CN78 trip report
ba...@k7bwh.com
North Point, DN78xc10, June 30 - July 3
48.0844, -124.0725, Elevation 3,300’
CN78 is a mostly-water rare grid in the utmost NW corner of the country, filled with rugged terrain and deep valleys on the Olympic Peninsula. However, with 4WD on an unmaintained overgrown forest service road, you can reach a decommissioned fire lookout. It’s become a tiny park with a viewpoint platform looming over a 2,300’ dropoff. In clear weather you can see it from Highway 101 from the Sol Duc River valley just west of Lake Crescent. This place is a short drive from Forks, WA, frequently ranked as the rainiest town in the lower 48 with average annual rainfall often exceeding 10 feet per year. Weather upheld its reputation this week.
The goal was to work Alan N5NA in Texas for his 488th grid and the FFMA award. Everything else was going to be gravy.
As it turned out, Alan was my first contact in the first few minutes on arrival at 5pm Tuesday. The first one, using only 100w from my barefoot IC-7300. We were both shocked. He's been trying to reach CN78 for years. I've made a couple trips to CN78 for him before this without success.
Then the floodgates opened and I worked a pileup for over 200 QSOs before bedtime. Many of them were FFMA glitterati chasing this grid for a long time. Good gravy! But the gravy bowl held more for me the next day.
I worked my friend Edfel KP4AJ and a couple others in Puerto Rico at 3700 miles. For Edfel, this is his farthest-away possible grid out of the mainland 488. He didn’t really expect to ever work CN78 in his lifetime.
After working these two, I didn't think it could get any better. Then I worked AL7JX in Anchor Point, Alaska (motto: “North America’s Most Westerly Highway Point”) at 1,340 miles. The God of Propagation (we think it's Loki the jokester) granted me G8BCG in England at 4,750 miles, and a contact in Japan, JR2HCB at 4,820 miles and I even heard Tac JA7QVI.
I tried 2-meter WSJT operation for the first time. Contacts were sparse and local. Distant contacts can take a very long time; meteor scatter can be infrequent and slow. I probably won’t do this again unless I can run the two bands simultaneously. Even then, it hardly seems worth the extra work.
There were 277 contacts in 3 ½ days, including 34 states and 6 countries. I can’t wait to see how this affects the CN78 ranking, currently at #29 and needed by 22.2%.
All contacts are in LoTW. Let me know if anything is missing.
Thank you to everyone for the chase and support. A big thanks to all that sent donations for expenses. And I apologize to everyone in Seattle – my big signal necessarily pierced the city en route to all the rest of the country.
73! Barry K7BWH
Washington State Ferries is the largest ferry system in the US. The ferry routes are part of the WSDOT state highway system and carry over 20 million riders annually.
North Point setup at CN78xc has parking for three, a picnic table and a vault toilet.
View from the operating position
The weather upheld its reputation. Under sunny skies these solar panels can power the entire trip. This week, the picnic table and solar panels kept my generator sheltered and dry.
The site of the fire lookout tower is now a popular observation platform with excellent propagation.
July 1st was my first full day of operation and propagation covered most of the country.
Chuck Greeno
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