No, I didn’t turn on the light in a lighthouse today, but I did go and “activate” it on the air so that other amateur radio operators could check it off their lists. “It” is the white and green lighthouse on the end of the breakwater in the Prescott Heritage Harbour, also known as ARLHS lighthouse CAN-767.

I decided on the spur of the moment that I would do this, so I sent out an email message to the other ARLHS members saying that I would be activating CAN-767 for a little while this afternoon. I parked in a lot about 150m away from the lighthouse and fired up the radio on 14.270 MHz. At 1812Z (1412 Eastern), N0PKX responded to my call. He had seen my email alert and was waiting for me to show up. We exchanged details and I continued to call CQ Lighthouse.

Five more people responded in the next ten to fifteen minutes. As time progressed, the received signal qualities kept decreasing until I could no longer hear anyone trying to answer my calls. I even switched briefly to 7.270 MHz, but didn’t hear anyone respond so I returned to the 20m band. At 1915Z (1515 Eastern) I had activated CAN-767 for an hour, which is the minimum time I’d decided I would be on the air, so I decided to head off in search of ice cream before doing a little geocaching.

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