Hider: Bob WB6JPI
Where: 4 Ts scattered about Highway 2 and Pinyon Ridge Truck Trail.
It was a hot and clear day. Well actually it started at 11:00 Friday
night when I suddenly discovered that I was hiding an ALLDAY in the
morning. I ran out to the garage and found a battery that could be used
to back up my 40AH battery as I wanted to run 30 Watts and if the hunt
lasted more than 12 hours the little battery wouldn’t make it. I found
a old (12 year old) 120 AH battery left over from the Suzuki that had a
shorted cell and showed 4.2 volts. I put it on the 40A charger and it
sucked amps until the morning when it was still pulling 34A out of the
charger (remember that shorted cell). I stuffed a number of
transmitters, antennas masts and stands along with a handful of little
transmitters 9V batteries and signin sheets in the car and took off for
somewhere at 5:30 AM. Opened the COSTCO gas pumps at 5:45AM (nice guy)
and took off for Pinyon Ridge.
I knew that Rt. 2 was closed on the west end just above La Cresenta so
hiding where it looked like I was on Rt. 2 would be very nice and
tricky. There is a 500 ft dip in the Angeles mountains just where the
old Hwy 39 used to connect and Pinyon ridge is a 1500 ft lower than the
Angeles but is parallel by choosing just where you aim through the gap
you can get a very good path into LA. The signal would be strong and
maybe give the impression that it was on Rt. 2 that runs along the
Angeles mountains.
The main transmitter, T1 (iding T6) was running 30 watts into a 14
element horizontal beam at 15 ft elevation pointed through the gap at
the PV start point. Bob said he had 30 dB of attenuation in at the
start and others commented on the super strength at the start although
I was some 57.4 miles away. (N34 24.420 W117 48.169)
In addition to T1 there were three talking Ts (Squawkboxes). One was
off of the Blue Ridge road overlooking Rt. 2 from Wrightwood (iding T5)
(N34 22.4294 W117 42.401).
T2 was on a 5 second repeat and it said was “JPI” over and over. It was
on the road going north out of Pinyon ridge (4N12) (N3434 22.526 W117
44.9837) T3 (iding T11) was at the end of Pinyon Ridge road sitting on
a 4 ft metal post in the middle of the turnaround circle. N34 23.4384
W117 45.799) Not too hard to find.
Of course the dependable 40AH battery failed and I started with the old
11 volt battery and my main 30 watt transmitter dumped and I had to use
the standby. Then I drove back to Fontana to buy a new battery (and
have lunch with Marlene). Got back before the old battery died and long
before any hunters. Ran into a Forest Ranger and had an interesting
talk but she was about the only folk around until the first hunter
showed up at 3PM.
Results:
T1 (T9) T2 (jpi) T3 (T11) T5(T5)
WA6RJN 118.0 122.7 118.6 103.4 WINNER!!!
3:22 4:44 3:52 1:29
N6AIN 169.1 165.2 169.5 134.6
KD6LAJ 5:10 4:44 5:25 2:42
N6MI 155.4 155.0 160.0 111.1
K6VCR 6:50 6:24 7:00 2:45
N6ZHZ 156.2 152.3 157.0 141.8
KD6CYG 7:00 6:34 7:15 4:37
Jippy