Hider: Doug WA6RJN
Hider’s story

I had planned to hide in California City as one of my future hides. California City is the 3rd largest city by area in California (40th in the U.S.). The transmitters could be hidden just off the street. Of course, this part of the city had very few actual residences.

I had through of staying in the area the night before but decided to drive up in the morning (5:30AM).  When I arrived in the area, I found a curious sign on many of the roads.

I’m guessing that it means you can only drive on the dirt roads in the middle of the night. I inquired at Borax Bills information center as to what this sign means and to my surprise no one had ever seen it before.

California City has other interesting sites, like a lamp post in the middle of nowhere.



Or a street sign and electrical transformer.

 


Or even a main transmitter, T1 running 5W.

 
I hid the bug T (T8) on the way up to the main T location. I arrived, set up the beam (it had been resoldered), connected the transmitter (the coax had been fixed), connected the power amp (it had a brand new battery), and turned it on. Hmmm, only 2 watts. This time it might be the amp. I connected the T directly and turned it on. There was a good signal at the starting point – guess I didn’t need the amp after all. I hid the other 5 Ts.

N6MI had an APRS radio with him and I was able to track him on aprs.fi.

The last T was picked up at dusk after which Scott (N6MI) and I headed for pizza in California City (yes, there is a pizza place there – actually 3 of them!).


Results

N6MI			T1	T7	T10	T4	T3	T9	T8
Winner !		4:24	5:00	5:20	6:00	6:16	7:13	7:30
			191	196	202	205	211	216	232

N6AIN / N6EKS		T7	T4	T3	T8	T1
			2:07	2:38	3:38	5:38	6:10
			135	141	162	230	238

KG6GQ / KD6LAJ	        T1	T7	T4	T3
			3:15	4:30	4:56	5:17
			210	216	223	230


 

Don and Steve's story