The February all-day consisted of three transmitters located along the

      San Sevine Truck Trail (1N34) in the San Bernardino Forest. This road?

      runs along the southern face of the "foothills" beneath Cucamunga peak.

      >From gate-to-gate it is 26 miles long. The gate at Sapphire (in Alta

      Loma) was open and the gate at Lytle Creek was quite locked. (they are

      in two different forestry control regions, that apparently don't talk,

      or at least don't agree). This road is a classic in frustration and

      challenge. It starts with some shallow moguls which manage to enlarge

      themselves in full 3 ft whoopies, which swallow small cars like my zook.

      But they only last for a few hundred yards and then the road becomes a

      virtual freeway. If not for the rocks (at least on in the middle of the

      road is 3 ft in diameter), the washouts and two full fledged landslides

      (one at Deer Creek and one at Day Canyon), the several four foot "humps"

      wouldn't even be noticed. 



       The HA transmitter (it repeated HA over and over) was a "throw out"

      leaning on a tree, about 10 ft off of the road (and about 4 ft beneath

      it) at 34 deg 12.01', 117 deg 34.242'. It was no big deal although it

      was still running on Monday afternoon, some 50 hours. The transmitter

      was making about 2.5 watts about 7 KHz low into a piece of #14 house

      wire.



       The HO transmitter was also a "throw-out", but it was located on top of

      a hill about 200 ft off of a small even more difficult road about 1/4

      mile from the San Savine. (34 deg 12.734', 117 deg 32.142'). It was 2.17

      miles from HA, but took about an hour to get there. It too, was a 3 watt

      AF6O transmitter with a 20 inch #14 house wire stuck in its connector.

      It was the first one on (There was some kinda RACES net starting on

      146.565 at about 9:15. I transmitted from near the HO site to inform

      them of the impending T-hunt and they quite happily QSYed. But this

      transmission was heard by those hunters not eating breakfast and I'm

      sure that they got bearings. In an attempt at equality, I turned on HO a

      half hour early, at 9:30.) This transmitter was heard all over the place

      and was the one that was on for the first hour or so. This was done on

      purpose to draw the hunters as far east as I could so they would try the

      locked gate at Lytle Creek before they went to the nearer Sapphire end.

      I know I got Don, KF6GQ and I saw Deryl and a white van going west along

      19th street in Rancho Cucamonga from somewhere off in that direction.



       In between these two transmitters was HI. This was the real transmitter

      of the hunt. It was located in the middle of the Joe Elliot Campground

      (34 deg 04.519', 117 deg 25.254'). You could drive and park on top of

      the transmitter. It was a AF6O box feeding a 30 watt Radio Shack

      amplifier into a switch box that selected one of eight antennas spaced

      over an area of about 200 x 200 feet. The antennas were #30 green magnet

      wire that came out of the ground and tangled into some convienient bush

      or tree trunk. The antennas were switched at 1.25 Hz or about .75 sec

      each. As the 12 second transmission would get each signal at each

      antenna about 1-1/2 times every 40 seconds. The antennas were just not

      visible, even if you knew where to look. I don't know of any sniffer

      equipment that would respond to this short duration signal with the very

      low actual duty-cycle. If anyone really found an antenna without pulling

      up the coax, please let me know. It was my intention that some hunters

      would camp here (it is a really pretty place) but the running around to

      Lytle Creek and creeping up the terrible road put timing such that no

      one stayed there. (at least I dont think they did). 



       Don, KF6GQ in a private Email claimed it took him 6 hours to go up and

      back down. After my five trips, I got it down to 4:30 hrs. It helps if

      you know you can do it without falling off the cliff. The HI transmitter

      was 58.5 miles (air) from the start and the initial bearing to HO should

      have been 57 degrees.



       The sign-in paper from HA must blew away as it was nowhere in sight and

      the wind was kicking up about 50 mph on Monday when I pulled the

      transmitters. As it was surely found by all, it probably didn't matter

      in any scoring.



       If the mileages on the sign-in sheets for HI and HO are traveled

      distances, then The Winner can be determined from the data below. If

      there are starting odometer readings and the numbers below are ending

      odometer readings then I need to know this.



       Three teams kept going through it all and they must be respected for

      this insanity. The view was dramatic. A person from my work helped bury

      the 800 ft of coax at HI. On the ride up there he stated that this ride

      demanded an "E" ticket.





      At HO, (the farthest and counting T)



      KD6LAJ/KF6GQ    109 miles 17:00

      N6MJN/N6XFC      none     17:35

      WA6TQQ/KC6TNJ  95.7 miles 17:37



      I declare WA6TQQ/KC6TNJ the winners.





      (Luckly, I dont win very many hunts or none of us would have any

      vehicles or equipment left.)



      Jippy