Mini All Day
Hider: Bob WB6JPI
Where: 4 Ts scattered about Highway 2 and Pinyon Ridge Truck Trail.
It was a hot and clear day. Well actually it started at 11:00 Friday night when I suddenly discovered that I was hiding an ALLDAY in the morning. I ran out to the garage and found a battery that could be used to back up my 40AH battery as I wanted to run 30 Watts and if the hunt lasted more than 12 hours the little battery wouldn’t make it. I found a old (12 year old) 120 AH battery left over from the Suzuki that had a shorted cell and showed 4.2 volts. I put it on the 40A charger and it sucked amps until the morning when it was still pulling 34A out of the charger (remember that shorted cell). I stuffed a number of transmitters, antennas masts and stands along with a handful of little transmitters 9V batteries and signin sheets in the car and took off for somewhere at 5:30 AM. Opened the COSTCO gas pumps at 5:45AM (nice guy) and took off for Pinyon Ridge.
I knew that Rt. 2 was closed on the west end just above La Cresenta so hiding where it looked like I was on Rt. 2 would be very nice and tricky. There is a 500 ft dip in the Angeles mountains just where the old Hwy 39 used to connect and Pinyon ridge is a 1500 ft lower than the Angeles but is parallel by choosing just where you aim through the gap you can get a very good path into LA. The signal would be strong and maybe give the impression that it was on Rt. 2 that runs along the Angeles mountains.
The main transmitter, T1 (iding T6) was running 30 watts into a 14 element horizontal beam at 15 ft elevation pointed through the gap at the PV start point. Bob said he had 30 dB of attenuation in at the start and others commented on the super strength at the start although I was some 57.4 miles away. (N34 24.420 W117 48.169)
In addition to T1 there were three talking Ts (Squawkboxes). One was off of the Blue Ridge road overlooking Rt. 2 from Wrightwood (iding T5) (N34 22.4294 W117 42.401).
T2 was on a 5 second repeat and it said was “JPI” over and over. It was on the road going north out of Pinyon ridge (4N12) (N3434 22.526 W117 44.9837) T3 (iding T11) was at the end of Pinyon Ridge road sitting on a 4 ft metal post in the middle of the turnaround circle. N34 23.4384 W117 45.799) Not too hard to find.
Of course the dependable 40AH battery failed and I started with the old 11 volt battery and my main 30 watt transmitter dumped and I had to use the standby. Then I drove back to Fontana to buy a new battery (and have lunch with Marlene). Got back before the old battery died and long before any hunters. Ran into a Forest Ranger and had an interesting talk but she was about the only folk around until the first hunter showed up at 3PM.
Where: 4 Ts scattered about Highway 2 and Pinyon Ridge Truck Trail.
It was a hot and clear day. Well actually it started at 11:00 Friday night when I suddenly discovered that I was hiding an ALLDAY in the morning. I ran out to the garage and found a battery that could be used to back up my 40AH battery as I wanted to run 30 Watts and if the hunt lasted more than 12 hours the little battery wouldn’t make it. I found a old (12 year old) 120 AH battery left over from the Suzuki that had a shorted cell and showed 4.2 volts. I put it on the 40A charger and it sucked amps until the morning when it was still pulling 34A out of the charger (remember that shorted cell). I stuffed a number of transmitters, antennas masts and stands along with a handful of little transmitters 9V batteries and signin sheets in the car and took off for somewhere at 5:30 AM. Opened the COSTCO gas pumps at 5:45AM (nice guy) and took off for Pinyon Ridge.
I knew that Rt. 2 was closed on the west end just above La Cresenta so hiding where it looked like I was on Rt. 2 would be very nice and tricky. There is a 500 ft dip in the Angeles mountains just where the old Hwy 39 used to connect and Pinyon ridge is a 1500 ft lower than the Angeles but is parallel by choosing just where you aim through the gap you can get a very good path into LA. The signal would be strong and maybe give the impression that it was on Rt. 2 that runs along the Angeles mountains.
The main transmitter, T1 (iding T6) was running 30 watts into a 14 element horizontal beam at 15 ft elevation pointed through the gap at the PV start point. Bob said he had 30 dB of attenuation in at the start and others commented on the super strength at the start although I was some 57.4 miles away. (N34 24.420 W117 48.169)
In addition to T1 there were three talking Ts (Squawkboxes). One was off of the Blue Ridge road overlooking Rt. 2 from Wrightwood (iding T5) (N34 22.4294 W117 42.401).
T2 was on a 5 second repeat and it said was “JPI” over and over. It was on the road going north out of Pinyon ridge (4N12) (N3434 22.526 W117 44.9837) T3 (iding T11) was at the end of Pinyon Ridge road sitting on a 4 ft metal post in the middle of the turnaround circle. N34 23.4384 W117 45.799) Not too hard to find.
Of course the dependable 40AH battery failed and I started with the old 11 volt battery and my main 30 watt transmitter dumped and I had to use the standby. Then I drove back to Fontana to buy a new battery (and have lunch with Marlene). Got back before the old battery died and long before any hunters. Ran into a Forest Ranger and had an interesting talk but she was about the only folk around until the first hunter showed up at 3PM.
Results:
T1 (T9) T2 (jpi) T3 (T11) T5(T5)
WA6RJN 118.0 122.7 118.6 103.4 WINNER!!!
3:22 4:44 3:52 1:29
N6AIN 169.1 165.2 169.5 134.6
KD6LAJ 5:10 4:44 5:25 2:42
N6MI 155.4 155.0 160.0 111.1
K6VCR 6:50 6:24 7:00 2:45
N6ZHZ 156.2 152.3 157.0 141.8
KD6CYG 7:00 6:34 7:15 4:37
Jippy
