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Transmitter Hunting in the San Francisco Bay Area
Altamont, CALIFORNIA
February 16, 2002

Thanks for visiting the San Francisco Bay Area T-Hunting WEB SITE.

Story by: Jim-KD6DX
Photographs by: Jim-KD6DX
Resized and edited with Thumbs-Plus 4.5 & Photo Shop 6.01
From 2560x1920 to 640x480 and highly compressed (50%).
Nikon CP5000

Last updated: Sunday, February 17, 2002

THE FOX
Dave - KG6ACD
Dave-KG6ACD

PARTICIPATING HUNTERS
Jim KD6DX

Paul, Jim-KD6DX, Rich-KN6FW

 

Participants

Fox: Dave - KG6ACE
TEAMS (3)

Mileage
Paul  
Jim-KD6DX 45.7 to hard fox, 54.2 total to both foxes.
Rich-KN6FW  

 

map1.gif
Initial Bearing & GPS Track.		 Saturday, Feb. 16, 2002 (10:00 AM), Dave's (KG6ACD) Pack-A-Lunch Hunt started me from the new ALTAMONT PASS start location. Paul started from the STOCKTON start point and Rich-KN6FW from Pollock Pines.

Instructions were transmitted on the Talk-In repeater to hunt two (2) transmitters. The first (Hard) Fox on 146.565 MHz (intermittent) and the second (Easy) fox on 146.490 MHz which will turn on 30 minutes later.

I read an initial bearing of 35* to the Hard Fox, the actual bearing was 12*. (what went wrong here?, mountains?)

Plotting a "baby step" route on the Garmin StreetPilot-III took me North on Mountain House Rd. where I corrected my route to Due-North, trusting my Doppler. (see my comments on AHHA Doppler's QFIL settings).

As you can see from my GPS track, I tried to predict which Island the Hard Fox might be located and drove around, mentally eliminating islands. Since I back tracked twice, I would suggest taking shorter bearings and eliminating locations before going on.

After isolating the island, driving up to the Hard Fox was not difficult. The scary part was driving 4 miles up a road that said "Not a Through Road, No Outlet".

Equipment I used to find the transmitters:
1) Arrow 4-element two-meter beam.
2) Arrow Attenuator.
3) Magnetic Compass. (Just to document my Initial bearing)
5) No Maps this time. Used the StreetPilot-III as my map.
6) Garmin StreetPilot-III, GPS street level mapping.
7) Doppler, AHHA Microfinder. (QFIL set to 2/9/9)
8) U-R-Here radio, Icom R3. (Worked great today)
9) Mobile Tri-Band Amateur radio. Listening to all channels.
  (Both Fox frequencies and both talk-in repeaters, Scanning).
map2.gif
GPS track.		 map3.gif
Close-up of both foxes.
095632.jpg
095632 Start Point.		 112253.jpg
112253 On my way 1.
112814.jpg
112814 One my way 2.		 113048.jpg
113048 One my way 3.
113425.jpg
113425 Hard Fox.		 113444.jpg
113444 Hard Fox.
113458.jpg
113458 Hard Fox.		 115256.jpg
115256 Easy Fox.		 The Easy Fox was easy to locate, I had already plotted a course to it while hunting the Hard Fox so driving to it was the only issue (besides thinking it was further out than it was).

Again, take "baby steps" to any hidden transmitter. I almost over-plotted way beyond the actual location (again).
115318.jpg
115318 Easy Fox.		 135139.jpg
135139 Lunch.		 Lunch at "Dragon City Restaurant" was a real treat. I mean Dave-KG6ACD (the Fox), treated us to lunch. He is so generous. This is like the third time he's done this.
140606.jpg
 Henry-KF6PCE Doppler-III		 140631.jpg
 Henry-KF6PCE Doppler-III		 Henry-KF6PCE has invented a new Doppler, with plenty of features, that interfaces to a (laptop) computer.

This little guy has all the filtering you need. Software is easily updated, which means, need an update, just down load new software and install it onto your computer.

143240.jpg
 Henry-KF6PCE Doppler-III		 143304.jpg
 Henry-KF6PCE Doppler-III		 I'll have to buy one of these little jewels.
145530.jpg
145530 Lunch		 151737.jpg
151737 Drive Home.		 See you at the next hunt. [Schedule].

And, don't forget the next JAMMER hunt, March 30, 2002.

Jim Sakane (KD6DX)

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