KO Peak
Pacific County, WA
46.461068, -123.550658
2900 Feet
Call: N7XAC
224.040 -1.6MHz 118.8Hz
441.675 +5MHz 118.8Hz
KO Peak 1.25m Repeater
KO Peak UHF Repeater
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On 11/07/09,
during a thunderstorm, the KO Peak station (repeater, links and
remote base) left the air, and remains
unresponsive. Other than the suspicion of a lightning strike,
the condition of the station is unknown until
a site visit can be arranged. The network links have been rerouted
to maintain some system connectivity, although the North Cove
145.310
and Grays River 147.020 stations
remain disconnected. Special links to other repeater systems, used
for Nets and other activities, are inoperable at this time. The
KO Peak 224.040 repeater is fully operational.
Update: Shortly after 9:00 PM, I received a phone call
from a US Cellular technician who was at the KO Peak building
to get his equipment back on the air. He said there was smoke
coming out of our repeater, and would I like him to switch it
off? Yes, please! He also indicated that the PUD was on site
replacing the pad-mounted power transformer outside the
building. The old one looked like it had exploded. It will
be interesting to get up there and see what, if anything, is
left...
11/13/09 Update: KF7APN & NM7R made a site visit to inspect
and investigate the damage. The main antenna was apparently hit
by lightning, and is completely destroyed. There is nothing left
of the antenna itself above the mounting base, and the coaxial cable
jumper to the hardline is no longer attached. It would seem
that a direct strike has vaporized the antenna and "fused"
the coax jumper. The power supply is unresponsive. There is 122 volts
at the line cord, the line fuse is sound, but the there is no DC
output. The entire station is cosmetically pristine. Absolutely
no visual evidence of burning, scorching, soot or damage is
visually apparent.
There was a 3-inch snow accumulation on the hill, and it was
actively snowing/raining/windy. Having walked the last quarter-mile
to the site I was not in the mood to make a round-trip back to
the car to bring a 65-pound power supply up for more testing.
That will have to wait for another day. So, for the moment,
the condition of the equipment (exclusive of the power supply and
main antenna) is unknown, but suspect. With luck, the station
should be back on the air before the end of the year.
Location: KO Peak is the highest radio site in Pacific County, and
is located 6 miles south of Lebam, WA. It is 12 miles by logging road
from the highway, and can be inaccessible much of the year due to
lingering snow because the road climbs the northern face of the mountain
and much of the road is in shadow nearly all the time.
Coverage: KO Peak is a great long-range site, and both repeaters
can be worked directly from Tacoma, Olympia and northern Grays Harbor County
on the north; Vancouver, WA, and Seaside, OR on the south and well out to sea
to the west. The intra-county coverage within Pacific County can be spotty, with
some very good locations and some not so good. The "KO" repeaters are
very strong in the Menlo
Valley, and northern Pacific County, as well as portions of Grays Harbor
County, along the Interstate-5 corridor, and on the Long Beach Peninsula.
Click here for a site plot for the UHF machine,
but representative of the coverage from both repeaters, with the 224.040
being moderately better.
The KO Peak site is instrumental in conjunction with the
BeachNet,
linking system to knit the network together. The UHF and VHF repeaters
each have their role, and both can be accessed directly from the
Washington State Emergency Command Center at Camp Murray. This is a
keystone of the Pacific County ARES/RACES Emergency Plan.
The 224.040 repeater normally operates independently, as a stand-alone
resource. From an Emergency Communications
standpoint, it is routinely used as a conduit for connecting the Emergency
Operating Centers of the Southwestern Washington counties to Camp Murray
in times of disaster. It is also used within Pacific County to provide an
intercom between their two EOCs. Since most scanners don't cover the 220-band,
its use reduces the number of ears listening.
The 441.675 repeater operates permanently linked as part of the
BeachNet
system of repeaters, and incorporates a remote base station,
allowing frequency agile use of the FM portions of the 10-, 6-, 2-,
and 1.25-meter,
and 70-centimeter bands. This is available for communications with
other repeaters or simplex frequencies, with a very favorable range
afforded by the 3000-foot altitude of the antennas. The entire network
can be connected to these flexible links.
Hardware: The UHF station consists of a GE Mastr-II continuous duty
base station running 80-watts through a dual-section isolator, a low-pass filter,
and a Phelps-Dodge
6-cavity bandpass-notch duplexer to a Sinclair gain vertical at the top of the
tower through 100-feet of LDF5-50 7/8-inch hardline. The controller is an
ACC RC-850 with Digital Voice Recorder and an FC-900 interface for the remote
base. The 140, 220 and 440 remote base radios share a Comet CX-3
33 tri-band antenna
through a triplexer, while the 6-meter radio uses a ground-plane vertical
on the fence and the 10-meter radio uses a vertical dipole on the side of the tower.
There is a dedicated control receiver and a second, single channel receiver
that only "presses the reset button" on the controller as a back-up.
The 224.040 repeater is a converted Motorola mobile, with an
internal controller and a switching power supply feeding a four-bay
folded dipole array at the top of the tower through 7/8-inch hardline.
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