The JIPPY
Story
OLD-TIME Hunt
It was a great day for a T-Hunt. Great
food, Great people and a good ride. It was full of adventure,
issues with transportation, equipment, people and a definite
lack of transmitters. But I get ahead of myself.
Paul, WB6HPW was the hider and he
wanted this Meathead to be honoring his father, WA6FAT sk with
a hunt using old equipment and old everything as we used to do
All-Day hunts in the 50, 60, 70s. I took this quite seriously
as I was there in the 60s and since. Paul had come up with a
strange scoring system which including equipment. Vehicles,
dress and eating places.
I made some assumptions which proved to be somewhat
incorrect.
My first assumption was that the
transmitter would also reflect the time warp and consist of 10
watts into a 5/8 vertical located on a car roof and a duty
cycle over 30%. Judging from the lack of a signal at the start
this was not the case.
The second assumption (which I later
forgot) was that it would be a Meat Head hunt, a technically
tricky hunt within the LA and Vicinity map.
Third assumption that it would not be
an off-road hunt as these came in the 80s when we tired of
other challenges and used the impossible roads available.
So I decided on the following basic
strategy:
I would use the Prius rather than the
aging 4 Runner.
I would use two receivers, One, a
vintage tube type (1952) transceiver and the other the L-Per
df receiver (1974). Both are AM and both are vertically
polarized.
I would take bearings with the L-per
and its stick antennas and have a loop available for backup. I
would use the L-per with a pair a switching roof mount
mag-mount antennas for moving “it’s in front or it’s behind”
data.
Found a Gonset Comm II at the Chino
Hills swap meet.. Didn’t come with power cord(s) made a new, 12 volt
one. Plugged it in and nothing seemed to be happening. Some
heaters in some tubes lit. No vibrator. No panel lights, no
green eye.
Removed the power supply unit and
measured the caps, switches and stuff.
Plugged it into my lab supply and it buzzed, glowed and seemed
like a happy camper. Put it back into the Comm II and now I
had panel lights and
eventually I had very loud noise out of the speaker. You
forget how long it
takes tube things to get going.
Turned on a micro T and wow, it slope detected (it is an AM
receiver) the T
without an antenna. Put a 18 inch hunk of wire into the
antenna SO 239 on top of the box and it went into oscillation.
I put the back of the transceiver on and the oscillation
stopped. I think I am going to have a problem with this radio
when used as a sniffer...well a 30 lb radio along with a 20 lb
battery,
maybe this is not such a good sniffer. I hope the attenuator
will isolate
the radio enough to keep howls down.
Now I got to figure out how/where to mount this radio in the
Prius. Yes, the
Prius. It is 8 years old and might cost me a 10% penalty, The
oldest car WE
have is a 1985 Windstar and Marlene won't let me even drive it
much less
take it on a T-Hunt.
Found two old attenuators from Kay Labs circa 1939. I also
found an old
copper tubing 2 meter loop used in the 60's. I strapped the
Comm II to a board and magnetically mounted one of the
attenuators to the top of the case. This mess would sit on the
passenger seat.
I found 6 mobile
antennas, one wooded L-PER antenna but no L-per. (see the "day
in the life of a T-hunter" under stories section. I can't
believe that was written in 1976). On Thursday afternoon I
found the L-Per and it worked (after a battery change). It
could sit on the console wedged between the empty FT 857 mount
and the cup holder. Two of the mag-mount L-per antennas were
checked out and taped to protect the top of the Prius and they
were installed.
The Prius is the most popular of our
five vehicles and we had an important birthday party to go to
on Friday night. It was in the
But, there is a problem with the start
point in that the Summit Inn was on the 15 fwy and it was down
to two lanes with much waiting and congestion. The decision
was to leave early (
Well, I couldn’t find one thing that
was on the list. That was a magnetic compass. I have several
electronic compasses but I could locate any of the 10,000
magnetic compasses I must have. I found an electronic compass
from the early 80s and decided that it would have to do.
In the middle of the night on one of
my several acts required of an eighty year old body, it dawned
on me that although no normal stores were open at
The nearest super-WalMart was in
Just east of the
I went down the same way but when I
got just at the end of the ramp, almost on the pavement, I got
stuck. The Prius has a very strange internal device called a
Traction Control. If one of the front wheels ( the drive
wheels) begins to slip (goes much faster than the other front
wheel) the special Traction Control Computer will apply the
brake to that wheel, there by transferring more power to the
wheel that is not slipping. If both wheels are slipping then
it shuts power off to both wheels.
The car would back up and I moved it
back a few feet and took a run at the bottom. When I got to
pavement something was wrong. I pulled over and found that the
right front tire was flat. I limped to the nearby gas station
(about 500 ft.), paid a buck and pumped up the tire. It took
the air just fine. I concluded that I had bumped the tire hard
enough to unseal the rim or something like that. I went to
breakfast. However this adventure was just getting started.
I ordered the senior pancake and eggs
and started drinking coffee, I had 6 cups over then next 2 ½
hours. The hunters started dribbling in. No one had heard any
transmitter(s). We had a great time swapping lies and making
up stories. A few minutes before
I went into Hesperia, choosing to go
on the 15 branch rather than the 395 split. I found a WalMart
and signed in to the shop for a tire repair. They said it
would take about an hour. Meanwhile back at the start Scott,
N6MI announced that they had heard a transmitter at 340 and
Doug, WA6RJN confirmed at 345 degrees. Phooey, this is right
up 395 and not up the 15 where I am even further west waiting
for WalMart. Bob, N6ZHZ said he had signal at 395 and
I am on the road as it is now about
I get to the top of the hill just
south of Kramer Junction and still have heard nothing on the
AM equipment. Now I had prepared for this in that I had also
brought along the stuff I normally have in the Prius for
T-Hunting. I got out the 857 control head and the 4 element
quad antenna on a pole and searched for a signal on SSB, I
think maybe I heard something due north.
I couldn’t install the quad on the car
as the howl plug was still in place. I had forgot the step
stool I use to reach it for removal the me to insert the mast
into the hole. Lists are only as good as the items that get
listed. But the only thing I could do is follow what data I
had That is Scotts announcement of 340 degrees or north on
395. More north.
Ah hah!! About 5 miles north of the
Ransburg/Garlock turn off I got a signal. The very first one. It came on the
L-Per, and the handheld with a rubber duck at the same time.
Stopped and took a bearing with the L-per. 245 degrees. Right
toward Jawbone, Red Rock Mojave and points SW. Whoopee!
I went down the Garlock road. And the
signal went away by the time I got to the Ransburg junction. I
kept going for another 20 miles on down the 14 for a bit still
no signal. I decided to go back to where it was strong and
make sure it was not in Schmidt tunnel or up above Red Rock
park. It wasn’t.
It was after
I just found out that it was on