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| The Big Map above show the WW7LW
five county route. A= Friday night camping at Potholes State Park. We were on the air with the Whiskey Group testing the mobile station. 3= Overnight camp at Ferry County in Colville Confederated Tribes campground. 4= Ferry-Okanogan County
Line. |
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| Here's the WW7LW Rover Van set up in a
wheat field on the ADAMS-LINCOLN County. We are about 1/4
mile west of Hiway 21. The antenna mast is approx 32 ft high and is
supporting a 'fan dipole' for 20-40-80 Meters. |
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| Still in the wheat field at ADA-LIN
county line. The wind is blowing approx 30 miles per hour and
bending the antenna mast. The RED Honda generator was placed in this
position to be like a traffic cone that could be easily seen by vehicles
driving toward us. This location is nearly in the middle of nowhere.
One person noticed our antenna mast sticking up while he was driving by on
Hiway 21. He was a ham radio op and chatted with Chuck AC7QN.
Other than that... we had no visitors. No one thought we were terrorists
or Democrats. |
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| Here's Chuck AC7QN at the mic.
At this location we operated on 20 and 40 meters SSB and CW. Band
conditions were poor (for us) on these bands... however, we did make some
contacts. Interesting note: There are a lot of hams not from
our state who like to participate in the Salmon Run contest. "CQ WA"
was heard quite often on 20 meters SSB and CW. Even the outa-state-ers
knew we were from a hard to contact county. Between 1745 and 1932 UTC on 9/20...We made 18 CW and 26 SSB QSOs here. The Radio Set is an ICOM 756 Pro 2 running at approx 90 watts. This radio has a built in antenna tuner... so it was easy to operate SSB and CW portions of the bands on the same antenna. BACK TO MAP |
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| Now we are set up at the
LINCOLN-FERRY county line... just about 100 ft east of Hiway 21 and
right next to the north shore of Lake Roosevelt... well, maybe a couple
hundred feet down. Zooming in on the Delorme Topo ver. 7.0 map
software shows the county line as being very close to the north shore of
Lake Roosevelt. The County Hunter rules say that you are on the
county line if you are as close as you safely can be. I guess we
could have parked 5 feet closer to the drop off into the lake... but
better safe than sorry. Between 2234 and 2321 UTC on 9/20... 74 SSB QSOs were made from this location. |
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| I think we are close enough to the
edge to be in both FERRY and LINCOLN counties. |
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| Zooming in and looking down from the
bluff where the WW7LW contest super-station is located... we see the
Keller Ferry. This free ferry is part of Hiway 21. We
crossed Lake Roosevelt on this boat. Lake Roosevelt is a huge body
of water considering it is in the middle of Eastern Washington- which most
"West of the Cascade-ers" think Eastern WA is a vast dessert land. |
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| For the technically curious... our
antenna is a three band Fan Dipole. The small gauge wire is held in
place with electrical tape. The center insulator consists of a balun
(RG-174 coax wound around a FT-243 Toroid hot melt glued to the
insulator)... and a SO-239 Coax Connector (for quick feed line changes-
either 40 ft or 90 ft for us). The van tire is holding down a gizmo that supports the antenna mast. This gizmo worked very well for us. BACK TO MAP |
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| At San Poil River Campground in
Ferry County. This is a Colville Confederated Tribes campground.. We rolled in about 5 PM on Saturday evening. We set up the multi band dipole antenna in the tree about 25 ft high at the apex. The ends were about 6 ft above the ground. A true NVIS ariel. 75 and 80 meters was the band of choice until around 9 PM. On Sunday morning 75 meter SSB was good until around 9 AM... then we switched to 20 meters to give the mid west hams some WA QP contacts. Between 0117 and 1830 UTC on 9/21... 38 CW and 43 SSB Single County QSOs were made at this location. There was rain in the Eastern Washington WX forecast for the SR Weekend. We finally got the rain on Sunday morning. We awoke to a drizzly misty rain that was similar to being at the ocean. Around 10:30 or so... it ceased and we broke camp to head for the Ferry-Okanogan county line. |
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| Chuck AC7QN operating. |
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| Rich KR7W operating. BACK TO MAP |
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| At Ferry-Okanogan County Line... |
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| At Ferry-Okanogan County Line...
Between 1946 and 2056 UTC on 9/21... 44 SSB QSOs were made here. BACK TO MAP |
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| At Douglas-Grant county line at Crown
Point Observation Area. Grand Coulee Dam is in the background. From 2218 to 2400 UTC on 9/21... 92 SSB QSOs were made here. |
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| Just over the drop-off is Grand Coulee
Dam. A visitor with his family thought that Chuck and I might be
terrorists with all of our radio equipment set up with this scenery as the
backdrop. He asked me how long it took for me to loose my accent.
Huh? What's he talkin' 'bout, Willis? BACK TO MAP |
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Buddha or the Byrds musta said, "All things must come
to an end" So did the 2008 Salmon Run.., but not our
appetite. Catching salmons requires energy derived from burgers.
Even though the sign says they have healthy burgers... Not for us... we
had the Big Mother Burger. Thank goodness for
statins. Our route from Grand Coulee Dam to Tacoma took us to...DK's Drive-IN in Ephrata, Five-Nine-Grant-County. DK's defies the Engineering Triangle--- We had burgers that were GOOD, FAST, and CHEAP... so just like Arnold... we'll be back. |
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