We were recently offered the callsign of VE7RAC for this contest and decided that we would take it on. Any Canadian callsign ending in “RAC” earns double points for the other station so the expectation was that activity would be brisk. The contest is only 24 hours long and to fill the hours we needed at least 6 operators each with shifts of 2-4 hours or more. Dino VE7NX, Thomas VE7TXL, Sheldon VA7XH, Les VA7OM, Slawa VE7LLW, John VE7TI and I (VA7XB) took on the challenge.
As Canada Day was only 4 days after the end of Field Day, we made use of our 100’ “Bigfoot” tower which had been moved to the OTC a week earlier and was left in place for this event. The beam was pointed SE and left there for the duration of the contest. Since it is not reported elsewhere it is worth mentioning that the day before Field Day, the generator which powered the electric motor for raising and lowering the tower failed when the tower was about at 2/3 of its fully raised position; we couldn’t raise it and we couldn’t lower it.
Some quick diagnostic work by Steve VE7SXM, Gord VA7GK and Bill VA7PFP determined that no power was coming from the generator as a result (apparently) of a broken drive belt in an inaccessible location. Lack of power was remedied by patching in