2020 Salmon Run
Results
On September 19 and 20, Jay, WA0WWW, and I put 16 counties on the air in the Salmon Run. Saturday we started near my home in Moscow, ID, caught the southeastern counties and as far west as Klickitat then back to Moscow. On Sunday we started at Jay's home in Spokane, WA and caught some of the northeastern counties before returning to Spokane.
In our 18 hours of operating, we managed 703 Qs and 68 mults for a claimed score of 143,412, our most ever in the Salmon Run. Band breakdown was 96 Qs on 80 , 173 on 40 m, and 434 on 20 m. We missed five states, ND, SD, RI, VT, and KY.
Saturday started in Whitman county with OM2VL our first contact. We were in WHI at the beginning and again at the end of the day, 0200Z, which made WHI our best county with 95 contacts. We ended the day with 376 Qs.
Sunday we started in Spokane county but the first half hour our driving through Spokane was unproductive due to S9+ electrical noise. Once out of the city we managed 51 Qs. Our best Sunday county was Adams which we went through mid-afternoon with 80 Qs.
Our plan to be on 80 m for the first ten minutes of each hour so that WA and nearby states could work us turned out well. We did miss a few of the hours when 20 m contacts were too frequent to desert. On 80 m we made contacts with 16 of the 39 WA counties plus ID, NV, OR, nd BC. At least 20 operators made 80 m contacts with us. N7EPD, W7EEC, and W7J seemed to be always waiting for us.
Our most frequent customer was N7IR, Gary in AZ, with 26 Qs and all 16 of our counties. K8MFO, Don in OH, made 19 Qs and also caught us in all 16 of our counties. Other operators with 10 or more Qs were K7GK (14), K7SV (14), N7EPD (13), K1RO (12), KI6RRN (12), W7EEC (12), W7J (12), K4OAQ (11), NU7Y (11), OM2VL (10), W5XX (10), DL3DXX (10), and WA1PMA (10).
The rig was a KX2 and KXPA at 100 Watts to a Scorpion 680 antenna. We used N1MM+ for logging.
We had a great time and thank everyone who worked us or tried to work us.
Operating in FER county.
Operating on 80 m from the KLI/BEN county line.
The Plan
Jay, WA0WWW, and I will activate 16 counties in the Salmon Run on September 19 and 20 using my call of K7TQ. We will be CW only. The Salmon Run rules suggest mobiles somewhere between x.040 and x.045 MHz. However, the IAQP suggests CW activity at x.040, the NJQP suggests CW activity at x.050, and the NHQP suggests CW activity at x.045. This doesn't leave much room so we will be somewhere BELOW x.040 MHz, for example 14.037 MHz.
During the day we will try to be on both 20 and 40 in each county PLUS for the first ten minutes of each hour, we will be on 80 m for WA and nearby states. Those counties are marked with an * and the hour in parentheses in the list below. In each county we will try to be active for at least 30 minutes. You can work us each time we change counties or bands.
There are many fires and lots of smoke in eastern Washington so we may have to alter this route during the Run.
Here are the counties we will be in during our mornings, afternoons, and evenings.
1600 to 1900 Z, September 19 (UTC)
*Whitman(16), *Asotin(17), *Garfield(18), *Columbia(19)
1900 to 2200 Z, September 19 (UTC)
Columbia, Walla Walla, *Franklin(20), *Benton(21), *Klickitat(22)
2200 to 0100 Z, September 19 and 20 (UTC)
Klickitat, Yakima, *Benton(23), *Franklin(00), Adams, Whitman
0100 to 0130 Z, September 20 (UTC)
*Whitman(01)
1600 to 1900 Z, September 20 (UTC)
*Spokane(16), *Lincoln(17), *Okanogan(18), *Ferry(19)
1900 to 2359 Z, September 20 (UTC)
Okanogan, *Douglas(20), *Grant(21), *Adams(22), *Lincoln(23), Spokane
- means we will be on 80 m for the first 10 minutes of the hour in parentheses in this county
