April 15 T(ax) Hunt Saturday Evening T Hunt 4/15/2017

Posted by   W6BAF

Hiders

Greg Spaulding W6BAF

Place

Driver

 

Navigator

Passenger

Time Finished
1 Bruce Denny K6AUW   Tom Franks N2TEN
2 Bryan Elkerton KI6DUR   Bill Elkerton W6ZM
3 Joe Loughlin KE6PHB   Tony Boegeman WA6ZMZ Jerry Petrizze W6VLF
4 Tom Sneden K6VCR   No Navigator
5 Mark Ording K6MHO   Dick Foran WB6ZAM
6 Tim Everingham N6CUX   Robert Dexter N9SCD

Transmitter Data

Number

Transmitter Power

Antenna Type

Polarization

Heading

1 5W Watts 4 Element Yagi Horizontal 142 Degrees
2 0.3 Watts Rubber Duck Vertical 0 Degrees
3 0.3 Watts Rubber Duck Horizontal 0 Degrees

Remarks
"April 15th T(ax) Hunt, As I understand, Devon should have actually won the last hunt. But his dad (AUW) wouldn""„¢t let him have the car to do the hide. Some lame excuse about not being old enough to drive. So Joe (SZO) and I had the hide passed on to us. , Now for the rest of the story, Well with Joe being the vagabond that he is, he was already planning on being out of town during the next hunt weekend so I had to come up with a plan on my own. I had spotted this park a couple of months back on the map and thought it might have good potential. Having not actually scoped it out, except for on Google Earth, I asked Joe to check it out for me on his way home when he dropped off some gear a few days earlier. His report was that it looks good but it may be out of bounds. So what""„¢s an extra mile or two for a primo hide spot like this? I can almost see the start from this location. , Well Saturday afternoon rolls around so I pack up the gear and head for the hills. I pulled into the parking lot and got out to scope out the hide spots for the main T and a couple of micro T""„¢s and on the way back to my truck I noticed a sign that says “Parking Lot Gates Locked At Sunset"". So I check out when sunset is and my trusty phone says that sunset is at 7:20, AARGH!, Well, it""„¢s 4:40 I still had over an hour before the start, so I was off to check out my backup spot. When I got to my backup spot the place was crawling with kids (birthday party) and it also had a sign that read “Parking Lot Gates Locked At Sunset"". Not wanting to brave the crowds on my own I headed back to my original location figuring that all these very capable, competent, and experienced hunters will show up before sunset and they won""„¢t actually lock the gates at sunset., So out came the gear. The main T consisting of 5 watts into a 3 element beam was pointed directly at the start, give or take a couple of degrees, and 2 micro “Ts"" strategically placed to keep the early arrivals busy. , After a couple of test transmissions and swapping the coax out, the hunt was started at 5:57 sharp. I monitored transmissions for a while to make sure all was well, then at 6:27 decided, I should check the APRS to see where the hunters are. Hopefully they aren""„¢t too far out. Sunset coming you know., OMG! 6:27, APRS says team AUW/VOC is in the parking lot. As I walk up to see what they""„¢re up to, they had already found Joes voice T hidden under the tree and were on a mission to locate the main T and other micro T., At 6:34 team ZM/DUR; 6:36 team PHB/ZMZ/VLF; 6:36:30 team VCR; 6:42 ZAM/MHO; 7:10 team SCD/CUX all arrived at the parking lot. All teams had arrived in the lot before sunset, but there was also a sinister truck hanging about, waiting to lock the gates. In record time at 7:22 (2 minutes after sunset) team SCD/CUX had located all the T""„¢s and we were out of there with the gates slamming us in our tailgates. , All teams assembled at Geovanni""„¢s fine Italian food for the evening nourishment., , The official winners as I saw them are:, ""1. Team AUW/VOC "", ""2. Team ZM/DUR "", ""3. Team PHB/ZMZ/VLF"", ""4. Team VCR "", ""5. Team ZAM/MHO"", ""6. Team SCD/CUX"", , Congratulations to Team AUW/VOC for driving too fast. See you at the next hunt."
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