I usually have a few scenarios for hides in mind. This one I’ve had for a while and thought I’d use it. There were a couple of places where I could put the main transmitter (I always need several backup plans).
The Monday before I set up the main T to test it. Hmm, no power out. After some troubleshooting it turns out it was a bad coax patch cable – and its back up. Then it turns out the power/SWR meter was also bad. On Tuesday the Tacoma wouldn’t start – bad 1 1/2 year old battery was dead. Better in the driveway than in the desert. Fortunately, it was under warranty and didn’t me cost anything to replace.
With all that behind be it should be a smooth day of hiding – yeah right. I left an hour late and drove 15 minutes before I realized I left my phone at home. I reached the hide area an hour and a half later than planned.
Originally I was going to hide a few Ts off of Juniper Flats road. When I tried driving up it, I decided it wasn’t a good road and didn’t want anyone to get stuck. Didn’t work as at least 3 hunters tried it with WB6MGT getting high centered for several hours.
The alternate was Bowen Ranch road with was a great, most graded road with only a few washboard areas. I also made use of several segments of an Edison road that ran though the hiding area. This road was rougher but not too bad – unless you drove it outside the hiding area to the west.
With most of my planned sites for the main T excluded and the fact I was out of time, I aimed for the hill top the Edison road traveled over. I arrived at about 9:50 but fortunately I have developed a fast set procedure for setting up an 11-element beam and the T. At 10:06 T1 was on the air and heard at the starting point.
The rest of the Ts were hid and I waited for the hunters. Apparently, the location of T1 confused some of the hunters. One went toward Lake Arrowhead, another to Victorville.
T1 was on a hill top on an Edison road using an 11-element beam pointed at the starting point running 3.5 watts.
T4 was down the same Edison road in the other direction from Bowen Ranch road. It was in a bush running 50 mW.
T9 was on Bowen Ranch road in a bush running 50 mW.
T3 was using a whip running ½ watt next to Bowen Rach road (am I sensing a pattering here?).
T11 (IDing as T10 (I mixed up the sign-in sheets) was on the Edison road in a pile of rocks running 50 mW.
N6MI kept signing in as KI6RXX and writing “winner” in the comments. Turns out he was right.
Results
KI6RXX T11 T9 T1 T3 T4
Winner ! 79 82 85 89 97
4:53 5:25 5:59 7:18 8:44
N6MI T1 T4 T9 T3 T11
?? 101 104 104?? 110
5:00 6:01 7:00 7:16 7:36
KF6GQ/KD6LAJ T1
??
??
WB6MGT DNF