• Washington's QSO party. A state QSO party is a contest to work as many other participating stations as possible within the allotted time period. Stations within the state can work everyone; stations outside the state can only work stations within the state. Every state has its own QSO party. This year's Salmon run took place on Sept. 18-19th.
• History: The Salmon Run began as the Wa State QSO {arty in Sept. 1966. It was originally sponsored by the BEARs. Highest scores in each WA county, state, province, and DXCC country got certificates, with endorsements for working five BEARS member's stations. BEARS sponsored the QSO Party until 1987. The WWDXC took over sponsorship in 1992 and renamed it the WA Salmon Run. As an enticement for more stations to participate, the WWDXC decided to award packages of smoked salmon to the top scores in each U.S. call district and each DXCC country. The current contest manage is Bob Preston, W7TSQ. PARS first worked the contest last year from the trailer. We came in last of the three Wa Club entries with a score of 14,074. Top honors went to the BEARONS, W7FLY, earning 222,600 points.
• Salmon Run Rules: WA stations can work anyone once per band and per mode (CW and SSB) on 160 through 10 meters, except the WARC bands. All stations earn 2 points for SSB contacts, 3 points for CW contacts, and 6 points for Novice/Tech CW contacts. WA stations earn multipliers for each WA county, US state, Canadian province, and DXCC country worked in each mode. Non-WA stations earn multipliers for each WA county worked in each mode. There are additional multipliers for running low power (<200 W) and QRP. The final score is the number of QSO points times the number of multipliers. Stations can work as single/single, multi/single, or WA club (multi/single). There are recommended contest frequencies for each band and mode, and generally we didn't stray more than 5 kHz away from them.

• "Because it's rare!" Since each WA county counts as a multiplier, we knew that the participants would be looking for the rare ones. We also expected that some county-hunters would be participating for the chance to add to their collections. I checked the Buckmaster Web site to see how many licensees each county had. The top ten, from most to least rare, are Garfield, Ferry and Wahkiakum, Columbia, Skamania, Adams, Lincoln, Asotin, Pacific, and Klickitat. Looking at a Washington county map, you can see that of the ten rarest counties, only Wahkiakum, Skamania and Pacific counties are in western WA. Almost all of Skamania county is in  the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, so access there is limited. Pacific is about the same distance from Seattle as Wahkiakum, so it only seemed sensible to go with the rarer county. The rest of the Top 10 are appreciably farther away. I was anticipating that working from a rare county would compensate for our low power and modest antenna setup.
• Beyond the desire to operate from a rare county, I wanted the opportunity to have another Field Day-style event, where we would set up a station in the not-always-great outdoors. It also seemed like a good excuse to rent an RV, to see whether my XYL and I might enjoy camping in one, and because I was assuming that we'd be rained on.

• Scouting a site: Once I'd decided on the county, it was time to locate a suitable venue. I took the opportunity to do so on June 6th, when I was returning from the ARRL Northwestern Division Convention in Seaside. I settle on Skamokawa Vista Park, an RV park eight miles east of Cathlamet, on the banks of the Columbia. It had all the essentials: Easy access from a major road, 120V at each campsite, trees to hang antennas from, running water, bathroom, and a shower.
• Renting the RV: Although it wouldn't have been much of a hardship to pitch a tent there, part of the exercise was to give RVing a try. In August I went to my friendly local RV rental business, looked over what they had available, and reserved the smallest one I thought practicable, which turned out to be a shinny new 24-foot Fleetwood. This was big enough to afford my wife some privacy if she wanted to hit the sack while we were contesting into the late hours. It would seep my wife and me, and up to two other guys if they were willing to get cozy. At the time, I didn't know  how many other members, if any, would be participating; as it turned out, Hef was the only other guy I could entice into coming down for the fun. The RV is a VERY expensive proposition... we could have easily stayed in the best hotel and eaten in the best restaurants in the county, wherever they are, for less money than I spent on the RV. On the other hand, it's a lot cheaper than buying one and then discovering you don't care to go tooling around in it.
• Equipment: Once I had the RV lined up, I had to decide on the radio gear. Although you can only transmit one signal at a time during the contest, there's nothing to keep you from using more than one receiver, or from alternating transmitters. I decided to take two radios, my Kenwood TS-850 and the club's Icom IC-740. This would allow one operator to call CQ while the other could look for multipliers on other bands, as long as interference from the transmitter wasn't a problem. It would also give us a backup in case one radio failed. For antennas, I took my Hy-Gain TH3JR three-element tribander and a 20-foot telescoping mast, and the club's Cushcraft R-5 vertical and 80m and 40m dipoles. These let us cover all the bands but 160, which we didn't bother with. I also took the club's MFJ antenna tuner, my Heil boom mike headset, Bencher paddles for the Kenwood and a bug for the IC-740, and the power supply and a footswtich for me Kenwood. And, of course, we had to worry about food, clothes, bedding, utensils, and so on. I made a checklist of everything I could think of to take, and took the day off Thursday so I could pick up the RV, get groceries, and pack everything.

