KE7V Multiop in CN78

K7MDL Contest Archive - September 2004

ARRL VHF Contest September 2004 as part of station KE7V

I operated multi-operator with Johnny KE7V in a remote grid in CN78. We were at North Point lookout at 3000ft. on the northernmost ridge on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Johnny operated 6M with 5 and 9 element yagis. I operated 2M through 903. My ancient hand-me-down 1296 loop yagi antenna had one too many road trips and fell apart this time out so no contacts were made on this band unfortunately.

The 2M and up antenna setup top to bottom: 2M, 903, then on the same level side by side are 432, 1296 (middle) and 222.

On 6M Johnny ran a 5 element yagi down low, and atop the mast anchored by a park bench is a 9 element 6M monster. Of course it had to rain heavily while we put this up.

Click on any picture for a full size view.

Above, the North Point Lookout visitor parking lot. Johnny is in the yellow rain gear. The view looking down the hillside to the valley shows the steep drop off over the short rock wall. This rapid dropoff allowed us to set the yagi boom over the wall and not bend the antenna elements before we pushed the assembly up to vertical.

I moved the truck around to find hot spots, but the best location was pointing NE through the metal outhouse vent pipe (look carefully on the right side of picture #1!). Very strange, but 10ft either side of this position was not good. Note the abundance of mud on the tires in picture #3. The road was very recently graded after a buried powerline was installed to serve the repeater further up the hill, visible in other pictures here. The heavy rain and soft road made for some slippery conditions.

I took several pictures of the view both days of the Contest. For a while Sunday morning we saw some sun peek through.

Above is a repeater building maybe 1/4 mile away and further up the ridge. This spot had more exposure to the west Olympic Mountain Range slopes and favored access to Portland and the Oregon coast, but the lookout was the place to setup for the high volume (relatively speaking) Puget Sound QSOs.

It finally cleared enough to see the very deep Lake Crescent to the East. This is not too far from Port Angeles which is further east yet. Seattle is South East and the best way to get a signal there was to bounce off Mt. Baker to the NE. The 2 pictures on the right are actually the Sunday morning sunrise, before it cleared up later in the morning.

The lookout building is empty, with a single room, and a small space above. The trailhead signage helps show where we are located and why hikers might want to visit, which a few did on Sunday.

A rainbow - a sign that this would be the ultimate location, the contesting pot of gold!

Trip Report

KE7V and K7MDL operated at 3000ft. from North Point Lookout in CN78. The weather had conspired against me (K7MDL) for a Mt. Pilchuck mountain backpack operation, and Johnny's (KE7V) invitation to put CN78 on the air was a great alternative. Besides putting a rarely heard grid on the air I got to help Johnny put up/take down his monster 50ft boom 6M beam in the driving rain. Fortunately the fire lookout we perched at was built on a rock outcropping and offered a nice cliff to hang the antenna boom over easing the job (somewhat) of raising and lowering the mast without bending the elements too much.

The rain eased off Saturday night, and by Sunday morning we had sunshine in spots on and off. I took several pictures of the fire lookout, the views, the nearby repeater site, and sunrise beaming down the valley below. I will post some of the pictures to my website soon.

The road to the top was freshly graded since they buried electrical service to the repeater site. With all the rain, it made for some really muddy roads and walking area. The adjacent out-house was a nice touch, and it was in nice condition and well maintained also. The trailhead information sign structure provided a shelter for the generator. Despite the Fire lookout building, we operated from within our vehicles for heat and the truck was my rotator. In practice I found there was usually only 1 direction east that seemed to work. The secret to that hotspot was to point directly through a large metal out-house vent pipe. I think it offered some "ducting" with a new form of signal enhancement I won't go into here.

The site is at 3000ft, the repeater is at 3300 ft and are close enough to see each other. There is about a 300 degree view with east looking through some thin trees, and south wide open.

Johnny operated 6M and I covered 2M, 222, 432, 903, and 1296. My 1296 antenna has seen one too many roves and was useless with 8watts forward and 3 watts reflected. It resisted all forms of repair attempts hours before the contest.

Made 3 903 contacts to W7GLF, K3UHF/R, and KB7DQH/R in CN87 and CN88.

The big news for us on 2M was working K7YO after much effort to find a path down the coastline to Portland. With a reliable 2M connection established, we then worked 432 whcih was much tougher but it is now in the logbook. We tried 223.5 FM and 25W watts was not enough. 100W was if only both ends had that much. Eric in DN08 was an easy shot.

There is a large RF shadow from North Point south of Seattle. I think most Seattle area stations worked us best with the antennas pointed north to reflect off some mountains.

My thanks to Johnny for scouting this location and the invite to operate with him. It was enjoyable. -- K7MDL

Here is the summary - It can get a little lonely on the upper bands out there :-)

    VALID   PTS/ QSO       GRID    BAND
     QSOs    QSO PTS       SQRS   SCORE
   50 MHz    107    1   107   28    2996
144 MHz     48    1    48   11     528
222 MHz     11    2    22    5     110
432 MHz     14    2    28    6     168
902 MHz      3    3     9    2      18
1296 MHz      0    3     0    0       0
TOTAL        183        214 52 11128 Claimed Score