September 28th 2019
Mini All Day
Transmitter Hunt
Hider: Ron WA6CYY
Where: T2 was at the junction of Swarthout Canyon Rd and
Purcell Rd. The rest of the Ts were up on Table Mountain Rd
and Blue Ridge Rd.
The plan for this hunt was to have the main transmitter
point down the canyon behind Mt. Baldy into Lytle
Creek. When I arrived on the site the visibility was
almost Zero and with no cell phone coverage I could only
guess where to point the antenna. Being no one went up
Lytle Creek road, I guess this didn’t work. One
transmitter was placed on a dirt road called Swarthout
Canyon Rd. off Hwy 66 Cajon Blvd just passed Lost
Lake. This transmitter was a Baofeng hh with a Byonics
controller in a camouflaged pvc tube deep in a bush (id T2
dot dot). The next transmitter was on a turnout
running to Table Mountain also a Baofeng in a pvc tube (id
T3 dot dot dot). The rest of the transmitters were on
the East Blue Ridge Road. The next transmitters on the
road were T4 and T5. These transmitters were hidden
under some brush on Pacific Crest Trail at the top of
Conquest ski run in the view of a trail cam (see web site
for photos and video). The hope was to get some action
footage of hunters trying to sort out the two transmitters.
About 1 hour into the hunt, the T4, another Baofeng, died
leaving only T5 operational. This was a Byonics
microfox 15S transmitter in a film can. The next
transmitter along the road was at the Blue Ridge radio site
near the Boeing building. This transmitter was a low
power voice transmitter feeding a 4 element horizontally
polarized yagi antenna. The next transmitter was a 5
watt transmitter feeding an 11 element yagi pointed at the
back side of Baldy at the junction of East Blue Ridge Road
and Blue Ridge Truck Trail and FSRD 3N39 (this location
missed the Lytle Creek canyon).
I had fun hiding this hunt and I hope everyone enjoyed
it. The weather did not cooperate as much as I hoped
it would. We started in dense fog but it cleared up
about 11:00 (8300 ft.). It started to sock in again
about 4:30 but fortunately most everyone had found the
transmitters by then. By 7:00 pm it was a challenge to
stay on the road and pick up the transmitters.
Thank you everyone for coming out.
Ron WA6CYY
Doug WA6RJN and Bill WB6MGT with ending mileage of 86.8 win
the hunt.
