I was supposed to hide Pathfinder this month, but travel plans interfered, so I traded hides with Deryl, who would have hidden this hunt. Since it took a couple of weeks to arrange for the swap, I had less than a week to plan for this hide. On looking at the Topo maps, I decided South Orange County had some interesting terrain, so Friday afternoon was spent driving and hiking around looking for likely spots, which were apparently found, since both locations gave at least some of the hunters troubles.
T1, the main T, had audio from Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein ("It's Alive!"), and was 340 mW, into a stubby rubber duck, hidden on the hillside near the northern dead end of SurfBird lane in Aliso Viejo, right under a very prominent radio tower. I'm told the intermittent signal was very good at the start point, but was lost completely at some points down the 5. It was high on the hill, but there apparently were a lot of reflections due to the hilly terrain around. Leigh and I met each of the hunters at the T.
T2 had a message from the telephone operator: "The number you have reached, 9-1-1, has been changed, to an unpublished number". This T was beyond the end of Ridge Route, (follow the trail to the left when you reach the barbed wire fence. It was running 300 mW into a 3 element horizontal yagi in a streambed pointing roughly toward the main T. This was in a very hilly area, so I expect that it was reflection city down there. Congratulations to AIN/EKS and PYE/DLQ, who actually signed in at the T. This T was a HT with only the nicad pack for power, so I was worried about the battery lasting for the entire hunt. As it turned out the battery died at about 11:40, so Clark finished up by hunting me on a different HT, while I gathered up the normal T. Definitely have to pick up another gel cell at the next swap meet.
I want to thank the 5 hunt teams for their efforts. I hope this proved to be a challenging, but fun hunt.
| Start |
It's Alive! |
911 Changed |
Summary | ||||
| Hunter(s) | Odometer | Time | Odometer | Time | Odometer | Time | Miles |
| WA6PYE / WA6DLQ |
995.7 |
7:55 |
023.0 |
8:42 |
029.2 |
1:42 |
33.5 |
| N6AIN / N6EKS |
852.7 |
8:04 |
890.4 |
8:42 |
894.3 |
1:42 |
41.6 |
| WB6ADC |
887.0 |
10:00 |
933.0 |
12:00 |
948.0 |
5:00 |
61 |
| KD6SNE/KD6FFF |
524.0 |
9:30 |
559.0 |
10:00 |
- |
3:00 |
35+ (dnf) |
| N6MJN |
Unofficial |
9:30 |
- |
- |
- |
2:30+ |
(dnf) |
Congratulations to Steve WA6PYE and Vince WA6DLQ, the WINNERS!