All Night T-hunt
February 28th 2015
Report From WB6JPI

It was a cloudy but not too cold day. A rain storm was predicted for later Saturday. Scott and Tom were hiding, so lots of transmitters and rough roads were predicted. After my getting stuck in the Prius last month I was prepared with a come-along, 60 ft of tow cable, and a shovel. It was labeled as a start-anywhere hunt with the transmitters coming on early evening Friday.

I took some 50 Pictures which are posted in the picture place. The clouds were spectacular

I could just barely hear a transmitter Friday night 15 deg true from Fontana so indeed he was in the high desert or so. I announced my finding and assured all that I would be eating breakfast at 6:30 at Summit Inn on the I-15 at Oak Hill Rd.. I was there but no one else came.

The “main” transmitter (the only one I could hear) was Iding “N6MI” for about 3 seconds and then off for about a minute. It was quite strong at Summit. The signal was still 15 deg so it was right up the I-15 west of Barstow or west of Fort Erwin or in the middle of Death Valley or in Banff Canada. I romped up I-15 and suddenly I heard another transmitter T9. The next off-ramp was about 3 miles away but I got off and found a near by dirt road the went back south near the freeway. I eventually found T9 on a railroad bridge over the freeway. One down. I went back the way I came and got back on the Freeway. At Wild-Wash Road I heard more transmitters so go off and soon found T17 and voice T42. Three Down. So far so good.

Then I heard T22 and spent several hours wandering around Hodg and other places west of the i-15. I found Jonstons Corner, and T22 was North of there but Hinley Road was blocked at the river by a Special train dropping of 120 ft sections of track. It was parked across the road. I noted that several locals were not waiting for it to move but were driving west along the track and 5 minutes later they would appear on the other side of the train. So I tried but they were using a under pass for a dry creek and the clearance wouldn’t allow my antennas through. I decided to go look for the main T which seemed to be southeast of here.  I again wandered around hearing another voice T.  Eventually I returned to the Hinckley Road railroad crossing and the train was gone so I went back to looking for the illusive T22 transmitter.

I found T53. Once again I sought T22 and I found it only after going by it three times. The darn thing was in the middle of the road and I was simply not looking for a transmitter in the middle of the road even though it was a big box with a 4 element quad. I ran into Don and Steve, the only hunter/hiders I saw during the whole day. From there I could hear T1 to the NW and it was soon found.  This made 6 found and Don/Steve told me there were 10 total (I don’t know how they knew this??).

I went after the main T. On the way I found “This is N6MI” voice T and isolated T11 and T3 as being East of the I15. I found the main T.  This made 8 Ts found and the two across the I-15 to go. I ran into Don/Steve again.  I crossed the I-15 and found T11 and again Don/Steve showed up. They had found T3 on way from the main T to T11 but didn’t tell me. I found it shortly and we went on into the Outlet Sopping center just a ½ mile away for a few double doubles at In-and-Out. It's now 4 in the afternoon and since I had started hunting at 5:45 AM it made for a nice 9 hour play in the desert boonies.

Thanks to Tom/Scott for a Prius friendly hunt. I hope they noted that not all (in fact most) of the roads I took were NOT  Prius friendly but you could get to all 10 of the transmitters by rather nice dirt roads. I hope some folk with normal cars will join us in our off-road adventures.

WB6JPI