Second Saturday Night Hunt

10 March 2001

Hider: N6XFC

I was on a hilltop at the corner of Santa Margarita and Avenida Empressa. There is a radio / cell site which covers that corner of South county. It is approximately 935' at the T location before the cell site.

I ran 110w into a 13-element boomer pointed at the start point. By design, I have a gel cell battery that needed to be cycled so I ran the amplifier with full intention to drain the battery. The battery gave out around 9pm with 8.45 volts left with 40w from the amp. I then used 5w from the HT.

The weather was good, the temperature at it's coldest was 40 degrees with a 10 - 15 mph wind and no rain. The dirt road was muddy and slippery from the start up and the road got worse as you drove past me, that prevented me from hiding further down the road, in fear that most of the teams would not make it through the deep gooey, sticky mud and very slippery hills. I needed four-wheel drive to get up the 2 hills and through the 100' long mud bog. That was fun!

Thank you all for coming out.

De N6XFC / Steve