| Seven teams showed up for the Leap Year Countywide!
Rain in the forecast had me jumping for a new location for the hide. As it turned out, it was a beautiful day.
Packed up transmitters and armed with my maps headed for Rainbow.
The location I had selected for T-1 was now behind a No Trespassing sign. Remembered a small turnout several miles back and set up there with 2-30 watt box and my super omni antenna. Tested with KE6PHB at the start and 30 watts had a signal that was in the noise so I opted to use a 4 element yagi that brought the signal up enough for everyone to have a huntable signal. Hunt started on time and I headed out to place the other transmitters. T-2 was a 1 watt box with a 5/8 wave whip that was used to lure the hunters up Nate Harrison Grade Road. T-3 was to have been placed at Boucher Lookout Point but that too had a locked gate so back down Nate Harrison Grade a mile or two and found a good location for the 2 watt AF6O box with a 1/2 wave whip.
The reason for a multi-frequency hunt was to make sure that the hunters came at T-3 from Nate Harrison Grade as not to incur having to pay the $10.00 daily use fee by entering Palomar State Park from the top.
T-4 was with Bruce, K6AUW that came on the air at 2pm from the Fletcher Hills Little League field where he was umpiring a game. As soon as the game ended he headed for Long Island Mike's Pizza Emporium where we convened for dinner. His game ran a little long and he wasn't able to get to the restaurant as early as we had hoped. Apologies to Bryan and Bill for the wild goose chase.
All in all the hunt came off as planned. There were no equipment failures except T-1 running low on battery causing the power output to drop to around ten watts by the time Joe and Tony were hunting it.
A big thank you to N6SZO for picking up T-3! |
