Hunt Results

Date	Hunt Name	Hider
2024-07-20	Mobile T-Hunt Summary

Summary:

The first (and last so far) County-Wide Mobile T-hunt was staged by Joe, N6SZO, Greg, W6BAF, Ron, KK6I and Garry, NA6NA on September 30th. 2017. As near as we can figure the annual Saturday night Mobile T-hunts have been held ever since then with the exception of 2022. So the tradition continues..... It was a hot and humid day for this hunt, temperatures in the low 90's. Due to some unforeseen delays the hunt started at 5:19 from the Lake Jennings area. Our first 3 cycle stop was at 3:32 just east of Wintergardens on Lemon Crest. We were parked in the shade and just getting ready to go mobile again after 3 cycles of not moving when Greg sees Joe, KE6PHB and Jerry, W6VLF approaching us from behind. They pass us and turn left on Wintergardens heading south. We immediately head out to cross Wintergardens heading west and when crossing see that they have turned around and are sitting at the signal facing north..... thought for sure we would hear "BUSTED" over the radio..... apparently they were busy looking at their equipment and did not notice us! We then had some adrenaline going and headed through some back roads south to Wintergardens towards Pepper Dr. We continued on a random path expecting to be Busted at any time. At about 5:45 we noticed that we did not hear the transmitted signal so pulled over to check the equipment. Since we heard no signal we got the back up T out and started that and then turned on an HT and we could hear the signal. But Wait.. Could not hear the signal on the radio in the car???? Apparently Greg's radio, which is controlled by his phone. had shut down because the phone had overheated. The first T we were using may have been transmitting all the time but we oould not hear it so the only time we were off the air was when we disconnected the antenna from the first T and hooked it up the the second T.?? Sorry about the delay but when we asked later no one was aware that we were off the air for awhile, just thought we were in a bad spot? We continued and were by Pepper Dr. and 67 when a call went out that we were at Pepper Dr. and 1st.St. Had to check the map.... no, 1st. St. was off the the east. We continued roaming around making our stops through Fletcher Hills and up Cuyamaca to Prospect and turned west. We were almost down to Fanita when Greg sees Joe and Jerry behind us again, we had to make a left turn because the T-Hunt sign was on the right side of the vehicle, made a left on Fanita and then into the first left turn that came up...Rats, a dead end Cul de sac . Made a hasty turnaround and back on to Fanita heading towards Mission Gorge Road to go to Oggi's. They were still behind us and we had not heard the "Busted" transmission yet. Called them on the HT a couple of times with no response then as were were pulling into Oggi's got one transmittion with feedback which sounded like Jerry. We then hear Greg, KI6RXX say he was at Oggi's so figured there was a radio problem with Joe and Jerry. We logged "BEING BUSTED" by Joe and Jerry about 6:25. N9SCD, Robert, KM6ORF, Bill and KN4QKF, Casey were also in the parking lot at Oggi's waiting for us as it was announced that that was where we would meet for dinner. So the 3 hunt teams again came through by locating the hidden mobile T within the 2 hour Saturday night hunt time limit and improved their mobile sleuth abilities. Although record time for being busted was 18 minutes but that was back in 2020 when there was 6 T-Hunt signs on each side of my truck making it rather conspicuous! Congratulations to everyone, be prepared for next year or a real life incident at any time. Joe, N6SZO & Greg, W6BAF