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Code Talkers

We had cooler weather for our final days in Winthrop. The temperature topped out at 77 degrees on Wednesday and was slightly warmer on Thursday. We took a drive in Midget-San up to Twin Lakes on Wednesday. We wanted to look at the Big Twin RV Park. It looks like a nice place – spacious and right on Big Twin Lake. The lake is stocked with trout and has easy access for the kayak. We’ll keep this place in mind for the future.

We like Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop, but really the main reason was the easy access to town. It’s on Castle Street, on a bluff overlooking Riverside Avenue (WA20) which is the main street in town. In the past we were able to walk through the Shaefer Museum property and take the stairs in back down to Riverside Avenue. With the pandemic, Shaefer Museum is closed and the entrance is locked.

Donna and I took a walk through Pine Near and checked out one of the teepees they rent. They have three teepees and a couple of rental cabins.

The sign in front of one teepee said “Come on in” the other one said “Do not disturb.” So we looked inside the one with the welcoming sign.

There were three futons inside. It’s an interesting idea and maybe it would be fun for camping with children – not really my cup of tea though.

Donna prepared fish poached in tomatoes, saffron and white wine for dinner. She bought wild Alaskan cod at the Skagit Valley Food Co-op in Mount Vernon and it was delicious. It must have been cut from a large cod because the meat consisted of large flakes.

Thursday we drove to Twisp and took a look around. As expected, most of it was closed. We also checked out another RV park called Riverbend RV Park. This park is located right on the Methow (met-HOW) River. Most of the sites are meant to be pulled into nose first with a view of the river. They had a few sites that would be long enough for us without dropping the trailer. It’s another place we’ll keep in mind for the next time we’re up this way.

Donna took a bicycle ride Thursday and did a loop. She went out on West Chewuch Road – it’s west of the Chewuch River. This is another interesting and hard to pronounce name. It was once spelled Chewak – from 1904 to 1960. Then the official spelling was changed to Chewack. In 1987, the spelling changed again to Chewuch. The second syllable doesn’t have a ch sound like the word “such”. It’s more of an “ack” sound.

She crossed the river well north of town and hit Eastside Chewuch Road.

Her route back to town took her past Pearrygin State Park. She stopped and shot a photo of a doe and her fawn.

I played around with my ham radio – I’m really enjoying the 20-meter band. I’ve made several long distance contacts – Alaska, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Ohio, New York, Michigan and on Thursday evening, I picked up on a conversation between a ham operator in Costa Rica and a guy in Alaska. My signal wasn’t strong enough to reach the guy in Costa Rica, but he had a powerful transmitter and I could clearly hear him!

I had a conversation with a guy in the Navajo Nation. He had a special event call sign of N7C. The event he was promoting was National Code Talkers Day. The Code Talkers of World War Two were vital to the US in the Pacific theater. They devised a code that couldn’t be broken. They were all Navajo and used their language as the basis for their code.

The way it worked was, they used a Navajo word that would be translated to English. The first letter of the English word would represent the letter of the code. For eample, if they wanted to say the letter “A”, they had three ways to do it. They could say wol-la-chee which translates to ant, or they could say be-la-sana which translates to apple, or they could say tse-nil which translates to axe. Any one of these three words would represent the letter “A”.

So, this guy – his name was Herb – was in the Navajo Nation, west of Shiprock, New Mexico. I think he was near Teec Nos Pos which is just west of the Arizona-New Mexico border. He was trying get as many contacts as he could to direct people to a special website for the event. I won’t include a link because I don’t think it’ll exist after this weekend – it’s on the QRZ ham site.

We left Winthrop Friday morning. We drove east on WA20 past Twisp, then headed down WA153 which brought us to the Columbia River at Pateros where we hit US97. We were following our bread crumbs from our trip coming west, but this time I didn’t follow WA174 to Grand Coulee. Instead, I followed WA17 south to Coulee City. This is a little longer than going through Grand Coulee, but it avoids the steep climbs and descents and it’s a much easier drive – both on me and on the coach.

We’re back at the Elk’s Lodge in Coeur d’Alene. After getting set up, we walked east on Prairie Avenue about a quarter of a mile to a paved lot with food trucks. We saw this place – Prairie Street Eats – a few weeks ago when we were here and wanted to try it out. They had a wide variety of food served from more than half a dozen trucks and trailers. I went for a wet shredded beef burrito that was tasty and Donna opted for Indian cuisine – a chicken curry that she was craving.

I had my antennas set up and programmed a few repeaters for the area. There wasn’t much activity on the VHF and UHF frequencies, so I switched to HF 20-meter band. I made several contacts and had a couple of nice conversations. The first one was with a guy in Boyne City, Michigan. He was surprised to find I knew where Boyne City was. I knew about Boyne City from my good friend and former colleague, Keith Burk. Keith would take his fast boat to Boyne City for an event called Boyne Thunder. By fast boat, I mean an offshore racer type boat that could speed at more than 80 miles per hour on the water!

The other guy I talked to was a real nice fella in Texas. He had a ranch outside of Witchita Falls, northwest of Dallas. He’s retired and with all of the coronavirus stuff he said he hasn’t been traveling and only goes to Witchita Falls when necessary. Ham radio is his contact with the world.

We picked a hot time to return to Coeur d’Alene. The high yesterday was 82 degrees, but the forecast calls for 91 degrees today and upper 90s through the middle of next week.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Bottom Third

In my last post, I mentioned putting up the MFJ Big Ear antenna and trying to make contacts on the 20-meter band without success. Thinking about that, I wondered about the set-up. The Big Ear antenna is a multi-band antenna. For different frequency bands, you need to alter the antenna to tune it. To do this, you shorten the length of the antenna whips for higher frequencies or pull the whips all the way out for lower frequencies.

