Tunnels and Drainage Systems

[blackwave]

One of my favorite types of UE was exploring and documenting summer ventures into the local tunnels and drainage systems. It was pretty sweet because at the time there were quite a few of us, around 10 or so who would gear up and all traverse when we had nothing else to do. It started with a couple of us, then branched out.

A lot of people wanted to try it after showing maps and pictures of some of the weird legacy stuff left over from the years of the past from older graffiti people, hippies, bums, vagrants, passerby's etc... of course we had fun with these people, sometimes we would tell stories of running into weird looking creatures, or hearing moans, or cries for help... after loading them up with this bs we would all walk to the front of one of the main drainage systems that went on for miles under the city. We would usually have myself and the newbie, (of course with someone waiting up about a block away)... as we would slowly walk and observe we would start hearing moaning sounds (from our friendly shill), and usually this would be enough to encourage the newbie to start wanting to go back.. but peer pressure and all would keep them going, however shakily.. I would tell them to keep going while I tied my shoelaces, and of course I would disappear... and that was the cue for the shill to come out and start chasing the newbie.. mean? of course it was... I recorded some of the best screams from some of the newbies.. some would just freeze and piss their pants.. but it was all in good fun, after this cheezy hazing we would all go and do some serious exploring...

The thing that sucked is that rfcomm doesn't work in concrete filled tunnels, so we had to stay close together, we rigged a set of battery powered phones, but that only lasted so long and the voltage wasn't regulated to keep a constant power to the phones since the line was a few hundred feet.. we always had plenty of RC-CAR batteries to light up the area (though on a few times someone forgot to bring theirs, and tell us after the fact)...

We never ran into anyone or anything... the scariest thing was running out of light, because in a tunnel there is no light, sometimes if you are lucky you get seepage from a manhole, but with such little light you are more likely to start seeing things, and get creeped out... also when cars go over the manholes, it sometimes sounds like someone saying something, especially with all the echoing in the tunnels... I guess we were just lucky we didn't get washed away or get killed by some sort of manson-left overs... I haven't been back in a while from when we disbanded as the city's best UE group ever.

[skroo]

Re: Tunnels and Drainage Systems

Originally posted by blackwave
A lot of people wanted to try it after showing maps and pictures of some of the weird legacy stuff left over from the years of the past from older graffiti people, hippies, bums, vagrants, passerby's etc...

This is one of my favourite things to find down there. Colleges generally have good (read: intelligent) graffiti, much better than the usual tagging and '13's you find down in the storm drains.

The thing that sucked is that rfcomm doesn't work in concrete filled tunnels, so we had to stay close together, we rigged a set of battery powered phones, but that only lasted so long and the voltage wasn't regulated to keep a constant power to the phones since the line was a few hundred feet.. we always had plenty of RC-CAR batteries to light up the area (though on a few times someone forgot to bring theirs, and tell us after the fact)...

RF is pretty much useless underground, though it is perfect for roofing. Having said that, I've just been informed that putting your radio close to a pipe or similar and using that as an RF conductor can work pretty well sometimes.

If there's phone wiring where you are, bring a couple of beige boxes, pull the ANI on a couple of lines, and use them. Downsides: one person can't move from a location until they speak to the other person; if you're under an office building, school/college, or other place with a PBX, you may get only an outdial number instead of a real line; if you're really unlucky, they'll have routed digital PBX lines over normal copper and your box will be useless.

One other thing you want to consider: if you're trespassing and have an RF transceiver or receiver on your person when stopped, I believe (if the policec want to be difficult, which they almost always do) this may be grounds for conspiracy burglary charges at the least, and possible felony chanrges. I'm not too clear on the exact law, but it would bear out some researching.

[blackwave]

Re: Re: Tunnels and Drainage Systems

Originally posted by skroo
One other thing you want to consider: if you're trespassing and have an RF transceiver or receiver on your person when stopped, I believe (if the policec want to be difficult, which they almost always do) this may be grounds for conspiracy burglary charges at the least, and possible felony chanrges. I'm not too clear on the exact law, but it would bear out some researching.

Yes, we usually had one guy that snipes, and has full communications via scanners and radios to the group... we had pulled out JIT most of the time... though there was once where I was the snipe and dropped my radio about 20 feet, by the time I got back up the locals were already at the scene.. and everyone was running around like they were on fire... I had a cruiser almost take my feet out... I had a back up whistle, and used it which gave a few others about a 1 minute warning, which was enough for about 80% to make it to the rendezvous... as we listened to the locals say our comrades names... luckily those who didn't make it didn't have anything on their person(or memory), unlike most of the group which had ghooks, radios, irscopes, you name it... this was all for night game btw, nothing too weird. One thing I learned from this, don't bring people that can't run, or have asthma (and forgot their thing at home), I had to carry one person about 500 feet because they couldn't breathe or move... of course it was a newbie... scared shitless...

Damn those were some fun times.

Note: For informational and educational purposes only, do not try this at home