MEATHEAD T-HUNT

March 26, 2016

WB6JPI

 

It was a sunny day. But I didn’t notice until long after I started placing transmitters. I got up at 4:00 AM, long before I was awake and set off to hide 6 transmitters. The problem was that I had a meeting I really wanted to attend at 10 AM. The Hunt was to start at 10 AM so all the transmitters had to be hid and I had to get to the meeting in south Orange County. So the hunt had to be somewhat in south Orange County.

 

The plan was to place 3 transmitters on the east side of the El Toro Marine Base and three on the west side. It is a nice messy trip between the two sides of about 60 miles although the transmitters are only 10-20 miles apart. I wanted to “guide” the hunters to come south on either side but use the connection via HWY 76 in North Dan Diego County. If they were clever they could go through Fallbrook, but there is no way to get across the Marine base as it was under some heightened security due to the things in Europe.

 

I got to the Tower site and hid two transmitters there. I had used this place before and knew it was good for a bounce off of Baldy into Pathfinder. When I went to assemble the 13 element beam I found I had not brought the correct sections and nothing would go together. I have a 9 element wide-spaced and the 13 element (and a couple of 11s I didn’t bring) but nothing fit together properly.  I used black tape and stuck something together for T1 (iding T6), 20 watt Byon box. It was pointed at Baldy.

 

I hid T2 (1 watt Baofeng into a circular antenna hung on a tree by its coax iding T1, T2, T3 and T4.) about 25 ft from T1. 

 

These two transmitters were found by four hunters, but T1 was missed by Paul, WB6HPW at 5:30 PM, I suspect that its battery had died because there is no way a hunter could miss T1 if you were at the much weaker T2

 

T3 (1 watt Iding T9) Was located on a hill about 5 miles from T1 and 2 into a Ringo on a fence post.

 

The next transmitter, T4 (1 watt iding T6), was hidden at the southbound rest stop on I5 just south of San Onofre. This is a wonderful spot. Coupled with the rest stop on the north going side you have to go 7 miles south and 26 miles north to get between them. I would have hid in both stops but I was already late for my meeting. I had got lost a couple times getting through Fallbrook. No one found this transmitter so I guess Paul went over 74 to the east side instead of going south. Phooey!

 

I have my Garmin GPS routing me to my meeting as it will predict the arrival time and I have found this to be fairly accurate. It has traffic and recent mapping. It was running since I left my house and I had the sound turned off so I wouldn’t have to listen the “off Route, recalculating” messaging constantly as I was placing the transmitters. But it gave the arrival time from where ever I was.

 

T5 (Iding T10) was a 30 watt transmitter pointed at the start point and located in Dana Point on a hill. Again the antenna was kludged up from non-matching horizontal sections. It was found by only one hunter (Paul).

 

T6 (Iding T2 voice) was near the beach at Dana point and was placed so if you were there you should be able to hear T4 at the rest stop and you could hear T2 from T5. No one found this T.

 

I was an hour late to my meeting!!

 

The transmitters were located at:

 

T1     N33 29.605  W117 20.718 (nee T6)

T2     N33 29.582  W117 20.688 (nee T1,2,3,4)

T3     N33 29.998  W117 16.539 (nee T9)

T4     N33 16.393  W117 26.700 (nee  T9)

T5     N33 29.260  W117 38.904 (nee T10)

T6     N33 27.885  W117 42.497 (nee T2 voice)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results:

 

T1                         MILES        TIME

 

KF6GQ/KD6LAS           71.4   12:25

WA6RJN                        69.4   13:43

N6AIN/N6EKS               113.2 13:45

AB6PA                           94.5   13:59

 

T2

 

KF6GQ/KD6LAS           71.4   12:30

WA6RJN                        69.4   13:50

N6AIN/N6EKS               113.2 13:50

AB6PA                           94.5   13:50

WB6HPW                      102.6 1725

 

T3

 

KF6GQ/KD6LAS           85.4   14:00

WA6RJN                        83.3   15:05

N6AIN/N6EKS               125.7 14:51

AB6PA                           103.8 15:10

 

T4 dnf

 

T5

 

WB6HPW                      51.2   14:00

 

T6 dnf

 

Four hunt teams found 3. One found 2. The lowest mileage for

the four was 83.3 by WA6RJN but KF6GQ/KD6LAS had 85.4 less than 3% so fight it out.

 

 

Bob, WB6JPI