back to epic tales of hidden transmitters

That's SPEAKER WIRE!:


After months of hiding the hidden transmitter, we had gotten pretty evil with our hides, and everyone was having
a lot of fun playing. It was my turn to hide it, after finding Brad's particularly well-hidden transmitter.
So I charged it up and took it out to the "north cedar" area with intentions to hide it VERY close to Brad's
house, which I expected would torture him with cross-channel until he went out and found it.

For awhile now we've been having to hide a car battery, a black plastic box that's bigger than the car battery,
and a 102-inch fiberglass whip (wrapped with black electrical tape). So anyone that's looking for it expects
it to be hidden somewhere that (A) has a vertical spot to hide the antenna and (B) a place (on the ground?) to
hide the battery and radio. I intended to use this to my advantage during this hide, to make it more difficult
to find. A little bit of "psychological warfare" if you will.

On the south side of North Cedar is a wide grassy field with a set of railroad tracks that run along the grass,
and finally hundreds of feet away is highway 218. This field is right outside Brad's front door, so will be
perfect for hammering his receiver. I packed up the hiding kit, which includes various options to help hide
the transmitter, along with a 50 foot run of RG-58, and went to the field to find a spot to hide the transmitter.

When I got there, I found the field was vast, and littered with short saplings, varying from 6 to 20 feet tall.
Any of those would work to support the antenna. But I wanted to find one that DIDN'T have a place to hide the
transmitter and battery, because I knew they'd carefully search anywhere that met those two criteria: somewhere
to hide the antenna, and somewhere to hide the battery.

I finally found a suitable tree, maybe 15 feet tall, with quite a few low branches, but was surrounded by
nothing but flat, open ground. No logs, no holes, no mounds, not even any tall tufts of grass. NOWHERE to
hide the transmitter close to it. Then I looked around for the opposite - somewhere to hide the battery but
nothing vertical for an antenna. (and within 50 feet of the tree) I found just one lone large tuft of field
grass about 40 feet away, that parted to reveal a convenient depression in the ground that would be perfect
for the transmitter and battery.

I immediately realized I had an opportunity with the antenna. I had brought along a 9 foot length of speaker
wire with a PL-259 on the end that I had never used before. Now was the time. I started with the connector
at the base of the tree, and wound the speaker wire around the thin trunk like a vine. Then followed one of
the branches off to the side, and up and out, and finally just let the end of the wire stick out a few inches.
It was perfect. This wasn't that clear speaker wire you can see the copper in, it was chocolate brown. And
the way I'd wound it around the tree, it was difficult for ME to spot.

I set up the battery and radio, and stretched out the RG-58 to the tree. I was lucky, I only had a few feet
to spare. But just as I was about to get started tucking away the coax, it hit me... it would be MUCH better
to be UNDER all this grass, rather than on top of it. I looked over at the 102-inch whip and realized I could
use that like a sewing needle, running the coax UNDER the grass. And so that's what I did, 9 feet at a time.
I connected it back up to the speaker wire when it emerged at the tree, did my best to tuck the grass together
at the transmitter, connected the battery, and left.

Now normally these hidden transmitters can suffer from poor range, usually due to crazy placement of their
antennas, but in this case it got out pretty well. It had a good ground reference, and the antenna was high
up and completely clear of obstructions. Range was great, and as expected, Brad was pulling his hair out with
all the cross-channel he was getting, living less than a block away from it. "I'll find it this weekend."
It was a cool night in late fall, and a snow storm was moving in. We got several inches of snow that night,
but then it warmed up the next day, enough to melt a lot of the snow into a slush. But that slush froze the
following night, and little did we know that we wouldn't get above freezing again till spring.

The weekend arrives and Brad heads out early to shut off that annoying radio. I decided to stop by and watch
him struggle with my masterpiece. He had help though, AA and Fester were with him, and both of of them were
clever and equally experienced in finding hidden transmitters. It didn't take long for Brad to get in the
vicinity of the tree using a hand-held radio. He behaved exactly as expected, walking from tree to tree, first
looking at the tree for an antenna, and then looking below for anywhere a transmitter could be hiding. While
he was looking at a tree, Fester would be running all around it, stomping on any clumps of field grass to see
if there was a box hidden in it. They spent quite a bit of time searching, but couldn't find an antenna or
a battery anywhere.

Now Brad had basically been ignoring THE tree, as it was in the middle of a flat field where there was just no
chance of hiding a transmitter, but he kept coming back to that spot to take stock of his situation. The signal
was VERY strong right there, so it HAD to be hidden somewhere close to that tree. And so they kept checking
and re-checking all the trees on the edge of the flat clearing surrounding THE tree. Finally, Brad is going
from frustrated to exhausted, and he stops at the tree again, places a hand on the trunk and leans a bit on it.
Then he stops. And looks at the trunk. Looks closer. Tilts his head a little.

and then he screms, "THAT'S SPEAKER WIRE!!!!"

AA and Fester run up to have a look. They're literally jumping for joy, they finally found it! But Brad....
this is a hidden TRANSMITTER hunt. Where is the transmitter?

He nonchalantly looks down, expecting to see it sitting right there at the base of the tree. But there's
nothing there. Then looks around at this feet around the tree, and sees nothing. Then a bit of panic in his
eyes as he starts desperately scanning around, nothing, nothing, nothing. "Psshhh, I'll just follow the coax!"
So he immediately sees the connector and the end of the RG-58, and gives it a tug. He can only lift about six
inches of it up now though because that snow that had turned to slush has frozen into ice, and has locked the
coax in place. He can't even get a clear idea of which direction the coax goes because it just goes DOWN
into the ice.

So I got to watch the three of them fan out from the tree, stomping on every clump of grass they could find.
SOMEHOW Fester misses the clump with the transmitter in it, and they just continue to spiral out from the
tree. Eventually they come back and find the transmitter, but that had to have been a good ten minutes more
time spent finding the transmitter, after having found the antenna.


I seriously doubt I will ever get to have that much fun with a hide again.




last updated 11/12/2023 at 20:15:47