• Friday the 17th, I packed a few last minute items in the RV and in the car. My wife had no intention of sticking around to watch Hef and me play with radios the whole weekend, so she wanted to have a set of wheels for herself. Hef arrived and we got on the road at 10 AM. I really wasn't sure what I was getting into, since I'd never been behind the wheel of an RV before and now here I was, driving one for 200 miles. It wasn't as bad as I feared...it felt like driving a full size pickup, but it was somewhat wider and a LOT longer. I managed to have a slight brush with one of the local trees backing out of my driveway, but that was the only mishap. Hef was also an "RV virgin", but he was willing to take turns at the driving chores, while my XYL tailed us in our car. We had a couple of those Family Radio Service HT's for car to car communication.

• We got to the campsite at 3 PM. I had told the park manager in advance what we were going to be up to, and asked for a site in the trees, so we had a fine location waiting for us when we pulled in. The weather cooperated with us for the entire weekend, in defiance of Murphy. Hef and I immediately stared setting up the antennas. I'd come prepared to guy and stake the beam and R-5, but the park owners had thoughtfully planted short poles, about 18" diameter, for vehicle barriers all over the park. Some of these proved to be dandy antenna supports, so we just lashed the R-5 and the telescoping mast to a couple of 'em. While we were setting up, I spotted a van with California ham plates and a screwdriver antenna driving into the park. Oh, no! We thought we'd have the whole county to ourselves!... but I realized that the odds of this guy working the Salmon Run were negligible, especially being from California. Then we turned to  assembling the beam. I'd already gotten a galvanized pipe nipple and cap and bolted it to the mast bracket, so that all we had to do was to slip the antenna over the top of the mast and it could swing free for "Armstrong" rotating. Hef took on the risky task of getting on top of a stepladder, slipping the antenna over the mast, then pushing the antenna over the mast, then pushing the antenna and top section of the mast up to it maximum height. Unfortunately, the beam wasn't quite high enough to clear a nearby tree, so Hef had the idea of putting a rope over one of the offending branches, pulling it out of the way of the beam, and staking down the rope for the duration of the contest. Once we had the beam up, we turned our attention to the dipoles. After untangling all the wires and hacking our way through the blackberries, I used my trusty antenna launcher to get some support ropes into the trees, and we hoisted the dipoles into place.

  

• We had all of the equipment set up by nightfall. Hef and my bride somehow survived my efforts at cooking dinner. One thing I learned: The "broil" setting on an RV oven might as well be labeled "smoke alarm", because that's certainly what you'll hear if you try to broil anything. After dinner, we took a look around the park. I hadn't even realized when I'd scouted the location that we'd be next to the Columbia, but indeed we were. There was a nice stretch of beach along the river, too. It turned out to be quite an appropriated venue for the Salmon Run.

• Saturday morning, Hef and I were up and ready for the start of the contest at 09:00 local time. Hef called CQ on 20 meter phone, while I operated in "search and pounce" mode, looking for other stations calling CQ. Since we could count the same multiplier once on phone and once on CW, we couldn't afford to overlook contact on either mode. We were disappointed in not being able to hear any WA station well enough to work them during the daytime Saturday... 80 and 40 sounded dead, and we could hear other stations working WA stations on 20 and 15 meters, but the WA stations were down in the noise. It was slow going during the daylight hours.
• We continued to call CQ on 20 and 15 until late afternoon, with occasional frustration breaks to go to look at the beach and the river. My XYL had wisely fled the scene that morning, and went to visit an aunt down in Vancouver. I think Hef would've preferred to be a beach bum and forget about contesting.

• One of the unexpected attractions of our location was being able to watch the big container ships and freighters headed to and from Portland. Some seemed to come within feet of the beach, and waders were at risk of being knocked off their feet or even pulled under by the wake of these ships. In fact, I had an unfortunate accident while my back was turned...

