Description: This campus hosts the VA Medical
Center (serving veterans in four states), Mountain Home Cemetery,
and ETSU’s Quillen College of Medicine. ETSU’s new pharmacy school
is also housed here. While the hunt will take you through but a
fraction of the campus, it’s a beautiful place to walk or drive
around—just be sure to use adequate stealth and observe the speed
limit! Also, be advised that the posted closing time is 9pm.
Your Mission: Your mission begins near the
coordinates above, which correspond to the beginning of Brownlow
Circle. Parking can usually be found on the circle without too much
difficulty. However, please read through the entire description
before proceeding to these coordinates, as there is a decision to
be made before your arrival…
Stage I: Get the Key To
decipher the code, you will need a key. You have two options:
either find a Tour of Duty Cipher Key Travel Bug (each of
which has instructions to remain within a 20-mile radius of the
above coordinates) and decode the message before you arrive, or
proceed to the above coordinates to find the key there. While it
may seem less efficient to track down one of the two TBs, cracking
the code onsite will take some time. Your choice. To find the key
at the VA, return to the above coordinates and project a waypoint
of 121° true for 0.117 miles. The key is the second line of
text.
See where the TB cipher keys are:
Key 1
Key 2 Key
3
Stage II: Decipher the
Code
MBXOK UAXQB HZPKV ZQNUN TDHOJ
The encoded message above was encrypted using an M-94 cipher
wheel, a device used extensively by the US Army from the early
1920s to the mid-1940s (the same code was used on the US Navy’s
CSP-488), when the device was replaced by a more secure encryption
process. The wheel is comprised of 25 interlocking wheels that must
be arranged in a specific order to decode the message. The “key” is
a word or phrase that is used to indicate the correct order of the
25 wheels. Once the wheels are placed in order, the encoded message
(above) can be entered on the wheel. The decoded message will then
appear on one of the other rows. Descriptions of how to use a key
and create a wheel of your own are at the bottom of this
listing.
Stage III: Gather the
Data The decoded message will direct you to the
data-gathering locations. Record the indicated data (below) to
determine the final cache coordinates, located at N 36° 1A.0BC W
082° 2D.E1F:
- From First Item:
- A= Number of victims (last digit)
- B= Number of victims (first digit PLUS second
digit)
- C= Dedication year (first digit)
- From Second Item:
- D= Dedication year (last digit MINUS first digit)
- E= Month dedicated
- F= Dedication year (last digit)
Check figures: A+B+C=16; D+E+F=13
You can also check your answers for this puzzle on
Geochecker.com.
Stage IV: Make the Find
The cache location is not on the VA campus, but rather on a nearby
piece of property known well by area mountain bikers. There is
parking near the cache location, but availability may vary based on
the day and time of your visit. The cache itself is a small Lock
& Lock container. Initial contents include pen, logbook, and
FTF pin; a travel bug; and small tradeables. Also included are the
coordinates to a bonus micro cache
(Bonus: Extended Tour, GC130C4), located in the vicinity.
Please use your best stealth when hunting, and rehide the
container as well as (or better than) you discovered it.
Coordinates are accurate to 20’, due to tree cover at the time of
cache placement.
FTF honors go to
SingleDoc!!!
The Wheel
Cipher
Using the Key: The key is a
word or phrase up to 25 characters in length (spaces not included).
If the key is less than 25 characters, the key is repeated until
there are 25 total characters. For example, the key “quick brown
fox” would become “quickbrownfoxquickbrownfo” to achieve a key 25
characters in length.
Wheels are then ordered according to the alphabetic order of the
key, left to right. Since there is no letter A in the key, we look
for Bs (there are two). The leftmost B will be assigned the number
1, and the second, 2. We then move to Cs; the first will be
assigned the number 3, then 4.
The process is continued until all 25 letters in the key have
been assigned a number. In this example, the wheels would be
ordered as follows:
Therefore, our 17th wheel would be the first, followed by 21, 7,
3, 9, 1, 19, 13, 23, 11, 5, 14, 25, 18, 22, 8, 4, 10, 2, 20, 15,
24, 12, 6, and 16.
The order of the letters on the wheels is included below; these
can be created on an actual wheel, or simply replicated in an
application such as Excel. Match the wheels’ order in the key, then
line up the encoded text across one row. Look on the other rows
until the decoded message is found. If you are using Excel, it may
be easier to type each wheel’s series of letters twice (on the same
line), to ensure that the encoded/decoded messages can be read in a
single row or column.
The 25 Wheels:
