Don and Steve's Story


I don't know how we did (found only three T's), but we really had a good time on the hunt. We started out believing that Flagstaff was a reality. Our initial bearing of 77 degrees was close enough to Flagstaff that now we where sure. So we left the start point thinking the worst. We would turn around when either we hit the state line or we had to fill our gas tank the second time. So at the time we realized that the T's where not out of state, our whole slant on the hunt changed. When we found T3 up on the Idyllwild road and went up to Poppet flats road to get a bearing to confirm if the signal was coming from Mt. Jacinto or somewhere else. Well it was coming from 52 degrees, so we knew that the T couldn't be too far out, so we went back down and went east on the 10 freeway. Heard T2 from the southeast so we went down the 111 then back across the 10 to a microwave hill top where we found  T2. We where the first to sign in so we where happy, and we still had 2.5 hours of daylight left. For the next 15 mins. or so, we had to contend with the fact that T2 was on continuously. We waited till MI was able to re start it, and we where able to get a bearing on T1. Using the 52 degrees and the 350 degrees from T2 location, we knew where we had to go, this was a favorite canyon that many years ago Steve and I hid on using a 90' rope antenna, aimed at Mt. Jacinto. We went all the way to the top till we found T1 at another RF site. We arrived just at sundown, so we got some very good pictures of the sunset. We left for dinner in Yucca Valley and got home at 9:15pm. All in all a great Mini All-Day hunt. Thanks to Scott and Tom for putting on a fine hide.
Don KF6GQ