Have we got a story for you... You will just have to
wait until the T-hunt film festival to hear it all. I
promiss I will edit out all the bad things I said
about Deryl before it is played (-;
Having not been on an All Day since 1996, we decided
that it was finally time. After 6 months of
collecting all the pieces (thanks Steve XFC), we
finally had everything we needed for the ultimate
t-hunt Durango!
It started off well from the start point. Melanie
could not find the AC adaptor for the laptop (it was
on the dashboard right where she put it)! I slipped
the brand new skypole into the new Perko deckplate,
mmmmmm perfect fit! Right after showing Dave MJN my
new "tough" base with the Datsun 510 throwout bearing
epoxy-y+ied into place, the bearing popped out of the
epoxy!!! Guess I should have cleaned the bearing a
little better... Oh well, that's what the duct tape
was for!
We had just a bit of noise on sideband that hinted
that there may be a signal there. Someone told us
that they could hear it better up at the church
parking lot, so we decided to go take a listen...
Sure enough, there was a signal there, but it sounded
more like pager noise! Then I remembered that this
fancy Yaesu VR-5000 receiver had a feature that allows
you to tune the front end. I pressed the appropriate
buttons, and Walla; the VR-5000 locked up! I
disconnected the power from the VR-5000, the backlight
went off on the radio, but the information display
remained. Hmmm, this must be one of those long
persistence LCD displays; didn't know they made those
(-; Waited about 30 seconds, and the display finally
went blank. I reconnected the power, turned it on,
and tuned up the front end... No more pager noise, and
a very weak signal still present on sideband. Looks
like it is coming from down south (lucky San Diego
Hunters!)
We proceeded to head down south, stopping at Carls Jr.
on the way down for late breakfast/early lunch.
On the road again, we stopped at a scenic viewpoint
south of the nuke plant, (Melanie are you glowing or
is it just me?) While there, we had a truck driver
come up to us and introduce himself as a ham (N6 call
but don't remember the name.) He told us we were the
second or third vehicle with quad and or yagi attached
to the roof. He told us the rest had continued down
south on the 5 (oh good, we are going the right way)
We asked him to tell anyone else he saw that everyone
that came thru had decided that the signal must be
coming from the Elsinore area, and thus everyone was
heading back the other direction to jump on the Ortega
highway (-;
We finally came across the main T, parked in the beach
parking lot (you owe me .50 Deryl). Not wanting to go
out on the beach with the sniffer, we decided to just
grab the IC-R10 receiver off the sniffer and head
towards the beach! The yagi on the truck was pointing
towards the hotel, they couldn't be in there! We
proceeded to walk around the beach and Melanie picked
up a couple of shells. Suddenly, we see this familiar
looking face up on the second floor of the hotel. He
gives us a hint, "your cold"! OK, let's get the
sniffer... We sniffed towards the direction of the
hotel, the sniffer told us it was exactly where the
yagi was pointing; in the middle of the hotel! Lets
see if we can get into the hotel by going around to
the other side... I wonder if that big thing sticking
out of the top of Deryl's truck could mean anything?
We sign-in and decide to go after the next T...
We made our way to Black Mountain Rd and headed up to
Black Mountain park. On the dirt road, we come across
the GQ team coming down from the park. "Nothing up
there to see is there?" "Nope!" So we continued up to
the park... Sure enough, nothing to see up there. We
made our way back down the hill and over to the
neighborhood below Black Mountain. We made our way to
several different cul-de-sac's, finally making our way
to a dead end at a park. GQ is in the park, but the
signal is not there, is it? "Looks like the signal is
still up at the top of the mountain! "Melanie, how do
we get up there?" We headed down the hill the same
way we came up, not Oviedo Rd... So we drove around,
only to find that none of the roads are open.
We went to the Carl's Jr. and decided to mull over our
options over a shake and iced tea... I don't think I
have ever spent this much time at a Carls Jr... After
a lot of head scratching, we decided to head back up
to that park on Oviedo Rd... On the way up Oviedo Rd,
we realize that the 3rd T is also up here... We
signed-in to the T on the side of the road, exchange
insults, took some pictures and headed up to the park.
"Hmm, I don't remember the 2nd T being on the 3rd
harmonic when we were here earlier with GQ in the
park." We hiked up the hill, found the T with the
antenna I gave Deryl a few weeks earlier, "didn't know
he was going to use it against me!" Finding the T
later did give us the opportunity to see a spectacular
sunset... We headed home happy.
As we got off the freeway in Redlands, the T for the
Citrus Belt Amateur Radio Club came on the air, we
drove for about 4 minutes, found the hider and T, said
goodnight and went home!
What did we learn from all of this you may ask?
Durango's get horrible gas mileage and always
thoroughly clean your throwout bearing before you
epoxy it into place!
David N6IDF