The March 17th T-Hunt started at 6:00 PM from Grossmont College with 5 teams present:
· KE6CBR (Thomas) & Johnna
· N6JOJ (Tom) & W6LKK (Erik)
· KE6VCR (Tom), KE6PHB (Joe) & WA6ZMZ (Tony)
· N6WHK (Phil) & KA6ZVX (James)
· N6SZO (Joe) KF6DXU (Perry) & KK6I (Ron)
This was our team’s first hide. We started planning our hiding spot two weeks before. 12 days before the hide we drove around looking for a spot to hide. We found 3 potential hiding places. We tested to see if we could hear the signal from the college. All 3 places were heard. We decided on hiding off of New Morning Road off of Fury Lane (red arrow indicates direction of antenna). We were planning on using an HT and a Swiech. We thought the Swiech may be too easy to sniff, so I checked out a book from the library, and made a 6 element yagi. The book didn’t say much on how to make a gamma match. We fiddled with it for a while testing it till we got a good SWR reading. We placed the antenna in an open field with a nice trail that runs to it. We aimed the antenna toward Hwy 94 and Avocado hoping that we’d get some cool reflections from all the foothills. Garrett drove to the college to see if the setup would work, and he heard the transmitter, so we left everything in place and waited till 6pm.
The hunt started after some brief country music subsided. Garrett kept lookout for the first team, and got some checked on the reflections the landscape was putting out. The first team arrived. A minute later, another team arrived, piloted by KE6VCR. Tom’s team was quicker at the sniff by using squeakers, time-of-arrival, and a bright spotlight. Joe found the hidden T a minute thereafter. The third team to find the hidden T was Tom and Erich. A minute later it was Tom and Johnna. All the teams decided to blaze their own trail to the T instead of taking that nice trail that goes directly to the T. Hmm… must be those reflections Garrett was receiving earlier! Everyone was getting a little hungry and radioed Phil who didn’t finish the hunt. We found Roundtable and Applebees packed and agreed on dinner at Denny’s.
Here are the results:
|
PLACE |
|
TEAM |
Time (including
sniffing) |
|
First |
|
KE6VCR (Tom), KE6PHB (Joe) & WA6ZMZ (Tony) |
29 minutes |
|
Second |
|
N6SZO (Joe) KF6DXU (Perry) & KK6I (Ron) |
30 minutes |
|
Third |
|
N6JOJ (Tom) & W6LKK (Erik) |
50 minutes |
|
Fourth |
|
KE6CBR (Thomas) & Johnna |
51 minutes |
|
Fifth |
|
N6WHK (Phil) & KA6ZVX (James) |
DNF |
Thanks to all who participated, I hope everyone enjoyed the hunt!
73 - Travis
