Jippy’s Story

AllDay Thunt

Sept. 27, 2008

It was a nice day for a hunt. I was choming on my English Muffin when Wayne walks in to King’s. “Wayne, what are you doing here? You are supposed top be hiding today?”. He appeared startled, but then Wayne always appears startled as he ordered his French Toast. (T-hunters are very European in their cuisine).

We proceeded to the start point after a nice half hour of chewing and there met with Deryl. Soon Doug and Don appeared for the three Ds and one Boob. (Sounds like a Rock Group) who exchanged stories with Wayne trying to pump him for any slip that might lead to a clue about the hide. We got some very interesting information. There are four transmitters. They all should be heard from the start. He will pick them up after noon on Sunday or Monday. His partner in the hide,  Pete, who is in Las Vegas today and he was to pick one up on his way home. They are all AF6O boxes and vertically polarized. He also said they are all within 100 ft of a paved road.

Then the start time arrived and there was a transmitter. It was running continuously. Wayne suggested it may be more than one transmitter and if you listened closely you here them transfer just after the CWID. Wayne gave another clue in that he said all of the transmitter sounded identical and were not numbered and all IDed with Pete’s call. You could kinda hear another transmitter under the continuous ones but could not get a bearing due to the overriding one. The transmitters had a bearing and nature that indicated it was on Magic Mountain and on Mt Gleason two peaks in the Angeles forest that are about 10 miles of dirt apart. Both of these peaks had a paved road, but not the same paved road and the connectors were about 30 miles apart.

I chose the Mt. Gleason, Doug chose for Magic Mtn, Don went for Gleason and Deryl just left for somewhere. I took the 110 to the 111 to the 5 to the 2 and up into the Angeles Forest. At Angeles Hwy and N3, I had no signal and a good shot at Gleason so I decided that I had made a mistake. However I got a bearing on another transmitter south toward Laguna Beach. Way South and it was running every 30 seconds but sounded just like the two we heard at the start. I was focused on that one as it was all I could hear and then this repeater cam on the frequency and not only did it not ID but none of the users did either. I decided this was more important to worry about so I got a bearing on it and headed off in that direction. It appeared to be in the Glendale/North Pasadena area but as I neared that I now heard another hidden transmitter. Wayne had called on the cell phone and said that one of the four transmitters had failed to light-off and he had replaced it with another one. The repeater users had finished and it was no longer on so I went after the hidden transmitter. It had a different CW message and a slower Id. I found it in Glendora up the Glendora Mountain Road.  Up there the Laguna transmitter was quite strong so I took the 57 to the 5 to the 133 and it was really strong in Laguna canyon.

Went up the south side of the canyon to the little park at the top of the hill and got out and sniffed. Only 30 dB of attenuator and the bearing was 302 degrees,, off to the other side of the canyon or maybe that radio site I could see about 10 miles away. It was about 3 PM and I messed around Laguna/Newport looking for this transmitter until about 6PM when I spotted Doug in the canyon. I went up to the part and soon Doug showed up (It is the most logical place to be). We talked a bit and I assured him it wasn’t there. He went on to sniff and I left to go further back up the canyon to see if it was buried in the weeds on the canyon floor or something.  I got about 5 miles up the canyon when Doug called on his hand held and told me that it was there just a few feet into the park at the end of the road, right where I had walked twice with my sniffer and mileage in hand. I must have kicked it. I don’t know what went wrong with that operation. But that one was a write off.

Then it occurred to me That the 302 bearing might have been the fourth transmitter so I pursued that with also the possibility of going up to Magic  Mountain if my energy stayed up. I drove up the 133 to the 405 and on up to Santa Monica. Never heard any more from the 302 bearing so that wasn’t so good. I could hear the Magic Mountain (Doug had affirmed that this transmitter was stuck into continuous operation and not two transmitters.)

I went home as it was now 9PM and I was pooped. Never did hear the fourth transmitter and the repeater never came on again.

Jippy