Hunt Results

Summary:

Greetings T-Hunters, sorry this is a little late, lots of things happening since 4/6/24! This was a "Plan B" hide. The original location could not be tested due to extreme weather conditions in the previous weeks, however....you may be fortunate enough to face this location in a future County-Wide hunt?

In the interest of Kraken owners and uncertain weather, Greg W6BAF & I, N6SZO decided to make it a fairly easy hunt of "String Along T's" along Hwy. 67 and Hwy 78 ending at Hero's Pizza in Wynola. As a storm, was predicted on Friday and it was not sure how much would carry over to Saturday we decided to give the longitude and latitude of the first micro T that should be encountered on the journey. Robert, N9SCD was handed a sealed envelope with the coordinates to be handed out Saturday just before the hunt. We knew that we could get a reasonable signal back with 5 watts but did not want the teams to wander to far off the most direct route due to the possibility of rain. We thought the T-9 location was high enough that the original bearing could be confirmed and the teams would head up into Ramona and find T-8 which had a voice message saying "you are on the right track"! Since I was coming from PQ I could put out T-9 and meet Greg at the T-8 location at 0800 to hand off some of the T's to be placed between there and Wynola. T-9 in place at 0740, T-8 at 0755 (and bearing to T-1 from T-8 was probably not the 86.2789 degrees on sign in sheet but closer to 70.2530 degrees), T-7 at 0830, T-6 at 0840, T-5 at 0850, T-4 at 0910, T-3 at 0925, T-2 at 1030 and T-1 on the air at 1000. Hunt begins and we start to monitor APRS data, no N9SCD or W6ZM? Make a clouple of phone calls, N9SCD says he will check when he can stop, W6ZM also checking. eventually W6ZM shows up so we watch him, Bryan and Noah, along with Tom, K6VCR, teaming up with Greg, KI6RXX, and Joe, KE6PHB & Jerry, W6VLF hopscotch up Hwy 78 signing in to the T's along the way. It was amusing to see two teams at the same T and then at the next T two teams again but not the same ones as before! At about 12:44 PHB was less than a quarter mile away from us almost in the direct path of our 4-ele. yagi running 5 W but got stopped short due to a gate that prevented him from reaching us ?. W6ZM was still at T-4 at that time along with the VCR team. At 1250 KE6PHB was observed passing us heading towards T-3, at 1255 K6VCR was observed passing us headed towards T-3. At 1315 W6ZM pulled into parking area and down to south end where T-2 was located and then turned around and left returning 9 minutes later at 1324 and did again go down to the south end of the parking area. At 1326 K6VCR pulled into the parking area and parked in the south end where W6ZM was parked. An immediate show of sniffers was apparent as both teams scrambled to locate T-2. At 1330 KE6PHB showed up and joined the on foot fiasco. At exactly the same time, 1330, Noah signed into T-2 making him "The Winner" for this hunt meaning he will have to rely on his dad and grandfather to help him out on the next County-Wide T-Hunt on June 29th, 2024 since he does not have a driver's license! VCR signed in to T-2 at 1334 and PHB at1339 although PHB's sign in time might be off a little as Jerry, W6VLF (PHB's navigator) had T-2, which was in the sign in sheet ziplock, in his hand for awhile before PHB figured it out. EPILOG:

A check with N9SCD indicated he was still heading towards Wynola so we decided not to eat at Hero's Pizza and head back to Ramona and N9SCD and W6BAF, who was picking up T's on the way to Ramona, were notified. However a call to Ramona indicated the Pizza place there would not open until 4 so we went to plan "C", Tio Leo's in Poway. A couple more phone calls to get folks headed to the right place. I had forgotten that N9SCD had picked up T-9 & T-8 and had told Greg to get 8 and I would go get 9 which was close to Tio Leo's, then, when I remembered Robert had picked them up, I called Robert and he said he had given them to Greg when they ran into each other previously. So Greg and I were heading to pick up 2 T's that had already gone off the air. Ok, just head for Tio Leo's and have an early dinner and a cold Moose Drool. ? N9SCD, after confrontation with his Kraken since 1000 that morning, elected to go home and just "Unplug it"! So it turned out to be a pleasant day in Wynola, 41 degrees and some snow on the ground when we arrived. Everyone had a good time so we are "Happy Hidders". Joe N6SZO & Greg W6BAF