06/17/2009 | K7MDL/R This is my second outing on the KLR650 Rovercycle. My original plan was to do a 2 day trip through eastern WA, but a heavy snowpack this year blocked all the high points of my route. I spent the last 2 weekends scouting out much of the route, snow everywhere. I altered my plan to work on improving the setup and putting CN98 on the air. I spent Day 1 wiring up the control head and installing bulkhead N fittings on my Pelican 1520 trunk case so I could listen while driving. While testing in the driveway, I also put CN87 on the air.

The case holds an IC-706mkIIG, SuperPowerGate 40 DC battery charger/isolator (set to 4amp rate) and a 17AH AGM ATV/Motorcycle battery. I can also run a FT-817+W1GHZ 222 transverter+222 25W amp for all mode 222 band ops. The SuperPowergate is connected to the bike's 12V system via an under seat relay and permanent wiring into the case and is connected to charge only.

Wiring the control head cable permanently on the bike allows me to hear via my helmet speakers what is going on while traveling, when to pull over to catch the rare ones, and find the hot spots. I used the 2M KB6KQ loop for this. Once parked I remove the ELK antennas 144/432 dual band LP beam antenna, and my 50Mhz shortened coax 2el yagi from the 4" tubes. They mount on the rear post on PVC mast sections.

Sunday I headed up to CN88 briefly and then to Green Mtn in CN98, east of Everett, WA at 3600ft. Usually I operate from a truck at a road turnout at 3000ft, but now that I am on the bike, I turned up an abandoned logging spur, navigated a dozen cross ditches and an equal number of fallen small trees to find a nice flat clear operating location with good exposure to the south and west and north. Unfortunately a large branchy tree blocked me from reaching the top only 200 feet higher, so lots of rock blocked my signal to the east and all the 6M contacts outside of western WA and northwest OR.

A rough check of my paper log shows about 7 hours total operating time (6 hours in CN98) producing 99 QSOs and 19 grids across 3 bands. Since 6M was limited to west only, 6M and 2M had about the same results. Saturday seemed like it was more active in our area, but I was soldering very fine wire inside a trunk case not talking...

Looking forward to hitting my high spots when the snow clears.

- Mike -- K7MDL