Sept 25, 2004

All Day Hunt

 Last Month My radio broke. Before it broke it was getting deaf. I installed
my backup radio and during the Fullerton hunt it was even deafer than the
original. I repaired the original and installed a BF 981 dual-gate MosFet
with 0.7 dB NF at 150 MHz. It is now happier.



At the start I noticed I had something loose in the vertical antenna,
probably a short in the matching section that would come and go. With about
a 40 dB effect on the signal. Annoying, but the signal was quite loud. So it
didn't matter much. Up the 405/101/27/150/33 with good signal all the way on
T). Oops, while in the SF valley, T0 vanishes and I keep going on the same
bearing until I hear T1. I had heard T1 before so I didn't get too confused
other than it came on with 30 dB of attenuation to nothing. I though I had
just come upon it, but it seemed to stay at that level so I kept going.
Managed to get down Rose Valley, to the end having now about 40 dB of
attenuation and a youarethere signal on the little dead handheld. It wasn't
there.



I then drove up the hill and found 3 transmitters at the campsite and ate
and talked for a couple hours. I then wandered down the road to use the
facilities there and found 3 more. I heard about three others but they were
too far off road with required hiking and I was tired. Two I just flat went
by (T2 XFC, Cody without really knowing I did) .



Great Hunt.thanx