January 24th 2015
Meathead All Day
Transmitter Hunt
Hider: Doug WA6RJN
I had a couple of place picked out for this month’s T
hunt. Typically I like to go out the day before to hide the T’s
because things usually go wrong (area isn’t open, T fails,
antenna is broken, etc). Since I didn’t have that option, I
picked something I had done before: an urban hunt. This time I
hid the T’s on my way home from work. And yes, things went
wrong. I had forgotten to bring BNC to UHF adaptors and my new
antenna analyzer.
The first T I hid was T9, 50 mW every 30 seconds on Sesnon Blvd
on the east side of Aliso Cyn Wash. T10 (50 mW) was on Sesnon
Blvd on the west side. Unfortunately, there is no bridge
over the wash which drops 60 feet below. This means traveling
through the correct twisty windy streets on the east side to
reach T9.
Next up was T4 (50 mW) at the north end of Mason Blvd. This one
was up in a tree. It had a great view but apparently not the
great signal coverage I had hoped.
Moving on, it was time to hide the main T. For this I took
Brown’s Cyn at the DeSoto off ramp of the 118 fwy. This road
goes all the to Oat Mtn – a place a found Ts in the late 60’s
early 70’s. It was a former Nike missile site. The road had been
closed for many years. When the Michael Antonovich Regional Park
was created, the road was opened to access the park but is still
gated before you reach Oat Mtn. The sad part is that about half
way up the old “Private Road – No Trespassing” signs are still
up. To help with this, I hid the Bug T saying “Don’t let a
little sign stop you when you’re this close to the T”.
Farther up the road at the entrance to the park I hid T1 outside
the park just feet from the fence delineating the park boundary.
T1 was running 4W into a horizontal coat hanger beam sat on top
of some tumble weeds pointed about 135 degrees.
T6 (.5W with a whip) was next to be hid. It was in a bush on
Canoga Ave just north of the 118 fwy.
I wanted a secondary main T that would hopefully provide a
second main signal to start the hunt. For this I used T2,
running 4W into a tape measure beam pointed in the same
direction as T1. I reused a place I had hid the last time I did
a West San Fernando Valley hunt. This was on Iverson Rd. at the
118 fwy. There are a number of cell phone providers there. The
landmark is a large cross.
To round it out at an even 8, I hid T5 (50 mW) at the
intersection of the Santa Susana Pass Road and Redmesa Rd.
Back to when things don’t go as planned. In hiding all the rest
of the Ts, I never heard T9 again. There was a hill to the west
of T9 that blocked its signal. I could have hidden it farther up
the hill it was on but since we are all getting a bit older, I
decided not to go farther up the steep hill. This meant I had to
revisit T9 (through the windy twisty streets). I swapped out 50
mW T9 and its whip for T7, 3W with a 3-element tape measure
bream pointed west. Hopefully it will be heard. The idea is to
draw the hunters in from the west down Sesnon Blvd to the wash
where they will find T10. There they will realize that they can
“see” T7 but can’t get there from here. They could take the path
the descends into the wash, goes down stream then rises up on
the other side – a half mile walk, or they could try to find a
way to drive there through the twisty windy roads (and a dozen
stop signs).
Aliso Cyn Wash with T10 on one side and T7 on the other.
The path in the middle is about a half mile.
During the hunt JPI made a wrong turn and
needed a little assistance to resume the hunt.
Results:
Two teams found all 8 Ts. The KF6GQ/KD6LAJ team did it in less
time (probably because JPI got stuck) so they are the winners.
Bob's Story
Don and Steve's Story
A Short Video
