N6AIN & N6EKS Story - August 24, 2013

Our initial bearing looked like we would be in the maze of dirt roads and paths in the Big Bear area. We ended up on the 215 passing the turn off that would go to Big Bear.

Going north on the 215 we could hear three transmitters.  Suddenly we were hearing one of them, the voice “T5” very loud and passed it.  We exited the freeway at the first opportunity (Devore Road) to Santa Fe Ave. and into an area where houses were on the hillside above and where some confusing Private Property, No Trespassing signs were posted.  Going straight towards the hillside was out of the question due to the posted signs, however it appeared we could be on the line if we took the dirt road that ran parallel to the freeway.  We wandered around heading towards the hills for a short while until it appeared that the signal was coming back towards the freeway.  We found a dirt road that went away from the hills.  We eventually got back to a paved road that ran along side the freeway and led us to T5.  As we were on this trek Deryl commented he wish he had his binoculars handy, as he could see a vehicle up on the hill by the houses.  We found out later that it was Don & Steve.

As my memory is hazy for the exact route we went, we made our way over to find T6 next via surface streets that led to a dirt road (2N49).  As we made our way following the signals we found the “WB6JPI” voice transmitter and transmitter 6A.  The road was very rocky for much of the distance, giving Deryl’s Escape “on demand” 4WD a workout.

On our way to find T10 from T6A we headed up a dirt road that soon became impassable with the amount of rocks and the large size rut with multiple tree branches above.  We backed up and ended up in the soft dirt and wedged up against a small tree.  It was more than the “on demand” 4WD could deal with and our efforts we fruitless.  Deryl called for help and luckily Don and Steve were nearby and gave us a quick pull with a recovery rope and we were good to go once again.  There were pictures taken but unknown if they were suppressed from publication.

After signing in at T10, along with Don & Steve we headed out to find T3 that we had heard.  So we made our way out, thankfully a much less rocky road and via 138 we ended up in a familiar area off the 15 where the trains traverse. We exited the highway at Kenwood Ave. (Cleghorn Road would have been the correct exit, but passed it) and were on Route 66 (old 66 can be seen along side the current road and crisscrosses the newer road a few times). After some consideration we headed across the multiple tracks on Swarthout Canyon from there we took a dirt road which on a fairly steep incline was very rutted and rocky, more than we could take on. We found another way to the area without having to go up that rut.  We proceeded to find T3 (near the burial site of someone’s dog named Shadow) T3A, T2 and T1 all within close proximity to each other.

Thank you Bob for an enjoyable hunt that took some thought as to where to go and was a bit challenging on the roads to get there as well.

Ray N6EKS