Grays River
Wahkiakum County, WA
46.344024, -123.503966
970 Feet
Call: NM7R
147.020 +600kHz 118.8Hz
Grays River VHF Repeater
06/04/17 The repeater
was replaced with a
newly refurbished/
upgraded unit to repair
several issues and
provide enhanced
capability.
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Location: The Grays River repeater is
located just south of Highway 4
near the crest of KM
Hill
about half-way between Naselle, WA, and Cathlamet, WA, in
Wahkiakum County. KM Hill is the highest point on Washington State 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, from County Line Park
at the east end, west along Hwy 4
into Naselle, at least to the junction with Hwy 401.
The Eden Valley area, in western Wahkiakum County,
is shadowed, but is well served by other
BeachNet,
repeaters.
On the Oregon side of the Columbia River, it fills in coverage along
Highway 30 from west of Knappa to east of Westport, OR.
Linking: Normally linked to the rest of
BeachNet,
this machine can be separated to operate stand-alone
or linked to the 444.500 Nicolai,
or the 444.300 Cathlamet 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 a
generator at the site, for back-up power.
Hardware: The
repeater consists of a
GE Mastr-II
110-watt continuous-duty
base station. The transmitter
signal passes through one
8-inch
BpBr cavity and a
5-inch bandpass
cavity, and then
feeds a Diamond dual-band
antenna at the 65-foot level
on the tower
which serves the repeater
transmitter
and the UHF link transceiver
through
a diplexer, and 75-feet of
LDF4-50, half-inch
hardline. The repeater
receive antenna is a
high-gain Stationmaster at
the top of the 90-foot tower, fed
with LDF5-50 7/8-inch hardline,
with a single 8-inch BpBr cavity.
This two-antenna system allows
optimal receiver performance
with less than 1 dB combined loss.
If you can hear this repeater,
you can probably work it.
Packet Radio: The
"KMHILL" packet
radio node is located on this site
as well.
This is part of the 145.630
MHz 1200-Baud
Washington District Three
EOC Packet Network.
The purpose of this node is to
provide a link between the
western portion of
the county and the county
seat in the eastern part.
History: 07/08/08: Repeater originally installed.
06/04/17: Repeater replaced with new unit and link radio.
08/18/17: De-emphasis jumper installed to clean up link audio.
Web Cam: for a look
at the road conditions on Hwy 4,
right outside the turn off to
the site access road,
Click Here for the WSDOT traffic cam.
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