For 20 meters, you pull the whips all the way out. For 30 or 40 meters you need to electrically lengthen the antenna by tuning a coil at the bottom of one of the whips. The instructions say to short the coil with the whips fully extended for 20 meters. I figured that shorting the coil meant putting the alligator clip on the jumper wire on the top of the coil, thus taking the coil out of the electrical path. The problem was, the jumper wire was too short to reach the top of the coil, so I guessed they intended it to go on the last coil at the bottom. The instructions were less than clear.

After giving it more thought, I realized that this couldn’t be right. Maybe I was so far out of resonance, I couldn’t pick up a signal. I e-mailed MFJ’s support and received a two-word reply to my question of where to place the alligator clip. The reply was “bottom third.” This made no sense to me. The coil has about 34 turns, so they were telling me to put it somewhere on the bottom 11 turns. Nonsense. I know some conditions can make the placement change by a coil or two, but not 11. I decided to experiment.

I attached a short section of wire to the top of the coil and insulated it with heat shrink tubing. Then I attached the alligator clip to the wire to “short” or bypass the coil. I hooked everything back up and tried the 20-meter band again. Right away, I could hear someone transmitting. He was transmitting from the USS Midway in San Diego Bay! Apparently a San Diego Ham Club has access to the radio room on the USS Midway on the second Saturday of each month. With their antenna high above the bridge of the aircraft carrier, their signal has a great reach. I was picking it up loud and clear from over 1,300 miles away.

Although I could pick up their signal, my output was too weak to reach them. Later, I made contact with a guy in Alaska. He was loud and clear. He said he could hear me, but my signal was weak and a little noisy. He told me he was transmitting with 1,000 watts of output. Wow – that’s 10 times the 100 watts I have. I thought maybe I needed more power.

Then I heard from a guy in Texas – he also had 100 watts like me, but had a strong, clear signal. He said his antenna was on a 150-foot tall tower! I don’t need more power – I need to get my antenna higher! These contacts were over-the-air station-to-station with no repeaters or landlines involved.

Sunday was our last full day in Mount Vernon. Donna started the day with a long bicycle ride. She rode to La Conner and made a 27-mile loop. Here are a few of the photos she took on her ride.

Flower pots on the dock – Rainbow Bridge in the background

Later, we drove over to Alana and Kevin’s place. We visited in the backyard – I also watched the Moto GP race and the Formula One race they recorded on their DVR for me. Kevin grilled shrimp for tacos and made a great pineapple salsa to go with it.

A blacktail doe with two fawns came into the backyard and fed on leaves at the edge of the woods – they didn’t pay much attention to us. Around 9pm, we said our goodbyes until next time. It’s always a little sad because we don’t really know when next time will be.

On Monday morning, we hit the road. I drove south on I-5 to WA530 – the Arlington exit. There’s a Pilot-Flying J travel center there and I wanted to fill up before we headed east. There won’t be many places to fuel up until we reach Idaho and we would be low on fuel by then. I don’t like to run the tank low – you never know what might come up.

From there, our route took us through Darrington, then we hit WA20 – the North Cascades Highway at Rockport. The road closure and detour we encountered on our way west had been cleared the previous Friday, so no detour this time. We climbed up Rainy Pass then Washington Pass before the downhill run to Winthrop. In Mount Vernon, we were at an elevation of 31 feet above sea level. Donna said she thought Washington Pass was over 5,000 feet above sea level. I thought it was closer to 4,000 feet. Later I looked it up. It’s more than 5,400 feet above sea level, so Donna was right. I love it when she’s right.

We checked in at Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop around 2:30 pm. We’re in site seven – the same site we had three weeks ago. Awhile later, I set up my Comet GP6 antenna – this one is for 2-meter (VHF) and 70cm (UHF) frequencies which are line-of-sight frequencies. I tried the repeater here in town and got a report back that I had a good signal. The guy asked where I was, then he told me I could see the repeater from where we were.

My ham shack-in-a-box on the picnic table – the repeater is on the water tank on the hill in the background

Then I tried the repeater in Twisp – about eight miles away as the crow flies. This repeater is linked via a network to other repeaters. A guy in Republic, WA said I had a clear signal. After that, I found that the hams over here aren’t very talkative, especially with an outsider. Today, I plan to take down the Comet and put up the Big Ear to see if I can make contact outside of the area.

Donna put the leftover tri-tip to good use. She made beef stroganoff for Monday night’s dinner with kale fettucini she bought at a farm stand on her last bike ride.

This morning we found pickleball. We played here before, a couple of years ago at the outdoor ice skating rink. When we went there this morning, the rink was closed. We came back home and Donna looked at another resource. We found out they play at the tennis courts on the west side of town. We went there and played for a couple of hours and had a good time.

We’re at an elevation of a little over 1,800 feet above sea level here. The weather has been hot and dry. It was 90 degrees on Monday afternoon and 86 degrees yesterday. Today is cooler with a forecast high of 80 degrees. Tomorrow should be about the same and we’ll pull out of here on Friday.

Tri-tip Delight

Kevin and Alana came by on Thursday afternoon and we went into town to District Brewing on the corner of Main Street and Myrtle Street – across from the park where the farmers’ market is held. The brewery had a variety of good IPAs on tap, but only one amber or red ale and one porter.

We found a table on the upper level overlooking the park and Skagit River. After a round of ales, we moved to an outside table so Alana’s chihuahua, Chico, could join us. I ordered a wood-fired pizza to go and Donna and I enjoyed it back at home.

