouring a good amount of rain and lightning was a blazin'!

The truck was now back up and running, though down a bit on power at higher revs... it was going to be a slow climb up the mountain (when we got there). As we entered Williamstown the operator of the truck was heard on the radio "...ctrical...... elec.... elec... ical..." and we had to pull of the road again for an investigation. It would seem that the coolant all over the engine had worked its way into the alternator and caused it to not be able to charge the battery when under full load. After a slow and painful drive up the mountain we arrived and began setup.

The skies cleared by Friday morning and all bands were on the air for the start of the contest on Saturday. Conditions on the bands we pretty good for the lower bands towards the west for most of Saturday with some slowing into the evening. Sadly it never really opened up to the north so we did not get to hear many Canadians.

On Sunday afternoon truck "repairs" began. The air filter was changed along with the installation of a new alternator. At the time it also seemed like a good idea to replace the spark plugs on the engine. The first 3 of 8 came out and were replaced with no problems. But number four was going to prove to be an issue. The wrench slipped off and snapped the ceramic on the plug, now it really did have to come out. In the process the stuck plug snapped and left part of itself in the engine. That was it, the only way to get that sucker out safely would be to pull the head off the block! Not an operation that we would be doing on the mountain top. So, the decision was made to drive it home on 7 of 8 cylinders and hope for the best.

Take down was uneventful on Monday and then it was time to see if the truck would start. It did, and sounded like a two cycle lawn mower engine... LOUD!!!

By 8:30 PM (EST) all the trucks were finally home.

• KB2NAV/R in FN22 (~95mi) on 144MHz SSB (12 sec .mp3, 87kb)
• N8OU in EM89 (~550mi) on 144MHz SSB (15 sec .mp3, 108kb)
• A loud K9EA in EN71 (~610mi) on 220MHz SSB (44 sec .mp3, 308kb)
• A very loud N8KOL in EN80 (~530mi) on 220MHz SSB (15 sec .mp3, 109kb)