Calls        Time      Mileage
WA6RJN       5:28 PM   148.3  Winner  
N6EKS/N6AIN  3:20 PM   152.3
WB6JPI       4:00 PM   167.0
K6SNE/KD6LAJ 9:20 PM   165.3

RJN had all "t's" by 5:28 pm and had a total of 148.3 miles or 16.6629 Crenshaw units. The winner!

N6AIN and N6EKS had found all "t's" by 3:20 pm,as usual the first to find all. Their total mileage was 152.3 or 16.92222 Crenshaw units. Second place.

JPI was third with 167 miles and had found all the "T's" 4:00 pm.

Mike/SNE and Steve/LAJ were last with 165.3 miles and having found 4 "T's" by 9:20 PM.

Mike and Steve took a break just about the time they got in the High Desert. Mike needed to fix something,and when they got that accomplished,they restarted at the exact point they took there break at.That is why they were so late.


Mike's Story:
Well...We found four of five ts. Three of the ones we found all sounded the same. Pete was the fourth T as the original had died before we ever got back over the mountain.

From Adelanto we had a bearing that pointed back at Pinion Hills so we turned away from El Mirage and drove that direction until about 20 miles later the bearing changed back towards El Mirage and we drove straight up a dirt two track that was the county line. That took us all the way to the El Mirage west entrance road. We drove that up to a sign that pointed to the dry lake airport hangars and SCTA timing shed. We went north on a dirt road and got the T in the rocks, the rocks close to the dry lake. Then we continued on some pretty ugly roads not on the map north to get the T in the huge rocks, the rocks that had a dirt road right through the middle of them. Then we turned south back towards the lake to get a similar sounding T, in the dark we were relying completely on the GPS and computer to get us to a marked road. We must have cut 10 miles of trail on unmarked motorcycle paths to finally get to the extreme northwest El Mirage fence. We saw the remnants of a trail that looked like it hadn't been driven in years that followed the south side of the fence. We drove that road for several miles until we ended up in the middle of the dry lake runway. We turned right down the middle of the runway and ended up nailing the tone T near Pete's trailer. He saw us and came on the air as the main T so we could find him too. That made four Ts. We thought we heard another T with extremely fast code a couple of times just as we were finding the first T in the rocks...but it never came back on the air, died, or was just covered so good that we never heard it again. So we called it a night at four transmitters and about 165 miles.

We had an absolute BLAST. Pitch-black night and unmarked, not on the map roads made it an interesting evening. We also went to the East entrance to the lake and actually went for a high speed run across the lake at night. I think I scared Steve just a little......just kidding
Mike K6SNE

Ray and Deryl's Story:
It was a beautiful morning on Palos Verde, signal at 22 degrees. RJN had the signal at 35 degrees. Let’s see that’s Mt. Wilson and Mt. Baldy approximately. Wrightwood or over the 15, now that’s the question. If we go to Wrightwood and it’s not there we are screwed, if it is there and we go to the 15…. well same scenario.

So we head out and see how the signal shapes up. Out to the Harbor FWY to the 105, not much of a signal. Onto 60 East. Should we try to take a bearing at Phillips Ranch? No, probably little to no signal. Eastward to the 15.

At Summit Inn, we heard two transmitters. Looks like El Mirage Dry Lake and guess we went the correct route. Off to the 395 to 18 where we cut across on dirt roads, the first being Wintergreen Road, towards more transmitters. I believe at this point we could hear 3 or 4 transmitters.

We made our way across good dirt roads to find transmitters 3 and 4, in reverse order. Having skipped going after the main T after finding 4, we would end up coming way back to find the main transmitter.

The fence around El Mirage Dry Lake proved to be a bit of a problem as to which side of it to be on, as we returned from T 4 looking for the main transmitter. We started down outside the fence and got to a property gate and started around it when we decided we should be on the other side of the Dry Lake fence. Wrong. But we had an interesting drive. Stopped just short of a going into a small crevace. Exciting! We got to where the signal was coming from some trailers and storage container. There was Pete’s truck, there’s a beam. Why is the beam pointing in that direction?

Of course we are on the wrong side of the fence. Peter came out to talk with us and used his magic on the gate and opened it for us. We visited with Peter, found the other little transmitter not too far from the fishing pole. Then headed out of the gyroport and saw JPI racing about on the wrong side of a fence, but it was a smaller fence then the one we had been on the wrong side of and easier to get around, which he did. As we headed out the road we saw RJN coming up fast and at that same time heard another transmitter. The transmitters 5 & 6 were at the intersection of the road to the gyroport.

We had found them all! Whoopee! We had found all of the transmitters except for one of them, before the other hunters. Hope we didn’t win. The excursion up and down the Dry Lake fence hopefully was enough to put us out of the running. Turns out it was, but just barely.

Thanks for a fun hunt Peter.

Post script: There was actually more vehicular traffic once we got to the 15 and all around Summit Inn and Adelanto. I feel sorry for anyone who moved out there to get away from traffic. As usual the roads are not keeping up with the growth of the area. Or maybe everyone was there for the holiday weekend, but why?
Ray N6EKS