Steve (KD6LAJ) & Myself (KF6GQ) Have been planning something different for the next Meathead hide. We planned to place a primary T (T1) at a high location within the San Bernardino National Forest. This T would also be a simplex repeater which would give the hunters a heads up on what T’s they would have to look for (also it would effectively double the interfering T’s). Steve was to have placed his T’s on the south side of Big Bear Lake, and I would place my T’s on the north shore side. As it turned out, all of the main T’s where picked up by the repeater, plus N6AIN’s mini-T which I was using because I was doing a repair on it. The Meathead aspect of this hunt, was to find T1 last. If any T’s where found after a hunter signed into T1, those T’s would not be counted.

The morning started out okay, a bit of fog on the 210 heading east, but this cleared up soon. I got to my primary location to set up the main T at Butler Peak. From this location I could see the start point (if it was clear), so it shouldn’t take too much power to be heard at the start. At 10:00am, I put T1 on the air and attempted to make a call to the start, to find if my T was being heard. I was told that 4 T’s could be heard, I had placed N6AIN’s mini-T about 100’ from T1 so I knew that they should be able to hear 2 T’s, but 4?? When I listened carefully I realized that Steve’s T’s where making it into T1 repeater from across the valley. I called Steve on the prearranged frequency and found out that Steve had been stuck in his car for the last two hours! Since I still had several T’s to put out I found that Steve was not in immediate danger, so I decided to set out some of the T’s. Actually I put out 3 more T’s, this should have been 5 more T’s (so thank Steve for not having more T’s to locate). I put a 350mw. T2 on the road up to Butler Peak, and I put the “Snake T” on a side road off of the main road going up. The last T I placed was T3 which was running about .5w to a 5 element beam pointed up towards T1 this was located west of the road to Hanna Flats Campground, at about 1 mile past Hanna Flats. Then I went to rescue LAJ. On the way over, I found that T3, and T1 was very strong on the south side of the lake. I went in the direction that Steve and I had talked about for the location of his T’s. I wasn’t sure if he had actually hid the T’s there, because the quality of the simplex frequency was not good, and I wasn’t sure if he was actually there. Once I got up in the area I tried several times to raise Steve, but I had to go to high power on my hand held. Finally I got him and he told me how to get to the area. Steve needed to give me some very precise directions, because I just didn’t believe that he had gone down some of these roads. Finally I came to a split in the road, to the right was a motorcycle trail, to my left was the road. As I went up the road to the left, Steve came on the radio, and told me that wasn’t the right way! What? I’m not driving my car down that trail! You got to see the pictures that Steve took. Well let me tell you, that I now have a new look to the side of my car, horizontal lines from front to back, caused by Manzanita bushes, that where only 24” apart on this trail (note; on most motorcycle trails, it is necessary to have 32” clearance). Also this trail was slopped towards the cliff side, that didn’t instill confidence in me. About 200’ from where Steve’s car was stuck, I found a place to turn around, and proceeded to back to his location (note: it isn’t easy to back while your rearview mirrors are folded flat against the side of the car). This road was close to impossible to go forward on it, well it was more so going backward. Steve had gotten himself into trouble, when he decided that he didn’t want to go any further down this slope, and he decided to back up. Well to make a long (4 hours) story short, His wheels turned but his car didn’t move anywhere except down the side slope. Well I backed as close to him that I could get and we put the tow strap on his car and I started to pull, he actually came out quite easily, one reason being that he had spent sometime jacking up the front wheel, so it was level with the trail. Well we forgot that he had the jack still under the axle. No harm but it did give Steve a start when the car fell off the jack. We got him turned around, and out of there. If someone was crazy enough to go down that trail (besides us), fine, else take a short hike to the T’s. Steve had hidden all three T’s in that area, because he had no way of getting out to hide them elsewhere. So all in all, we had 8 T’s out. We know from some of the hunters that several teams went up the 38 to the Seven Oaks area, at which point they got into much trouble. My best guess is that had they come up to Clark’s summit, they would have been able to get to Steve’s T’s. I don’t know at this time who got to LAJ’s T’s. We will not know until Steve goes up and walks into the spot and picks up the sign in sheets. This won’t be until Monday night. If someone made it into Steve’s hiding spot, let me know, also give us the story of the “Road from Hell”.

Out of the 5 T’s that I put out, the L.O.S.T. team (from Yucca Valley), checked into 4 T’s fairly early, they where the only one’s to find “Snake” T, and the rest of the teams came in the evening. AIN, IDF/SNE, JPI, where the only official teams to check in. N6ZHZ checked into T1 and T-AIN, unofficially. N6MI/VCR called me at about 9:00pm, giving me the starting miles, because they wouldn’t be able to leave the mileages at any T’s, because they hadn’t found any. I have not heard anything from RJN team, so I don’t know if they got to Steve’s T’s and are still there! When I get the results from Steve, I’ll run the results. I think we had fun putting on the hunt, and can’t wait for the next win of a Meathead, so we can try out some other ideas.

Don KF6GQ