Friday was mostly uneventful – Donna went out for a bike ride. I went to Lowes and bought supplies to build a new antenna mast. I received an MFJ-2289 Big Ear dipole antenna from Ham Radio Outlet the day before. This monster looks kind of like an old “rabbit ear” TV antenna on steroids. The collapsible whips are 17 feet long! I built a mast and mounted it on a sturdy tripod about 10 feet above the ground. The idea is to get on the 20-meter band and see if I can make some distant single-side-band contacts over the air. I haven’t been successful yet.

As I was messing with the radio yesterday afternoon, I could see clouds thickening and could feel rain coming. I took everything down and put the radio away. Meanwhile, I had a tri-tip on the Traeger wood-fired smoker-grill.

I bought the tri-tip at Winco Foods on Wednesday. It was untrimmed, so I trimmed the fat cap and seasoned it Thursday night. Tri-tip is an interesting cut of beef and has some folklore behind it. The tri-tip cut is the bottom of the sirloin – the tensor fasciae latae muscle in front of a cow’s hip. It’s a curved cut usually about eight or nine inches long and three inches thick in the center, tapering on the ends.

This portion of meat was once used only for ground beef or maybe stew meat. The story goes like this – in the 1950s a butcher named Bob Schutz at Safeway in Santa Maria, California was overstocked on ground beef. So he took a bottom sirloin cut that would normally be ground and spiced it, then put it on a rotisserie. The results were surprising. Everyone found the meat to be flavorful and hearty. With a few tweaks, he perfected the method of grilling over coals and began marketing the “tri-tip” as he called it, as a barbecue cut.

This barbecue meat became quite popular in Santa Maria, which is located in a valley known for growing wine grapes, midway between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Today, a tri-tip that has been barbecued is known as “Santa Maria Tri-Tip.” It’s mostly a west coast thing, but I’ve heard it has grown in popularity throughout the country. The traditional method uses a simple dry rub of equal parts salt, pepper and garlic powder. I used a commercially prepared rub called “Pappy’s Choice” which has a high salt content. After trimming the tri-tip, I rubbed it, wrapped it in cling-wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

Friday afternoon, I pulled the Traeger out of the trailer and set the temperature at about 220 degrees. I did this by setting the controller to 180 degrees, then adjusting the P-setting to P0. This had the pellets feeding for 15 seconds, then idling for 45 seconds and held it at the temperature I desired.

After two hours in the Traeger, I checked the internal temperature and found it at 130 degrees. I fired up the Weber Q and heated it to 400 degrees. I took the tri-tip out of the Traeger and put it in the Weber for three minutes per side. This seared the meat and toughened the bark resulting from the rub and smoking. This is called a reverse sear technique as most searing methods start with the sear first.

The last trick to serving tri-tip is to cut it correctly. It’s a lot like cutting brisket. You must cut across the grain and pay attention as the grain direction changes. For our dinner, I sliced the tri-tip in 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick slices.

Donna made whole wheat spaghetti with pesto, sun dried tomatoes and asparagus on the side and she also had fresh corn on the cob which she bought at the vegetable stand near here on her bike ride. I pulled the tri-tip off the Weber at about 5:20 pm, just as it started raining. Perfect timing. I let it rest on a cutting board for 15 minutes before slicing. You need a cutting board with channel cut in the outer perimeter – this is one juicy hunk of beef.

That’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about tri-tip. The one I smoked was rather large – about three pounds before smoking. So, we have leftovers and that’s great. I had some with eggs over-easy for a poor man’s steak and eggs breakfast this morning. Donna sliced the remainder into thin slices that’ll be just right for tri-tip sandwiches or topping for a salad.

The rain fell off and on overnight and it’s raining lightly this morning. It should clear up by early afternoon. The thermometer reached 73 yesterday and should be about the same today. Tomorrow and Monday are predicted to be sunny and warmer. I’ll start organizing the trailer today. Tomorrow we plan to visit with Kevin and Alana and our granddaughter, Gabi, and Kevin’s boys, Nick and Kyle. On Monday, we’ll pull out of here and head over the North Cascades to Winthrop.

Cedar Hats

We went to Alana and Kevin’s place Sunday afternoon for a visit. We didn’t really “visit” much – they’re in the middle of a large project. They’re repainting their house and had a hydraulic lift they rented to reach the second story and roof trim of the house. This large lift was an expensive rental and they were making the most of it and we didn’t want to interrupt their progress.

I was able to watch the Formula One race from Silverstone, England they had recorded for me on their DVR – thank you very much. Donna brought her clarinet and some sheet music and practiced outdoors in the back yard.

Earlier in the day Donna, went out for a nice bike ride. She rode to La Conner and went across the Swinomish Channel on the Rainbow Bridge.

View south of the bridge – two kayaks on the water

Once she crossed the bridge, she was on Swinomish Indian tribal land. She found a small park with covered pavilions called Cedar Hats.

Monday was my middle daughter, Jamie’s, birthday. I talked to her briefly on the telephone but she was at work so we had to cut it short. Other than that, I didn’t accomplish much beyond making a few ham radio contacts. I know some people wonder what the big deal is about ham radio.

For me, it comes down to two main ideas. I can make contact with people that are great distances away from. Okay, so what – a cell phone does that and is easier. But, would I make contact with a random person in Alaska or Australia or even Japan? I did that over the last few days. Anyone can hail anyone else on the radio and start a conversation. The conversation I had with the guy in Melbourne, Australia was a hoot. After awhile, he told me he had to go because his wife “had brekkie on.” Aussies and Brits often refer to breakfast as brekkie. Although it was Monday afternoon for me, it was Tuesday morning in Australia.

The other thing is emergency contacts. We know from experience with natural or un-natural disasters, like hurricanes or the huge explosion in Beirut, infrastructure goes down. Phone lines, cell towers and Internet are useless in these situations. Many ham operators volunteer for emergency service through Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) or Amateur Radio Civil Emergency Service (RACES). Ham radio doesn’t require Internet or phone service – in many cases, just a battery and antenna for the radio will suffice.

