Hider: Bob WB6JPI

It was not a sunny day. It had been raining on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and on Saturday Morning it was foggy or maybe I was in one of the clouds.

The plan was to get up to nine transmitters spread around between R3 (Sage road),  on the west, 74 on the North and East and 371 on the south. All this is between Hemet and Anza in the San Bernardino Forest.


I used the GPS routing to get to T-1 hide spot but the road passed through part of the Indian reservation and it was gated. Phooey. Plan B was to hide. On Bautista Canyon Road . My profile map showed that I had a clear shot from the 3000 ft elevation to Mt Baldy some 60 miles away. I was still deep enough in the canyon to be hard to hear to the east (Palm Springs) or the west (the start). I found the spot and set up 11 elements horizontal pointed at Baldy and running 50 watts. This was T-1 iding T11.




On Wednesday I had come down with the current form of the flu. I had my flu shots and it was only a mild case and all was coming out OK until Thursday when things got better and by Friday I was sure I could hide on Saturday. Well, I was wrong  I spent most of Friday night 10 minutes on and 50 minutes off but my morning it calmed down and at 7 AM I set off. I had T-1 on at 9:45 and actually had T-2 running at 10:10. I was not doing well so I scurried home to my cozy dry bathroom.

When I got to Hemet I called GQ and yes they got a 45 degree bearing at the start and were heading south.

I drove home over Lambs canyon to I-10 and I heard T-2 into Hemet and T-1 up the hill and lost it down the other side. This is what should happen so I didn’t think much about it. I got to San Bernardino and so signal, I started worrying.

I went on home. Took care of business and called Scott on the phone. He was up the 15 and should have heard T-1 but didn’t. Others had gone to Cajon summit and heard nothing ( they shouldn’t) but should have heard something south before getting there.  Deryl had gone east on I-10 to Banning and I told Scott to call him (I had lost his number0 to tell him to stop going east and go south. Anyway it was clear that the transmitter was not working. I asked Scott to volunteer to go fix it as I was now in bed. He did and check with him for the rest of that story.

Scott got T-1 working and a number of teams found it in late afternoon.

T1 was at N33 37.0862 W116 45.7219
T2 was not found so I will keep it’s location for a while
T2A (Scott, N6MI) was at N33 37.4578 W116 46.4398

There were 6 teams, 5 offical and one walkin


                   T-1           
N6MI & KJ6SSY           0 miles      1.0    Thank you thank you
WA6RJN                         177.8         176.0      Winner   
KF6GQ & K6DJI           483.6        181.8
N6AIN & N6EKS           216.8        217.9
WA6CYY              DNF
WB6HPW             DNF

I am most sorry..

Bob, WB6JPI