It was a bright and sunny 4th Saturday, and all the T-hunters where gathering to spend the whole day hunting. Well, I thought that's what we did on the 4th Saturday. Steve (KD6LAJ) & myself arrived early up at the start, and waited for the rest to show up. 10:00am, no other hunters! How could we tell lies about our bearings, the last hunt, the excuses why we didn't do well on the last hunt, finding out why MI drove right by T2 and didn't sign in. Oh well, we would have to do this hunt on our own.

 

We zerroed our oddometer and left the start, heading for Rt 2. As we traveled north the bearing kept getting more east, finally settling to the east side of Mt. Wilson. Just before Angeles Forest Hwy, we got a signal that told us to go north on AF hwy instead of Rt.2. We stopped at Mill Creek Sumitt, went a bit of the way up the road to Mt. Gleason, and got a strong signal up towards Mt. Pacifico. We started up the road to Pacifico, and found that it was still closed! Wow! we are going to have to go all the way back to Rt. 2? Wait! before doing that, lets go a bit more up the road to Mt. Gleason. Now there is a good signal! about 330 degrees, that's not in these mountains, that's towards Tehachapi. We could hear at lease 3 transmitters from here. At the overlook on hwy14, we got a more westerly bearing on the T's, so we went towards Lake Hughes. When we finally got to a spot that let us see west & north, we got a almost direct shot directly north! This is where we got the nice pictures of the wild flowers in bloom in the desert. California's wild Poppy perserve, had a lot of vistors, and we passed it without stopping, but we did get many more pictures on the way to the T's. We went north to the aquaduct, and at this location, we could hear three signals quite well. However, they where at bearings of 280, 330, 0 degrees. We didn't know if they where up in Tehachapi or down in the desert. So we went toward the strongest one at 330. I want to note, the desert is quite nice this time of year, especially at the altitude we where at, a lot of flowers and greenery. After going on a dirt road (trail) and getting down into a box canyon, we found a way up onto a ridge where we found our first T. I thought we where the only ones out hunting, but others had found the T before us! (see results). From here we couldn't hear the T that was at 280 degrees, and we had traveled north an west, so we thought should be able to hear it from this spot. So we left from the T spot and drove south. Road started out nice, but after several gates, fences, and one deep washout, we where going cross country towards a road we could see in the distance. This road then crossed the aquaduct so we followed it northeast, for about 4 miles. Then just like that the T! down two more dips and a sign saying the road was closed! However, the T was here somewhere. It's above us, how to get there? How did Jippy get up there? (see picture). After walking up the road, we found a motorcycle trail up the side of the embankment, and got to the T. Again, other hunters got to the T first. We signed in and set our sights on the third T. This T could be heard almost everywhere, not strong but it could be heard. We had to go back about 3 miles to find a way off the road we where on, unless I was to follow some motorcycle trail. We finally got to the main road that follows the aquaduct, and proceeded towards the 3rd T. Well we followed the signal all the way to the base of the Tehachapi mountains, and ran out of road. It must be on the otherside of the mountains! So back down to the aquaduct again and back to the main highway to Tehachapi. As we got to the top, the signal went balistic! 40+db of attenuation, we must be there. But no, we wheren't even close. The bearing went up Sand Canyon behind the Monolith rock quarry factory. On the way over, Jippy called me on the radio, and indicated that Sand canyon was a good place to be. The problem was Sand Canyon goes forever back into the hills. I remember several years ago when a T or T's where hid way up at the last possible road into the mountains that you could go on until lake Isabella! I really didn't want to go that far back, and it was getting late. Steve said he found a road on the map, that might be a possibility. So after several wrong turns we finally got onto a road that took us to our third T. We met Jippy there, and he dismantled the T, told us there where two more T's. We told him that we where tired and heading back to Mojave for dinner, let someone else find the T's, we didn't want the win anyway. Overall we got snokered several times, the trip was colorful, the weather was perfect, and the hunt was a classic WB6JPI type hide. Thanks Bob, for putting on this hide, too bad more didn't take you up on it.    

Don KF6GQ