Hunt Results

Summary:

The area for this hunt was chosen to be moderately close to the start with the intent of being easy on the hunt's gas budget and the early sunset this time of year. Jerry and I picked five transmitter sites in the 4S Ranch/Black Mountain area, three of which were relatively high in altitude and spread out enough to minimize mutual interference. In addition, the on-air timing of the main transmitters was set to minimize overlap and used continuous voice identification. At each main T site, a Mini-me micro was placed within walking distance (a matter of dispute by some). The five higher power transmitters were five watt into a whips while the micros were either 25 milliwatts or 150 milliwatts cycling twice a minute in an effort to avoid overlap with its main T transmissions.

The design of the hide appeared to us to be fairly straight forward for hunters. As the day progressed, it appeared that this hunt was not providing the hunters with the experience we had expected.

Transmitter T-2 was particularly difficult to locate by the teams of AJ6XP w/Tim, and K6VCR /N9SCD. Tracking the progress on these teams on APRS showed a very difficult signal environment and much of the day consumed localizing the T. All the transmitters were in drive up locations but I think out of frustration AJ6XP ultimately parked below the transmitter and hiked up a steep slope to bag the annoying T.

Meanwhile, after in initial strong start locating T's, team N6SZO/W6BAF attempted to locate T-5 and T-6 with similar issues of bearing confusion. The APRS tracks showed multiple near misses to arriving at those two T boxes. In retrospect, Jerry and I could have constructed a respectable countywide hunt employing just these three transmitter locations.

Unfortunately, several of the micros were heard at much greater distances than anticipated and contributed to a din of background transmission traffic making the overall hunt more difficult.

At 4:00 PM, I think all of the hunters were somewhat exhausted chasing signals and we all agreed to adjourn to the Oggi's Sports Bar to lick our collective wounds after a very challenging hunt. The food was delicious and exchanging hunt experiences was instructive.

Jerry and I appreciate the hunting tenacity of the participants. It appears that N6SZO/W6BAF found all the transmitters and earned the privilege of hosting the next countywide hunt.

N6SZO/W6BAF 12 Ts

K6VCR/N9SCD 10 Ts

AJ6XP/Tim 4 Ts