Donna ordered a new carrier (crate) for Ozark the cat. The old one was fine when Ozark was a kitten, but it was a little cramped for a long day on the road now. Donna found a collapsible/expandable carrier and Ozark loves it. She goes in it just to relax on her own volition.

Donna came up with a couple of new dishes this week. She made corn fritters to go with honey/sriracha glazed chicken thighs and baby squash from the farmers’ market. The corn fritters were made with fresh corn cut from the cob.

Honey/sriracha glazed chicken with corn fritters and baby squash

It was excellent. Last night she made lamb rib chops with a rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper marinade. We bought these rib chops at the farmers’ market in Dolores, Colorado and kept them frozen.

Lamb rib chops are tender and very tasty, but you don’t get a lot of meat off of them. We had mashed potato and green beans to go with the chops.

I woke this morning to the sound of rain drops hitting the roof of the coach. Here in western Washington, it’s inevitable – we’ve been here for two and half weeks. If it didn’t rain in the next few days, people around here would be wringing their hands over a drought. The forecast calls for a high of 66 degrees today. It should be dry with temperatures in the mid to upper 70s through the weekend. We plan to pull out of here on Monday. We’ll be retracing our route with a four-night stay in Winthrop before going back to Coeur d’Alene.

Antenna Farm

Alana, Kevin and the kids headed over to eastern Washington on Wednesday. Our granddaughter Lainey had to move from her apartment in Pullman where she’s a student at Washington State University. They would be back on Saturday.

Thursday and Friday, Donna and I drove over to their place in Arlington to feed cats, water the potted plants and pick up mail and packages. It was uneventful on Thursday, but on Friday we found evidence of raccoons ransacking the cat food.

On our way back on Friday, we made a stop at Little Mountain Park. Donna discovered this park on one of her bicycle rides. Little Mountain Park is a 522-acre park just outside of town on the south side. The road into the park rises steeply to the parking lot at the summit, 934 feet above sea level. There are 10 miles of hiking trails in the park – most of them have steep climbs or descents. There are two viewing platforms – the south platform is adjacent to the parking lot and the north one is a short hike from there.

The south viewing platform overlooks the Skagit Valley with views of Puget Sound, Camano Island and Whidbey Island. On a clear day you can see the Olympic Mountains across the sound. We didn’t have a clear day – there was a lot of haze which you can see in the photos below. We’ll have to go back on a clear day.

View Southwest – Camano Island on the left, Whidbey Island on the right

One of the packages I picked up at Alana’s house was a tripod I ordered from Amazon. I used a great little tripod to mount the Comet GP6 antenna for my ham radio – very sturdy. I wanted to order another one to put up the Diamond CP-610 antenna for the 6-meter and 10-meter bands, but they were on backorder. So, I found a different one and ordered it.

I assembled the antenna and put it up on Friday. I wasn’t entirely happy with the new tripod – it seemed a little flimsy compared to the first one. The neighbors must think we have an antenna farm – they keep sprouting up.

The Diamond antenna is a bit of a beast. The actual antenna is 21 feet tall and has radials that extend about three feet, mounted on a 10-foot mast. After hooking it up, I played around on the 6- and 10-meter bands but couldn’t find a signal. Later, I took the antenna down – I didn’t trust the set-up in case it got windy overnight.

Saturday morning, I put the antenna back up. Just as I got it in position, I was distracted by Ozark the cat coming out of the coach. I’d left the door open – Ozark usually just stands or lays on the steps and looks outside, but she jumped out onto the grass this time. I let go of the antenna mast and went to retrieve Ozark. The antenna wasn’t stabilized and came crashing down, damaging the radials. I was lucky that it fell straight back across our site and landed in the grass without hitting anything else.

I disassembled the antenna and boxed it up. Lesson learned. I found a sturdy tripod on Amazon and won’t use the flimsy one again. Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll be able to order a couple of radials from Diamond. The radial extensions shouldn’t be much money and it’s an easy fix.

I’ve been having a blast with the ham radio. I found a repeater in Sequim – about 42 miles across the sound as the crow flies from here. This repeater is linked to something called the Winsystem. This links repeaters across the country and around the world allowing me to communicate over great distances by hitting the repeater 42 miles away! I had discussions with guys in Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. It’s incredible, but I really want to try to make distant contact over the air – that’s why I got the bigger antenna.

The weather has been variable. We went from sunny and 85 degrees on Thursday to partly sunny and 78 on Friday, then cloudy and 76 on Saturday and they say we’ll be back in the mid-80s today with rain coming tomorrow!

Sending and Receiving

Donna and I met up with Alana, Kevin and our granddaughter Lainey Monday afternoon at North Sound Brewing Company for a couple of cold ones. It’s a little strange getting used to the idea of having an adult beverage with my granddaughter! The brewery is only about a mile from the Mount Vernon RV Park on Memorial Highway. They had plenty of outdoor seating.

Tuesday I had a project to take care of. A few weeks ago, I noticed some strange wear patterns on the cargo trailer tires. One of them looked bad. On Monday, I walked down the street from the RV park to the Les Schwab Tire Center. I ordered four new ST type trailer tires. They said they would have the tires first thing Tuesday morning.

It was a bit of a chore putting the trailer up on jack stands. I used my floor jack and placed two jack stands per side and pulled all of the wheels off. Alana and the grandkids, Lainey and Gabi, came by to go for a walk with Donna. I used Alana’s VW Atlas to transport the wheels to Les Schwab. They had the new tires and got on the job right away.

