[3830] Salmon Run N7WA/M MobileCW LP

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                    Washington State Salmon Run - 2022

Call: N7WA/M
Operator(s): N7WA
Station: N7WA/M

Class: MobileCW LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 6

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
  160:    0     0
   80:   36     0
   40:  101     0
   20:  238     0
   15:   44     0
   10:    0     0
    6:    0     0
--------------------
Total:  419     0  Mults = 63  Total Score = 79,191

Club: Mike & Key ARC

Comments:

Due to personal circumstances, I wasn’t able to put in a full effort on the
Salmon Run. In fact, I didn’t even know if I could go out, at all, until
Tuesday night. Wednesday morning, I starting modifying the truck into the N7WA
SuperSalmon(tm), adding antennas to the bed and a K3 to the passenger seat. 

I had bought a new cheap computer specifically for mobile ops and because it had
a mobile power supply. The old computer simply fell apart. All the PC really has
on it is N1MM+ and a text editor. It will have no other function in life. It was
quiet too; I couldn’t hear a thing out of it unless I put it right on top of
the K3.

My run plan was simple. Work the most interesting counties I could during
Saturday daylight hours. I had only one new interesting twist. I found, mostly
by accident, a tri-county line on a public road. I don’t like to operate while
driving; thus, county lines were going to be my biggest bang for the time spent.
A tri-county line meant 3x the contacts. Unfortunately, it was a three-hour
drive to the middle of nowhere.

My tri-county line was Grant, Lincoln, and Adams counties. The ham population
for all three is pretty low. I had to leave home at 5AM local to insure my
arrival by the Salmon Run start time of 9AM local. I almost got waylaid by a
2-mile stretch of road undergoing re-construction. It would have been a long
detour around but there were no signs prohibiting travel on the road (all
gravel) so I took a chance and it worked out. When I arrived, it wasn’t
totally nowhere but you could see it from there. There was a nice wide spot on
either side of the road but there were some big farm vehicles passing pretty
close by. The noise on 80M was S0 with an occasional lightning crash, from
elsewhere in the world, sometimes causing the S-meter to blip. I had given gave
myself an extra hour for startup issues but it was unneeded and I just enjoyed
the view…  okay, there was no view except the insides of my eyelids.

When the gun went off, I used the first 20 minutes of a 90-minute schedule to
work the locals and west coast. Then I just moved up thru 40m and 20m. Seemed a
little early for 15 but maybe I should have tried. By the time my 90 minutes was
up, I had nearly 175 contacts. Then, it was another 90 minutes to my next stop.

Big counties are an issue in eastern Washington. It can take a long time to get
to the next stop and that is wasted operating time if you can’t operate while
moving. My next stops were Walla Walla, Franklin, Benton, and the
Klickitat/Yakima line. Then it was almost 2 hours to Kittitas where I ended the
day as the sun was setting and I headed home. 15M was a pleasant surprise, I
didn’t work tons of folks but I worked enough to make it interesting – even
Europe. Maybe, someday, 10M will show up.


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