Well, the hunt started off okay, the weather was perfect for an all-day, and the only thing missing was that Jippy was hiding and not hunting. What did he have in store for us? Well the first thing was, we couldn’t hear any signal from his hidden T’s. Jippy told us to wait, and he would get himself into a position that he would be able to get a signal into the start. At about 10:25am, he was heard from the very end of the road. This was not the hidden T, but a signal that would soon go away, so we could get a “to get here” till you can hear the T signal, signal. So each one of us got a bearing from there. Ours was about 65 degrees, which put it up in the Big Bear area. With all of the snow bunnies going there for snow play, I for one didn’t cherish the thought of having to go up to Big Bear sharing the roads with them. So off we went to the Green River “hope to get a better signal” place. When we got there we heard what we suspected to be two transmitters, with the same signal levels and bearings. Unfortunally, the bearings also seemed to be coming from Big Bear. We where soon followed into the Green River spot by Pete and Wyane. We compared the bearings, and then left. This was the last time we saw any other hunters on this hunt. Up to the snow with all the other snow playing people (see pictures). When we arrived at Lake View point, the signal was still coming from the lake area, so we continued towards Big Bear Lake. We made a decision at the dam, to go around the Fawnskin side of the lake, to avoid the crowd of people on the Big Bear side. As we came around the lake, the signal was coming off of Sugarloaf Mt. So we went across the lake up to Sugarloaf. On the way up, we where getting some indications that the signal(s) where coming from out in the desert. When we got to a high place near Sugarloaf, we got a good strong signal at 34 degrees. Actually had to use attenuation as we started down the backside of Big Bear. When we got to the intersection of Hwy18 & Camprock Rd., we got a bearing of 45 degrees. The last two bearing crossed at about the microwave site just east of Target Peak. So off we went up Besssemer Mine Rd. past Soggy Dry Lake, into an area I know from my days of ridding dirt bikes there. It is quite different ridding a dirt bike, than driving a 4-wheel vehicle on those (roads) trails. The signal was very poor at times, as we would drop below the contour of the open desert. But we kept on till the signal(s) became quite strong. Along the way (by Soggy Dry Lake) we could hear a voice T, identifying as “small T5”. This T was soon noted to be up on the top of the microwave site. As we approached the power line road the main signal(s) seemed to be coming from the left. As we took a short cut in that direction, a very strong signal that we hadn’t heard before T1 was now behind us. We stopped and went back and found T1 on a trail marker (see photo). There was no visible sign in sheet, so I left one with our calls and mileage on it. Then we went after the main T found it on the trail to the famous petroglyphs. Note: on one of the petroglyps, there is a yagi beam depicted. Next we set ours hunting sights on T5. It was at the top of a microwave site. The road up was a bit challenging because of some very sharp rocks in the roadway. After we signed into T5, we started to wonder where everybody else was? We had been the first to sign into all the T’s so far, and from our vantage point, we could see the whole Johnson Valley, and could not see any hunters! Did we miss some T’s elsewhere? From the top of the mountain we could hear at least one more T, so we went east on the power line road to locate it. We found another T at the base of a tower, and also discovered that I had less than a quarter tank of gas left! We decided to go for I40 on the power line road. On the way out, we heard T8 & T9. T9 was somewhat ahead of us so we kept it in mind as we made our way back to I40. We made it to Rt.66 and headed towards Barstow to get gas. All of a sudden we got T9 very strong ahead of us. Stopped on Rt.66 and had a signal towards I40. It was now just starting to get dark, so I didn’t want to go hiking for very far. But the signal was almost a “you are there”, so off I went. This area has a lot of volcanic rock and sand. I noticed that someone earlier had been in the same location! I figured it must have been the hider or a hunter. Well I got to the fence on the freeway, and no T! It must be on the other side. Well I didn’t have enough gas to go back to the interchange so we continued towards Barstow. We found gas at the next interchange, so we went back to find the T. It turned out to be on the westbound side of the freeway, and about one mile east of the rest stop near Hector. It was a 4-element beam pointed south across the freeway. On this T, we found that we weren’t the first to sign in, RJN had signed in about two hours earlier. This was our last T, and we went home. Had fun on this hunt, saw as much snow as I needed, and should have looked at my gas gauge, earlier. Got home about 9:45pm so it was our kind of hunt. Found 5 T’s missed at lease one T, probably more that we didn’t hear. Thanks Jippy for a close in challenging hunt.

Don & Steve