This was the worst tire – note the shoulder wear and wear bars in the outer treads

This tire had much less wear, but still had excessive wear on the shoulders

Examining the four old tires, I saw they wore very inconsistently. These were Chinese made Rainier brand tires. I always kept the tires inflated to 50psi – the maximum load pressure indicated on the sidewall. The excessive shoulder wear looked like they had been underinflated, but I know that wasn’t the case. The tire guy at Les Schwab asked about inflation of these tires and I told him I always maintained them at 50psi.

The new tires were mounted quickly and while I paid the bill, the tire guy loaded the wheels in the Atlas. Before I left, I asked him what the tire pressure was – he said he set them to 50psi, just like the old ones. Here’s the thing – the old tires had a 6-ply rating – an antiquated rating system. They were more accurately called load range “C” tires. Load range “C” tires are rated for maximum load at 50psi.

The new tires I bought were 8-ply rated or load range “D”. These tires were rated for higher maximum loads. Load range “D” trailer tires are rated for maximum load at 65psi. These tires can carry 300 lbs more load per tire than the old tires, but they have to be inflated to 65psi. I let it go – I figured I could deal with it later before we hit the road.

Before I re-installed the wheels, I checked the wheel bearings for excessive play. I thought maybe if there was too much clearance in the wheel bearings, the hubs might walk back and forth making a slight wobble in the tire, causing the shoulder wear. The wheel bearings were fine. I think the tires were just cheaply manufactured and had inconsistent wear. I had put about 28,000 miles on the old tires.

Later, Donna and I went to Alana’s place. Kevin was working – he’s an paramedic with the fire department and works 24-hour shifts. He does two 24-hour stints with 12 hours off in between, then has five days off. I cooked a salmon filet on Kevin’s Traeger and Alana added boneless chicken thighs. She also made home fried potatoes, asparagus and broccoli.

We visited on the back patio over dinner and had a black-tail doe come through the yard. Lainey had to go back to Pullman where she’s a student at Washington State University. She had to move out of her apartment by Thursday night. So, Alana, Kevin and the rest of the family went to Pullman on Wednesday to help her move. They’ll be back Saturday afternoon. It was getting a bit late by the time we left and we didn’t get back to Mount Vernon until 9pm.

I’ve been playing with my ham radio and I’m getting more comfortable with the program settings and being on the air. I found a repeater located on Mount Seymour which is north of Vancouver, British Columbia. This powerful repeater reaches well into Washington as well as covering western British Columbia and Vancouver Island, Canada.

Without getting too technical, I need to explain something about repeaters. A repeater is a remote station that receives a radio signal and re-transmits that signal at a higher output power. The thing is, it has to receive the signal on a certain frequency, then re-transmit on a different frequency. If it tried to receive and transmit on the same frequency simultaneously, garbled noise would result. The difference between the receive or input frequency and the transmit or output frequency of the reperater is called the offset.

Well, when I found the signal being transmitted by the Canadian repeater, it was transmitting a net or network of users called the Rainbow Country Net. They log in with the net operator at 9am every morning for group discussion. I listened for an hour or so, then the net operator called for anyone that hadn’t checked in to give their call sign, location and name. I keyed the microphone and called in. I was welcomed and told I had a clear, strong signal.

Later, I realized that I had just stumbled upon what I thought was the repeater transmission while I was scanning frequencies. I didn’t have the repeater information, so I hadn’t programmed an offset frequency to transmit into the repeater, I thought I was just monitoring the output. So, what happened was although I thought I was listening to the net from the repeater, I was really capturing the signal going into the repeater and when I transmitted, my signal didn’t go through the repeater – it went directly from station-to-station.

Later, I looked up the repeater online and found the offset. This morning, I joined the net again and told them of my error the day before. The net operator told me he was unaware that I transmitted a simplex station-to-station the day before, my signal was that good.

I had to come up with a way to store the new radio gear. Storage when you’re a full-time RVer is always an issue. I ordered a couple of foam-lined hard shell cases intended for camera equipment to use with my ham radio gear.

I added the Yaesu radio sticker to the large case

The protective cases will make it much easier to store the gear. My radio is made by a Japanese company called Yaesu. I’ve been in a quandry over how I should pronounce the name. Most native English speakers say “YAY-sue.” But that’s not how a native Japanese speaker would pronounce it. They say it with more of a three syllable sound although the second and third syllable are often slurred together. They say “YAH-eh-zu.” YAY-sue sounds kind of country bumpkin to me. Maybe I’ll say a hybrid YAY-eh-zu.

My ham shack-in-a-box on the picnic table in our site

The weather forecast around here seems to change on a daily basis. We were expecting some cooler temperatures, but yesterday we hit 81 degrees and now they’re calling for 85 today. For what it’s worth, the forecast says we’ll see around 80 degrees each day through the weekend.

Break Out the Champagne

The probability of rain in Friday’s forecast didn’t materialize. In fact, by late afternoon, the skies were mostly clear and the thermometer reached 75 degrees. Around 4pm, I went to the car show at the Burgermaster in Mount Vernon. My friend and former colleague, Ed King, told me about the show. They had a good turnout.

I was standing by a car, admiring it, when a guy I’m guessing was a millenial came up to me with his wife. He said, “We saw this car from across the lot and had to get a closer look. What is it?”

I told him it was a 1969 Hurst/Olds. These were a variant of the Oldsmobile Cutlass 442 – fewer than 1,000 were made in 1969. He said he never heard of such a car.

I saw another rig that I saw at a car show in Arlington last year. It’s a custom that started out as a 1948 Ford cabover truck.

There was a very clean 1965 Corvette that caught my eye. The 1963-67 C2 Corvettes were the first to use the name Sting Ray. In 1968, the name was changed to one word – Stingray. I had a 1965 Corvette with a 396 cubic inch engine and 4-speed transmission for a few years. 1965 was the only year they used a 396 big block.

