2015 Salmon Run

Results

Jay, WA0WWW, and I successfully activated 20 of the Washington counties east of the Cascade Divide in a 1020 mile round trip from Spokane back to Spokane two day marathon. We managed 500 QSOs with 201 unique calls or put in more truthful terms, 201 unique calls were able to find us. We had a group of "regulars" that pounced on us every time we went into a new county. Before the county line there would be long periods of silence to our CQs. Upon entering the new county, the regulars came out of the woodwork. It was fun and we thank all of them. Five stations, N6MU in CA, WA2VYA in TX, K2SSS in NY, and K9CW in IL found us in 10 or more counties. No one got us in all 20, but N6MU came the closest.

DX, other than VEs, were not as good as last year. KH6LC lead the pack by finding us in 9 counties, JA1YNE had 5 counties, ON4AAC had 3, and DL5MI and OS6T had one each. All of the DX contacts were on Saturday.

Our best counties were Columbia, Grant, and Lincoln where we got 40 or more Qs in each of them. These counties are flatter wheat field ones where signals stayed mostly constant. The worst counties were Pend Orelle, Garfield, and Benton with 11 Qs in each of them. The effort in Benton County along WA 14 suffered from high power line noise radiating from the power lines originating at McNary Dam on the Columbia River. We won't go there next year. Although we did fair in the more mountainous counties, they presented the challenge of rapid QSB due largely to the terrain. It was much more fun to operate in the wheat field counties.

Summary:

Band Qs

80 33

40 106

20 355

15 6

TOTAL 500 with 69 mults for a score of 103,500.

Pictures and Comments

We crossed from Lincoln County into Ferry County on the Keller Ferry. It was leaving as we drove up but it quickly returned with 4 or 5 vehicles. The ferry crosses Lake Roosevelt which is behind Coulee Dam on the Columbia River.

We were the only vehicle on the ferry for the trip to Ferry County. Jay tried to make some Qs while the ferry was in motion, but wasn't successful.

Before we headed down to river level in Okanogan County, we found a high spot and caught a few Qs there. One of them was Spokane DX Association member WA1PMA who now lives in Florida.

Randy tries to make a few Qs while sitting in Douglas County at Crown Point State Park. This pictures shows the Hustler antenna with the pitchfork that holds resonators for 40, 20, and 15 m. Sure makes for easy band changes. Coulee Dam is in the background.

This is the netbook running N1MM+ which has only the Log window, Check window, and Log window open. Not much more screen space and I don't want to load down the computer with other windows. We've also got a MultChaser window open with the WA counties we've worked in red and a window that tells how many minutes to the next county. The two USB connectors are for rig control of the Icom 706MkII and the keying line to the Icom.

Miles and miles of Grant County. We did good here with 43 Qs. It is my favorite county. Jay does not quite agree.

Jay operates from the Grant/Adams County line. More wheat field country.

We spent the night in Dayton, Columbia County. It was good for some 80 m Qs at night and 40 and 20 m ones in the morning for a best county effort of 56 Qs.