MEATHEAD T-HUNT
Report from WB6JPI
Bob and Cathy had moved the start point to the Summit Inn at Cajon Summit. I had just bought some new tires for the 4Runner and was anxious to make some dust so I arrived about an hour early and drove all over the place across from the restaurant. Tires worked great but no real 4 wheel exercise as even 1 ft of loose sand seemed OK in 2WD. Had a nice breakfast with most all of the hunters and then off to the dirt to see if we could hear anything. We couldn’t. Bob raised the power (300W) and we could get a due north bearing.
Off we all went going up 395 for about 100 or so miles. I was [playing leapfrog with Deryl on the way up and we both drove onto 190 then 136 to Keeler and onto the gravel road to Serro Gordo Mines. This is a very good washboard and steep road that caused some problems with vehicles. My problem was that my hydraulic clutch over heated in that the pedal fell to the floor and stayed there like a big plum.
This had happed before but I couldn’t remember how I fixed it. It took me about 15 minutes to work out that I had to stop the car, manually lift the dead pedal and once up pump it a few times to get fresh fluid into the line. It was then OK until it again vaporized Either some water that had got into the line or the brake fluid itself. Either way I need to look at this as it just isn’t easy to deal with the moving car with it’s clutch pedal on the floor.
In my fighting with the clutch and not paying too much attention to the signal, I had gone by it by about a ½ mile. After I solved the clutch issue I went back down and found it behind Deryl who was behind me but now was in front of me without ever passing me.
On the way down there was a talking signal with something about a frog being served for dinner. As I hadn’t heard it before, I assumed it was along the Serro Gordo road I had missed it with the attenuator in for T-1. So I stopped a few times going down the road but as the signal wasn’t changing I figured that it must be down this hill and drove on into Lone Pine.
For the next few hours I tried to get over the viaducts to get to the froggy transmitter and finally found the very nice paved road to Horse Shoe Meadows. Of course there was no signal for several miles before and several miles after the froggy T, but it had a great view so I went clear to the meadow at 9500 ft and looked down on some snow patches. I had gone past the transmitter (seems like a habit here) but picked it up on the way back down the mountain.
Bob called to see my progress and I indicated
I had to get
something to eat and was going into Lone Pine for Dinner. We met and
had a nice
chow down. As we were leaving the restaurant Bob got a call from
A great hunt with a lot of success with my new tires and other than the several hours of travel on 395, it was super great hunt. I still don’t know where T-2 was but we shall see soon.
Jippy