I thought one of the coolest cars there was this 1950 Chevrolet Deluxe Styleline. I don’t know why – it just really appealed to me.

I expected to see Ed King at the car show, but he hadn’t arrived by the time I left around 5pm.

Donna and I hit the Skagit County Farmers’ Market Saturday morning. It was just across the bridge from the RV park – less than a mile away on Main Street. They were practicing social distancing and face masks were required.

Donna found fresh produce there that looked really good and was priced right. The farmers’ market is right on the Skagit River. The Skagit flows right through Mount Vernon. Downstream from town, it splits into two forks. The north fork flows into Skagit Bay which connects with the Pacific Ocean through the Strait of Juan De Fuca at Deception Pass.

The south fork flows past Conway where it breaks up into smaller branches and empties into the south end of Skagit Bay.The waterway extends south through a strait between Camano Island and Whidbey Island that joins Puget Sound.

Skagit River – looking upstream at the Division Street bridge by the farmers’ market

Riverwalk and Skagit River downstream from the farmers’ market

Later, I drove over to Walmart to pick up a couple of things. I noticed really heavy traffic going the opposite way from me. Cars were backed up bumper to bumper from downtown Mount Vernon all the way out Freeway Drive to Walmart – about a mile and a half line of cars creeping along very slowly.

When I left Walmart, I tried an alternate route by going north, then east on Stewart Street to Riverside Drive. It seemed like a good idea until I got to College Way and found it was backed up as well from there to downtown. Meanwhile, Donna was out for a bike ride and found heavy traffic everywhere.

We wondered if it was typical for weekend traffic to be so heavy around here. Then we found out that I-5 was closed through Mount Vernon due to two traffic accidents. All of the traffic was diverted through Mount Vernon surface streets.

On Sunday morning, I drove over to Alana’s house. I was scheduled to take my ham radio exam at 10am with the Greater Los Angeles Area Amateur Radio Group (GLAARG) through a Zoom meeting. Alana set me up at a desk in my granddaughter Gabi’s room.

After checking in with the Zoom meeting, we had a lot of waiting as people checked in and some of them weren’t very computer savvy and had to be walked through the process. I was mildly surprised by this – I would think most hams are a bit geeky and technically oriented.

Eventually, I was directed to a virtual room – I guess you could call it a Zoom room – where four volunteer examiners greeted me. These examiners act as proctors administering the test material and observing the applicant taking the test – one applicant at a time. They had several Zoom rooms with volunteer examiners operating simultaneously.

First I had to move my laptop camera around to show I didn’t have any books, notes or other aids in the room, including on the floor or ceiling. I finished the technician exam in about five minutes. After the exam was graded – I passed easily – they asked me if I wanted to try the next level of license – the general exam. If I took it, I wouldn’t have to pay the usual fee and if I passed, I would be granted a General Amateur Radio License. The general license grants access to many more frequencies than the technician license. I went for it. I passed the general exam!

This morning, I searched the FCC database and found my license had already recorded. My radio call sign is KF0AZQ. Kilo-Foxtrot-Zero-Alpha-Zulu-Quebec. I can legally transmit now.

Later, Donna and I went back to Alana and Kevin’s place. Donna had prepped mojo marinade pork tenderloins which we bought at Costco on Friday. I put them on Kevin’s Traeger. Alana had country fried potatoes, a slow-cooked bean medley and corn on the cob as well as a garden salad. All eight of us dined on the back patio and had a great time.

I bought two bottles of Veuve Cliquot champagne at Costco. Donna poured champagne for Lainey, Alana and herself to celebrate Lainey’s 21st birthday, Alana’s 40th and Donna’s 60th – which all occurred over the last month or so. It’s a milestone year!

We’re expecting a high temperature of 87 degrees today. The rest of the week should be a more comfortable 70 to 80 degrees.

Shack in a Box

We had a nice visit with family Tuesday afternoon. Donna and I sat out in the back of Kevin and Alana’s place with our granddaughters, Lainey and Gabi and Kevin’s two boys, Nick and Kyle. Kevin and Alana are in the middle of a house painting project and had to run to the store. They arrived shortly after we got there.

Kevin put chicken legs on his Traeger while Alana made loaded baked potatoes, green salad and corn on the cob. We dined on the back patio. It was a good time – I sampled a few of the IPAs they had on hand and all of them were good. We got home just before dark – the sun doesn’t set until around 9pm at this latitude at this time of year.

We drove down again on Wednesday morning and traded Midget-San for Alana’s VW Atlas to drive to Everett for dental appointments. Donna and I had teeth cleaning and check-ups scheduled together at 11am. On the way back, we stopped at Home Depot where I bought a length of PVC pipe and then at Winco Foods where I stocked up on dark roasted Sumatra whole-bean coffee.

We gave Alana her car back and I had a 6-foot length of 1-1/4″ PVC pipe sticking out of the passenger compartment of Midget-San when we drove home. I had all of my new ham radio gear and I only needed to make a couple of cables with PowerPole connectors and assemble an antenna to test out the rig. The PVC pipe would be part of the antenna. I got everything assembled Wednesday afternoon.

While we were at Alana’s, she pointed out her neighbor’s antenna. He has a tower with a ham radio antenna that must be close to 100 feet high. It’s next to a shop building where he parks his boat. I told Alana that the shop must have a “ham shack” inside – that’s what hams call their radio room with all of their equipment. She thought it was pretty funny and said she would have to tell Kevin about ham shacks. I then told her the radio I bought is a multi-band, multi-mode unit that covers frequencies that would usually take two or more radios. They call this type of transceiver a “shack in a box.”

Yaesu FT991A Multi-Band, Multi-Mode transceiver and Samlex SEC-1235M power supply

I wanted to mount the antenna high enough to be taller than the motorhome and trailer. I wish I had made the PVC section longer now – higher is better when it comes to antennas.

