7:30 PM, Friday 9/5/03
Starting at 6th Street and Long Beach Boulevard

After all the speculation and apprehension beforehand, the HamCon 2003 mobile T-hunt turned out to be a mileage hunt for four T's. Time limits kept it from being an all-nighter for the hiders and others who had to be up very early on Saturday. Hunters arriving back at the starting point after 10:15 had one T deducted from their score, and those arriving after 10:30 lost two T's.

Some hunters thought it wasn't possible to get through Friday night traffic to all T's and back in 2-3/4 hours. But exactly one week ahead of time, I did just that. I drove the course in 5-4-3-1 order, paused appropriate amounts of time for sniffing at each T, and got back with 94.4 miles and about 15 minutes to spare. (Of course the 710 southbound wasn't closed that evening, but on the other hand, I'm sure I didn't drive as fast as N6AIN does.) The course could have been driven in less mileage in 5-4-1-3 order.

The T locations:

T1 - Park-and-ride lot, west of 57 freeway at Highland Valley Road overcrossing, 40 watts into horizontal quad.

T3 - Fullerton train station, north side, 25 watts into horizontal yagi.

T4 - Discovery Science Center parking lot in Santa Ana, on freeway fence overlooking I-5, one watt into 5/8-wave ground plane.

T5 - End of Old Ranch Parkway, next to westbound Hwy 22 onramp from Seal Beach Boulevard, one watt into quarter-wave whip.

Contrary to a few "no signal" complaints, I was able to copy all T's on my hand-held tape-measure yagi at the starting point.

Results below show the finish time, number of T's before/after the overtime penalties, and mileage. Crenshaw Factors did not affect the rankings.

Calls               Time   T's  Miles

N6AIN/N6MI          10:11  3/3  93.85  First prize

WB6JPI              10:10  2/2  73.7   Declined prize

KC6TNJ/WA6TQQ        9:57  1/1  63.7   Second prize

N6UZS                9:59  1/1  64.4   Third prize

WB6RDV/WB6OBB       10:32  3/1  78.3   From Santa Barbara

W6DFW/KG6FWH/N6MXU   8:52  0/0  26.8

AE6GA/KG6ERB        10:25  1/0  32.0

N6IDF/KG6GWV        10:32  2/0  94.9

WB6ARK              10:02  0/0  ????

Note that all prize winners were back by 10:15, even though they all found
less than four T's.
Only one person found all T's. That was N6MJN, hunting unofficially. He arrived at T4 just as April and I were shutting it off.
Where were the San Diego T-hunters? We come out on your convention T-hunts, so why not come out on ours?
Special thanks to T-sitters K6SNE at T1 and KE6IPY at T3. Don't blame them for anything, as it wasn't their fault. Also thanks to starter/timekeeper Mike Cramer KC6YHM. Mike and the Thorpe's, Cheryl KE6TZU and Gene KB6CMO, attended many HamCon committee meetings and supervised the T-hunt Table at the convention site.

73, Joe K0OV