Don's Story
August 28th All Night
At the start we got one of the first indications that we would be traveling north, a bearing of 301 degrees true. Up PCH through Malibu, to Point Magu. The signal went from nothing to full scale (pre-amp in) within 500'. Took a bearing, it was still 300 degrees +/- 5. Looked like maybe the Vanderburg Air force base or Lompoc. If is was north near Santa Maria, then going over 154 through Solvang was the shortest. As we started up the 154, the signal seemed to be moving into the high 200's instead of the 300 degrees that we had all day. I told Steve (LAJ) that no way, ever am I going to go over that rotten dirt road to Broadcast Peak if is up there. Many years ago I did that on a hunt for PYE, and haven't lost the memory of it yet. Anyway, we went all the way to Solvang, and went up Refugio Rd. the back way. Most of the time we had to have the pre-amp on, because how bad the signal was on this road. We turned up towards the signal, and met AIN and EKS on their way down. We figured that they must of come up from 154 on that dirt road and already got some T's. We then met TJN and his wife, coming down from the top (I think he said he had found 3 T's already). We finally got to the T1 site signed in and listened for more T's. We heard one voice T that seemed to be coming from near the coast and the point where 101 goes inland. We knew that Mike & Dave would have hid one on the way in from 154, so we went up on top of the peak, and listened. With all the desenseing going on, we could only hear T1, but once we heard a cw iding T that did seem to be coming from down the road (east). Well we felt that we must get this one before trying for any others (mistake). As I had remembered, that road should be closed off to anything that has four wheels. It's not that it is so bad, it's that is so bad for so long. We met N6MI & VCR coming in from the 154, and passed off some useful information, like "why are you going that way on this road?" This was from MI to us. We knew that he had found a T down there and was just trying to get us to turn around, so we wouldn't find the T that was hid there. After going about 6 miles, 1 hour 45 minutes later we made it to route 154 with no other T's found. At this point I was so mad that the only thing that would temper my mood, was to make a early day of it and go home. That's what we did.

Don KF6GQ