Grays River
Wahkiakum County, WA
46.344024, -123.503966
970 Feet
Call: NM7R
147.020 +600kHz 118.8Hz
Grays River VHF Repeater
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Network link is temporarily down. The KO Peak station went
off the air during a thunderstorm recently, taking the primary
network links with it. Until a site visit can be arranged to
assess and repair the damage, the network link from the
Grays River 147.020 repeater is inoperative.
Location: The Grays River repeater is located near the crest of KM Hill
about half-way between Naselle, WA, and Cathlamet, WA, on Highway 4 in
Wahkiakum County. KM Hill is the highest point on Highway 4 between
Longview, WA and the Coast, dividing the county roughly in half.
Coverage: Also called the "KM Hill" or just
"KM" repeater, it provides
coverage to nearly all of Wahkiakum County, and west along Hwy 4
into Naselle.
On the Oregon side of the Columbia River, it fills in coverage along
Highway 30 between Bradley Summit and Clatskanie, OR.
Normally linked to the rest of
BeachNet,
this machine can be separated to operate stand-alone
or linked to the 444.500 Nicolai repeater, as desired
for ARES/RACES operations in Wahkiakum County. It provides a link
to the State ECC at Camp Murray, through the network, and acts as
a focus for Emergency Communications in this rural county.
There is no
generator power at the site, so the back-up is provided in the
form of two deep-cycle 90-AH batteries. The repeater announces
when it is operating on emergency power to advise users, and
automatically reduces the repeater output power by about 6dB to
conserve the batteries. If desired, a
control operator can remotely
switch between high and low power as the situation warrants.
Hardware: The repeater consists of a GE Mastr-II
110-watt continuous-duty base station. The transmitter
feeds a Diamond dual-band antenna at the 65-foot level on the tower
which serves the transmitter and the UHF link. This antenna is
fed with LDF4-50, half-inch hardline. The receive antenna is a
high-gain Stationmaster at the top of the 90-foot tower, fed
with LDF5-50 7/8-inch hardline. The two-antenna system allows
optimal receiver performance. If you can hear this repeater,
you can probably work it.
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