Message posted by gary on November 13, 2002 at 12:46:18 PST:

Sedalia Mike and I camped at the "hidden campsite" and some bunny rabbit bugged me all night, but there certainly are worse varmints to visit you in the desert. The ground was pretty soft there. [Mike had to use my spare tent, which is a story unto itself.]

I think car-camping at the power lines is a better choice. In cold weather out there, I would often wake up in the middle of the night and run the engine (heater) to warm up. Since they often test in the middle of the night, this gives you a chance to looks for stuff flying around. From the power line overlook, the tests we saw were over the hills to the north of the overlook on the east side of the ET highway. I've also seen training going on over Hiko from the power line overlook.

There are two areas to park at the power lines. One is right at the edge, and the other is back a bit at a lower section. If you park at the edge, you can watch much of the ET Highway and also shine your flashlight at passing vehicles to aid in the UFO sighting folklore. However, the wind at the edge can get pretty nasty and the base can see you from Bald Mountain. If you park in that low spot, you can't be seen, but the radio reception suffers. What I plan on doing next time is to bring a BNC to BNC cable so that I can put the magmount/antenna out by the edge while scanning back at the truck. You should have a bit of metal under the antenna as a ground plane that is at least as wide as twice the antenna's height.

In Reply to: Re: Can someone recommend a good camping siet? posted by Joerg (Webmaster) on November 13, 2002 at 8:50:20 PST:

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