ARRL VHF Contest June 2005 Rover Trip Report

CN97, DN07, CN98, DN08, DN18, DN17, DN16, DN06, CN96

 

 

The goal on this trip was to put most all of the eastern Washington grids on the air and see the northeast corner of the state that I have never seen before.

I started out in CN97 at Chelan Butte, a favorite Hang glider launching area.  One of the glider pilots was a ham and we had a chat before he took off.  The wind was picking up as 1pm neared.  Puget Sound access was good, and a short Es opening on 6M was good from here.   There is 360 degree view.  The Columbia River and Entiat Lake is on the south and east, Lake Chelan (55 miles long and 1600ft deep) is on the west.

I made a short stay in DN07 east of the town of Chelan then proceeded up Cooper Mountain Ridge along the north side of Lake Chelan.   This is a 33 mile long forest road that follows the 6,000ft high ridge.  The eastern side of the ridge has wide open views of the Columbia Basin, and the west side start to become obstructed by equally high mountains on the south side of the lake.  Chelan Butte had better access to Puget Sound, but the Es opening from the east was great.   This opening lasted 4 hours and I was making contacts as fast as I could log them.   I ended up several hours behind schedule due to the Es opening, and never made it to South Navarre Mtn trailhead as planned.  I had to start getting back on schedule and head to DN08 through the forest road to the Methow Valley, towards Twisp.  The roads were not too bad, conditions were dry, mid-70's, with some rutting and several patches of large loose rock.  Ground clearance is nice to have, but a 2WD truck would do OK.  If it was raining, I would stick to 4WD since these roads get slippery and are narrow on steep mountain sides.

In DN08 I headed to Loup Loup Pass targeting Little Bucky Mtn at 4500ft.  The road was gated at the pass campground.  IT was after 10pm and only a few contacts were made.  Now 4 hours behind, I decided to skip Tunk Mtn. also in DN08 and head for DN18 to get back on schedule.  I reached Sherman Pass at nearly 5600ft along Hwy 20 at about 1:30am and stayed in the campground/trailhead parking lot located on the north side of the pass.  At 6am the temperature dropped and started snowing.

Headed east to make DN18 Old Dominion Mtn. (5500ft) by 8:30am.  This si east of Colville in the northeast corner of the state. The best way up is Old Dominion Road just outside of Colville.  Seibel Road lo longer has access, and the forest roads around it are poor to abandoned condition.  I had to cross many deep cross ditches and severe ruts, with heavy rain making things very slippery.  I took these on the way up, and came down the much better and mostly graveled Old Dominion Road.  At the top, it snowed 2" on me shortly after arrival.  This shorted out my antennas, or the ice clung to the elements detuning them.  I had to go out regularly to clear the snow off them.  Signal to Puget Sound were not bad.  K7CW at Table Rock, CN97 was easy to work through 1296.

I headed south through Spokane to Steptoe Butte in DN17.  This is a 3600ft .Butte in the middle of flat farmland with a 360 degree view to Idaho, Oregon, and the Columbia River Basin.  The are microwave relay towers here, with no desense noted except a small effect on 2M.  As I arrived the large Aurora event started.  Stations were heard on Au up through 432MHz (W7AMI).  At 5:20pm I departed to hit DN16, DN06, and make CN96 before the end of the contest at 8pm. 

A short stop in DN16 was a few miles away near Colfax, and then I headed west on Hwy 20 passing through all of DN06 making contacts on the fly, and I made CN96 near Vantage (Columbia River and I-90) with 10 minutes to spare, good enough to get a few contacts in the log and activate the 9th grid of the trip.

The antenna setup:

Top to bottom: 6M loop,  2M 7el yagi, 1296 loop yagi, then on the bottom row was the 222 yagi, 432 yagi, 903 loop yagi .  The front support masts are solid 1.25" fiberglass rod.   The rear is a hitch mounted 6061 thick wall pipe.  I have a heavy duty roof rack mounted support channel running the length of the roof that I can put brackets onto without damaging the roof.  

The pictures below are in the order of each site visited as I worked my way clockwise around the state.  It starts at Chelan Butte, and ends at Steptoe Butte.  The last 3 grids are mostly flat farmland or rolling brown hills, and I was in a hurry so no pictures were taken.

Click on any picture for a full size view.