After I had everything set up, Alana and Lainey came over for a visit. While they sat inside with Donna, I played with my radio. Since I’m not licensed yet, I could only receive and listen – I can’t transmit until my license is granted. I’ll take the exam Sunday morning.

The Puget Sound area has a radio repeater network called a wide area network. It’s fantastic. By tuning into this network, I was able to listen to a guy in Alaska talk about the major earthquake that hit off the coast up there. A guy in Kentucky was asking him for more information – it was interesting. Yesterday, I listened to a guy at the Grand Canyon and another guy south of Portland, Oregon. This was in addition to local traffic. We found out the reason for the North Cascades Highway closure was due to a rock slide. A guy on the network gave an update – it looks like it’ll remain closed for a few more weeks.

Alana said she Googled “what do ham radio operators talk about?” The answer was “They talk about their ham radios!” I thought that was hilarious, but it’s only partly true.

Yesterday, I drove Donna to La Conner for her hair appointment. The salon is taking great precautions against the spread of coronavirus. They only had two hairstylists and only two customers in the salon at a time. This was her first haircut in about seven months. It took two hours for a cut and highlights.

Later today, we’re planning a run to Costco, then I want to check out a car show a few miles from here – weather permitting. The weather has been cooler than we’re used to. That coupled with the high humidity levels has us feeling a little cold and damp. Tuesday wasn’t bad as the thermometer hit 79 degrees. But on Wednesday it only reached 70 and yesterday was overcast and the high was only 66 degrees.

It’s only 66 degrees now with 62% humidity as I type this. The expected high is only 68 and we have cloud cover again. The forecast looks better – 75 degrees and sunny tomorrow with more sun and 80 degree temperatures as we head into next week.

Selfies

We left the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge Sunday morning. Our first stop was at the fairgrounds dump station. All three lanes were open, so we took care of business without any delays and hit I-90 westbound. Our next stop was two miles from the Washington border – I wanted to top off our tank in Idaho. Everything, including diesel fuel, costs more in Washington.

Once we crossed the border, we stayed on I-90 for about 22 miles through greater Spokane traffic. We exited at Airway Heights and took US2 which brought us west through farm land and small towns – Reardan, Davenport, Creston. On the west side of Wilbur we turned northwest on WA174. This took us to Grand Coulee where we dropped down into a gorge, then climbed back up again.

WA174 became WA17 at Leahy. After passing by the Chief Joseph Dam, we crossed the Columbia River at Bridgeport. We were on familiar ground when we turned west on WA153 at Pateros. This followed the Methow (met-HOW) River through the valley and up to Twisp and finally our destination for the day – the Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop. This was our fourth visit to Pine Near. We had an easy pull-through into site 7. We were only staying for one night so I connected power and water but didn’t bother with a sewer connection. We also didn’t try to hit the Schoolhouse Brewery on the river. Donna took a walk through town but couldn’t get there via the Shaefer Museum stairway – the museum was closed due to COVID-19 and the grounds were locked up tight. But on her way back past the museum, she spotted a deer on the grounds.

Winthrop is at an elevation of about 1,800 feet above sea level. We got an early start Monday morning and were on the road just after 9am. We only had about 150 miles to cover, but I knew it would be a fairly long drive. First up, we had to climb across Washington Pass on WA20 (North Cascades Highway) – it’s 5,477 feet above sea level. After reaching the summit of Washington Pass, the road descends quickly then climbs again to Rainy Pass at 4,875 feet above sea level. It’s mostly a downhill run from there.

The area is very rugged with high mountain peaks still covered with snow in places. The Skagit River originates in British Columbia, Canada and flows into Washington where there are a series of three dams providing hydroelectric power to western Washington. They create three lakes – from east to west there’s Ross Lake, then Diablo Lake and finally Gorge Lake. The North Cascades Highway follows the Skagit River all the way to Puget Sound.

Diorama at the overlook depicting the dams and lakes

We stopped briefly at the Diablo Lake Overlook. We’ve made this stop a few times over the years and took a selfie photo.

There’s a small town west of the dams called Newhalem. It’s an interesting town as it’s owned by Seattle City Light – the power company. All of the residents are employees of Seattle City Light working at the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project, or in local county, state or federal agencies.

We didn’t know the North Cascades Highway was closed west of Marblemount. We had to detour to the Rockport Cascade Road which is very narrow, twisty and not much fun in a big rig. We hit WA530 at Rockport and were able to get back on WA20 westbound. I don’t know why the road was closed.

I made a second detour on our route when we reached Mount Vernon. I didn’t want to follow the GPS routing through the old downtown area. I stayed on WA20 toward Anacortes instead and went south on Best Road and came around to Memorial Highway which brought us to the Mount Vernon RV Park. We pulled in around 2:30pm and set up in a 70-foot long pull through site. The sites are a little tight here and we’re right under a tree blocking my satellite reception.

We made a run to Walmart – Donna needed some produce and I needed to buy a new sewer hose. Our Rhinoflex hose had a pinhole. It seems to happen after a few years of use.

Later we drove over to my oldest daughter, Alana’s place. She was at work but we’ve had several packages delivered there and wanted to pick them up. We had so much stuff there that Midget-San was overflowing. The trunk was packed tight and a couple of packages were poking out from behind the seats.

I was like a kid at Christmas opening packages back at the RV park. I got the ham radio I ordered – A Yaesu 991A – and a bunch of other ham radio related goodies. Now I need to pass the exam on Sunday so I can use this stuff!

We’re about 30 feet above sea level here and no longer in high, dry country. The humidity here runs right around 50%. It really feels different after being in 15% or lower humidity for the last three months. The forecast looks good with temperatures ranging from 70 to 80 degrees for the next week and little chance of rain.

