Hunt Results

Date	Hunt Name	Hider
2024-02-17	Cedar Ridge Park	W6ZM & KN6OUL

Summary:

W6ZM (Bill) and KM6OUL (Robin) selected a location that was 9.08 miles away from Grossmount College as the crow flies. We hid the transmitters at Cedar Ridge Park; we hid at this same park on 6-17-23 and chose it again since few hunting teams were able to find it. We thought we would give the other teams another chance to find this park, but it turned out to be quite a challenge for all hunters. I think this was mainly because we were turning the antenna to make it a little more fun for the hunters. The initial iPad tracking indicated that teams were all traveling in our general direction and we truly believed that this would be a short hunt. Surprisingly, the APRS tracks began to show teams going passed us and ending up in all directions. At that point we realized it was going to be more difficult then we thought it would be. Robin thought we should increase the power because it was getting late so we poured on the power using the 5 watts that we had and turned off the rotating 4-element beam. At this point it was cold and dark so Robin and I sat in the car and waited. We were ready to give up when we saw Joe and Jerry pull up, but they turned around and started to leave so we jumped out of the car to flag them down before they left. The main T sat on the ledge of the park and three other small transmitters were hidden in the very small park. The first one was the red cone with a transmitter taped to the inside of it; very easy. The second one was in the play yard that was encircled by a circular fence that was about 25 feet in diameter. This transmitter dangled by fishing wire from one of the fence posts. The third and last transmitter was hidden in a large tree and it was covered by leaves, also a simple hide. Eventually all teams arrived safely. We planned on dining at a nearby Italian restaurant, but heavy traffic on a Saturday night plus that was also a holiday proved to be too much in the way of parking. We opted instead to go to Oggi's in Mission Valley. We got in right away and had a fun time listening to all the hunters' tales. It looked as if everyone had a good time. Here are the official results: 1st place Joe & Jerry 6:24 p.m. 2nd place Greg & Conrad 6:38 p.m. 3rd place Joe, Greg & Jimmy 6:49 p.m. 4th place Robert & Bill 6:57 p.m.