• One of the ships went right through my head! Man, that smarts! You can see me grimacing in this picture. Luckily, I'd brought along a big pair of needle nose pliers for just such an incident, so I didn't lose much time away from the contest.
• We finally started working some locals about 5 pm on 20 and 40 CW. My XYL got back late in the afternoon, and we stopped for dinner at 6:15, then Hef collected some driftwood and started a fire in the fire pit. I wandered back into the RV about 7:15, where Hef had left the Kenwood turned to the 80m phone frequency, and was surprised to hear a half dozen WA stations coming in S9 plus, including Bob Preston, the contest manager, chatting about how they were faring the Salmon run. I broke in and stared handing out contacts. Most knew how rare Wahkiakum was, and were thrilled to get the new multiplier. I worked everyone on frequency, then went down to 80 CW and worked many of the same stations for the CW multiplier. Hef got back on 80 phone and had a steady run of local contacts until about 11:00, when we called it a night.
• Sunday morning, we were behind the mikes for the 9:00 restart of the contest. 10 meters opened up around 10:30, and Hef had a good run on phone. Up to now, we'd only heard US and Canadian stations, and I was wondering if we'd hear any DXers working the contest. Last year we'd worked a station in Tonga. Hef worked a Mexican station on 15 meters, so I knew that we were getting out of our back yard, at least. Anyone know where 9M6 is? I didn't either, until I looked it up...East Malaysia! Probably someone who'd found out that he could work 25 WA stations, send in his log, and get a package of smoked salmon, so the WWDXC's inducement paid off.

 

• Sunday's operation coincided with the Tennessee QSO Party and the Air Force Party, as it had last year, so we weren't above a little "quid pro quo" with the other contesters to get some more points. We knew that we wouldn't be seeing any more activity on 80m and 40m by noon, so Hef took down the dipoles while I continued calling CQ. Then I took down the R-5 and disconnected the IC-740 about 3 PM while Hef continued to coax a few last contact on 20 m. We finally shut down about 3 PM, took down the beam, packed up the remaining junk, and headed back home by 4:30 PM.

• I'd say we made a respectable showing, although I expect that one of the other clubs, like the BEARONS, beat us out for top club score. I have no doubt that we had high score for Wahkiakum county! Ironically, we didn't get Wahkiakum for a multiplier, since presumably no one else was working the contest from the county. Hef and I decided that we should've asked the California guy in the van to give us a contact or two, but of course that would have been contrary to the rules of the contest. Bob Preston has already thanked us for putting Wahkiakum on the air. i made up a special QSL card for the contest, which I've sent out to half a dozen stations.

• Always have a Plan B. We had multiple radios, multiple antennas, and extra coax assemblies, mostly so that we'd both have something to do during the contest, but also so that we'd have backups in case of a failure. I'd brought the hand mike for my Kenwood, along with the Heil headset; so that when the boom mike turned out to be faulty, we simply switched to the hand mike and kept going. being in the middle of nowhere on a Sunday is not a good time or place to have your only radio conk out on you.
• Don't throw your Swiss Army knife around. I tried to toss mine to Hef while we were setting up the dipoles, and managed to put it into the middle of a blackberry bush. Hef spent some of this idle moments valiantly hacking away at the blackberry vines trying to find the darn thing, and even cajoled a guy on the beach with his metal detector to take a look for it. The knife's still out there, somewhere.
• Don't try to broil in a RV oven, at least not without disconnecting the smoke alarm first.
• How to spell Wahkiakum and pronounce Skamokawa (ska-mock-away).
• I won't be an RV owner any time soon ... at least not one that size. Although we enjoyed having the amenities, especially the air conditioning, it was just too big on the outside and too small on the inside. A pop-up trailer might be more my speed, but I can't expect my XYL to be enthusiastic about any accommodations short of a hotel. With room service. And a pool. On the other hand, operating portable is a great excuse to head for the hills on a nice weekend, and contesting is a great excuse to operate portable. I'm certainly intending to participate in the Salmon Run again next year, hopefully as part of a club effort, and preferably from a rare county. One possibility would be to operate from a county line, then we could have two contacts with the same stations and hand out double multipliers and double points! Anyway, I hope you all got a sense of how much fun it was for Hef and me to make a mini-DXpedition to Wahkiakum, and I hope you'll come out and participating or at least heckling us during some of the other contests we'll be doing from the trailer during the coming year.

        Kirk - N7UK