This year I operated QRP with an Elecraft K3 from a cabin located at the end of a peninsula on Loon Lake (in EWA land north of Spokane) for this year’s 160 contest.   Antennas included a 670ft Beverage 10ft up for receive (oriented for E/W reception) and a 160m dipole with its feedpoint up 60ft (on top of a 90ft hill surrounded by lake to the north, east, and south.)  

 The good news was that I could hear really, really well, which was a real pleasure.  Band conditions this year were good, with a solar flux around 85, A index around 3 and K index of 1.  Being out in the woods, there was no electrical noise at all.  That was amazing.  And the 160 dipole was every bit as good as the Beverage on receive 98% of the time.  (The exception was for one weak JA signal that was stronger on the Beverage.)

 The downside this year was that since I was running QRP, my transmit signal wasn’t big — which meant that 90% of the folks that I could hear couldn’t hear me.  (When I operate from my home in Sunnyvale, the elevated noise floor covers up all the DX so I don’t realize what I’m missing.)  Even though the dipole at Loon Lake was physically high, on 160 meters it wasn’t high enough to put out much power at low elevation angles.  So working the East Coast this year was a challenge.   

Next year I hope to either put up an inverted L with a good ground plane (similar to what I used in 2009, 2010, and 2011 in the hills at Morrison Canyon east of Fremont, CA) or else I’ll “join the dark side" and start running 100w instead of 5w.

I got lucky regarding the weather.  There was no snow on the ground while I was there, which meant installing the antennas on Thursday and taking them down on Sunday wasn’t a problem.  

 Bottom line:  I made 194 QSOs with 51 multipliers.  Not bad for QRP on Top Band from the West Coast.