All Day Transmitter Hunt
Hider: Paul WB6HPW
Because I was squeezed time-wise on both Friday evening and Saturday morning, I decided to
take a break from the “secret spot” in the area (seemingly to hunters) south of Anza that hasn’t
been found in 3 hides. I had actually planned to do more with this month’s hide but I got
squeezed even more than originally planned.
I set up one transmitter late Friday night in the very general direction of the secret spot (at a
high spot on Esplindida Way in the Black Hills west of Temecula). It was a 2W transmitter fed
into a 30W amp running into a log-periodic antenna IDing as N6MI. When I was setting up the
N6MI transmitter I could be heard (barely) by Scott N6MI in Rowland Heights but I could
communicate easily with WA6CYY in Costa Mesa; I didn’t get an exact S reading but it was
almost full scale without attenuation. I’m still trying to understand that propagation path, which
had to cross over the Santa Ana Mountains (Ortega Highway area)
.
Because of the weakness of the Black Hills T, I decided to set up a “helper” T closer to the
Pathfinder starting point. I had “discovered” Estelle Mountain as a hiding spot in the mid 1970s
and had always wanted to revisit. By the time I got to the area was about 1 am and I found that
the routes to Estelle Mountain were no longer open. So, I searched for another spot from which
the N6MI transmitter could be heard well and was likely to be heard at the starting point. A
complicating factor was that the fog was so thick I couldn’t see the end of the (fairly short) hood
on my Grand Cherokee. Anyway, by braille I did find a somewhat interesting spot on Cappello
Drive overlooking Lake Matthews and set up T22, a 2W transmitter in an ammo can fed into a
160W amp. As of 2 am, the N6MI transmitter was still good and I could hear it even in Corona
on the way home.
There was no wind at the time I set up the N6MI Black Hills transmitter, but sometime during the
night or early morning the wind picked up strongly, the antenna on the N6MI transmitter fell
over, did a face plant, and landed on the driven element. The SWR went from reasonable to
unreasonable and the 30W amp shut down, so there was only 2W directed into the ground,
hence the absence of signal when hunters arrived at T22 looking for another T. This was
unfortunate not only because hunters couldn’t hear N6MI from T22, but I noticed when leaving
N6MI that there were interesting patterns of when N6MI could and couldn’t be heard that would
have made for sporty hunting. Anyway the hunt became a cooperative effort to find a signal. I
told folks to head south and eventually the signal could be heard weakly on occasion. Mileage
became somewhat irrelevant and the hunters agreed by unanimous consent to declare
WA6RJN the winner as he had the lowest mileage.
For what it’s worth, here is the information I have about who found which Ts:
Where: 2Ts, one near Lake Mathews and the other down in Temecula
Because I was squeezed time-wise on both Friday evening and Saturday morning, I decided to
take a break from the “secret spot” in the area (seemingly to hunters) south of Anza that hasn’t
been found in 3 hides. I had actually planned to do more with this month’s hide but I got
squeezed even more than originally planned.
I set up one transmitter late Friday night in the very general direction of the secret spot (at a
high spot on Esplindida Way in the Black Hills west of Temecula). It was a 2W transmitter fed
into a 30W amp running into a log-periodic antenna IDing as N6MI. When I was setting up the
N6MI transmitter I could be heard (barely) by Scott N6MI in Rowland Heights but I could
communicate easily with WA6CYY in Costa Mesa; I didn’t get an exact S reading but it was
almost full scale without attenuation. I’m still trying to understand that propagation path, which
had to cross over the Santa Ana Mountains (Ortega Highway area)
.
Because of the weakness of the Black Hills T, I decided to set up a “helper” T closer to the
Pathfinder starting point. I had “discovered” Estelle Mountain as a hiding spot in the mid 1970s
and had always wanted to revisit. By the time I got to the area was about 1 am and I found that
the routes to Estelle Mountain were no longer open. So, I searched for another spot from which
the N6MI transmitter could be heard well and was likely to be heard at the starting point. A
complicating factor was that the fog was so thick I couldn’t see the end of the (fairly short) hood
on my Grand Cherokee. Anyway, by braille I did find a somewhat interesting spot on Cappello
Drive overlooking Lake Matthews and set up T22, a 2W transmitter in an ammo can fed into a
160W amp. As of 2 am, the N6MI transmitter was still good and I could hear it even in Corona
on the way home.
There was no wind at the time I set up the N6MI Black Hills transmitter, but sometime during the
night or early morning the wind picked up strongly, the antenna on the N6MI transmitter fell
over, did a face plant, and landed on the driven element. The SWR went from reasonable to
unreasonable and the 30W amp shut down, so there was only 2W directed into the ground,
hence the absence of signal when hunters arrived at T22 looking for another T. This was
unfortunate not only because hunters couldn’t hear N6MI from T22, but I noticed when leaving
N6MI that there were interesting patterns of when N6MI could and couldn’t be heard that would
have made for sporty hunting. Anyway the hunt became a cooperative effort to find a signal. I
told folks to head south and eventually the signal could be heard weakly on occasion. Mileage
became somewhat irrelevant and the hunters agreed by unanimous consent to declare
WA6RJN the winner as he had the lowest mileage.
For what it’s worth, here is the information I have about who found which Ts:
Where: 2Ts, one near Lake Mathews and the other down in Temecula
Call T22time T22 mileage N6MI time N6MI mileage N6AIN 12:22 pm 66.3 N6MI 12:37 pm ? ? ? WA6RJN 12:56 pm 58.3 5:34 pm 126.5 N6SZO,KE6PHB ? ? 6:30 pm ? (619)XXX-XX23 ? ? WA6CYY 2:0pm 95 DNF DNF KI6RXX ? 70.1 ? 182.3Thanks to all who came out; I appreciate the large turnout. My next hide in February will be back at the secret spot if the snowdrifts aren’t too deep.
Overall Layout
T22 detail
View from T22 Looking Northwest
N6MI Detail
View from N6MI looking northwest
102420
picturesT22 detail
View from T22 Looking Northwest
N6MI Detail
View from N6MI looking northwest