We’ll head back to Alana and Kevin’s place this afternoon. Alana is an emergency room RN and has today and tomorrow off from work.

Friends and Fun Times

The days have flown by here at the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge. We’ve been active and the days have gotten past me without writing a post. I’ve been studying for the ham radio exam and I’m confident I can pass the technician exam. I’m now thinking I should also take the General exam as I think I know enough to have a chance of earning that license. The General license will give me more frequencies to work with and possibly longer range. We’ll see.

On Thursday, Donna and I took a drive up to Priest River. We wanted to visit with our friends, Jim and Cindy Birditt. Jim has been my best friend for nearly 50 years. It was a nice drive in Midget-San. We avoided the traffic on US95 and took Meyer Road up to Rathdrum where we found ID41. This took us up through Spirit Lake where we then took the Spirit Lake Cutoff Road through the woods to the Pend Oreille River. A few miles west along the river brought us to the bridge at Wisconsin Street where we crossed into the town of Priest River.

After a little communication snafu, we met up with Jim at Mi Pueblo – a Mexican restaurant in town. We’ve eaten there before and knew they had excellent fare. We sat outside at a table and talked over lunch. We left Midget-San in the Ace Hardware parking lot and rode in Jim’s truck to his place a few miles east of town. Jim built a log home here back in the ’90s – it’s somewhat remote and I didn’t want to drive Midget-San on the unpaved roads. We sat on his deck with Cindy and talked and laughed for a couple of hours. The time really flies when it’s spent with good friends. Unfortunately, I was so caught up in conversation that I never took a photo.

On the way back to Couer d’Alene, we saw two moose alongside the Spirit Lake Cutoff Road. It was a beautiful drive.

On Friday, we had plans to meet up with Dick and Roxy Zarowny who drove over from Spokane, Washington. They’re friends and fellow RVers that we met at Viewpoint RV & Golf Resort in Mesa, Arizona. Roxy had been in touch with Donna and they invited us to join them for a boat ride on Lake Coeur d’Alene. They recently sold their boat, but they had reserved a rental pontoon boat to cruise around.

We drove down and parked in a public lot east of the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Parking was a bit of an adventure. You pay for parking at a kiosk that only accepts credit or debit cards – no cash. For some reason, it declined my card twice. Then I tried Donna’s card and that was declined as well. The people waiting behind us then tried to pay for their space and their card was also declined! We found another kiosk on the other side of the lot and my card worked fine.

The weather when we left the dock around 10am wasn’t as expected. The day dawned with quite an overcast and the clouds were still present. It was quite breezy out on the water, but it was good to be out there nonetheless. The Coeur d’Alene Resort is on the northern shore of the lake. We cruised south toward Mica Bay. There are a number of lake houses and cabins along the shore. Some are more like mansions or resorts! Dick knew a lot about many of the more outlandish homes – who owned or built them and so on. Some are difficult to reach by car and are mostly accessed via boat from town. We saw an interesting sight at one place. It was Ford pickup truck that wasn’t where it should be.

The truck was wrecked, but it didn’t appear to have rolled over. It looked to me like it came down the hillside nose first. The front end was heavily damaged as if it crashed into the rock at the water’s edge and the rear end swung around to its final resting position. It’ll be a tough job to get it out of there.

We were cruising right into the wind, so we crossed over the east side of the lake across from Twin Beaches and came around Arrow Point to get out of the wind. There was an interesting house at Arrow Point – it’s built on top of a large square rock! Dick said it’s owned by an architect.

By noon, the clouds had mostly dissipated. We stopped and drifted and had lunch on the water. I think we were near Moscow Bay. Roxy made some excellent Mediterranean wraps. She also had tortilla chips and homemade mango salsa. Donna brought some grapes and also made molasses cookies for dessert.

We came back along the north side of the lake where we saw people hiking on the Tubbs Hill trail or splashing in the water. We came past the Coeur d’Alene Golf Course. They have a floating green on one of the holes! To reach the green to putt or retrieve your ball, there’s a small boat ferry.

The floating green in the center of the photo

We came back to the dock at 2pm after a lovely day on the lake. It was very generous of Dick and Roxy to invite us out and treat us to a tour of the lake.

This morning, Donna and I hit the Kootenai County Farmers’ Market. It’s only about half a mile from the Elk’s Lodge on the southeast corner of US95 and Prairie Avenue. We’ve been to this market once before on our first visit here in 2014. It’s one of the nicest settings for a farmers’ market, being in the shade of tall pine trees. We found a few things there although we didn’t go with an intention of buying anything.

I bought locally made jalapeno-chedder sausage. They’re pre-cooked so you can just slice them for a snack or grill them if you wish. Donna found really good looking fresh green beans. We also bought some labneh – we haven’t had any since the last time we were at this market. Labneh is sort of a cheese made by straining Greek yogurt.

On the way back from the lake yesterday, we stopped and checked out the dump station at the fairgrounds. I wanted to see if I could get in and out with the trailer or if I would have to dump first, then come back and pick up the trailer. It’s plenty roomy so no worries about the trailer. We’ll have to dump our tanks before we hit the road tomorrow. We’ll stop in Winthrop, Washington for the night, then continue on to Mount Vernon where we’re booked for two weeks. Time to visit the grandkids!

The weather has been fine with daily highs around 80-85 degrees dropping into the 50s overnight. Yesterday was the only cloudy day all week. The long range forecast for western Washington looks favorable, so hopefully, we’ll continue to enjoy sunshine and warm temperatures.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Code Talkers

Bottom Third

Tri-tip Delight

Cedar Hats

Antenna Farm

Sending and Receiving

Break Out the Champagne

Shack in a Box

Selfies

Friends and Fun Times

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