After the famous "Re-Run" County Wide staged by KI6RXX & KG6JEI Greg, W6BAF and I decided to do a Re-Run of the first County-Wide T-hunt we ever put on back in 2000. An email was sent out Friday afternoon before the hunt to the T-Hunt Reflector which several teams claim they did not receive outlining the directions of the 2000 hunt which, if they had received, might have provided some assistance for them in this hunt. We did a reconnaissance in the area and made some initial plans on where our 12 hidden T's would be located and decide to make it a mileage hunt as when we hid before the first team was there within an hour. The following week involved some testing. While set up at the T-1 location we were hearing a couple of signals on the hunt frequency so I called Robert, N9SCD to see if he was testing his Kraken in Mira Mesa. He said no so after listening for awhile it sounded like T-53 and T-55 so assumed it was the LA folks having fun way north of us! As the day approached it looked like we might have some rain, especially in the foothills of San Diego County. It was a cold, dark and foggy morning when the day arrived. I arrived at the location of T-12, the junction of I-8 and the HWY.79/Descanso, just before 0800 and put out T-12. The idea was to find T-12 first, then 11 or 10 (they were fairly close to one another) and then realize that the numbers would go down as you get closer to T-1. Called Greg and told him to listen for T-12 on his way. He could not hear it with the vertical antenna on his vehicle so we moved it to higher ground hoping that the 15 MW signal could be heard with a directional antenna and would lead the hunters off the freeway at that location. We then proceeded to the location where T-11 was to be placed. When testing the week before T-11 could be heard at various locations along the route to T-1. From there we split up to put out the remaining T's and headed north on Boulder Creek Road which is paved for about 9 miles and then turns into a fairly decent graded Decomposed Granite road. When we arrived at the location of T-5, which was supposed to be a 5-ele. log-periodic (see photo), we found out that we had some equipment problems and went to "Plan B" using a Hot Rod antenna instead. Then proceeded to the T-1 location and got things set up. We had tested from this location using economical low (.05W) and a signal was getting to Mt. Helix with no problem. I called Robert at Montgomery Field and he could not hear it with his Kraken. Bumped it up to Low (0.5 W) and Greg, KI6RXX and Bill, W6ZM heard it and Tom, K6VCR who was starting from Grossmont College, said it was a good signal. Meanwhile, back at the airport, Tim AJ6XP was delayed getting there so the hunt did not officially start until 10:30 with 4 teams involved. All 4 teams APRS beacons were activated so things looked good from Boulder Creek Road. All 4 teams were headed east on I-8 so we figured they would be there soon. It soon was evident that there were quite a few reflections off El Cajon Mt. (elevation 3,675' at which our vertical polarized beam was pointed) in the Lakeside, El Cajon, Alpine and southern Ramona areas as the teams started to disperse in chasing those reflections. Tom, K6VCR had his dogs with him and decided to take them home about 13:30 so down one team. At 13:50 it began to rain. Bill, W6ZM and his son Bryan, KI6DUR and grandson, Noah had taken the "scenic route" to get to Descanso and at 15:10 called to report a broken cable and could not continue the hunt.... down to 2 teams. Greg and Conrad appeared to be heading towards T-1 but after an hour without their APRS icon not moving we figured their phone service had been lost. Robert and Tim were also in the vicinity of Descanso but they also went off the radar and repeated phone calls went to voicemail. About 14:45 Greg and Conrad started moving again and we knew they would be at T-1 soon. They signed into T-1 at 15:14 with 55.3 miles. They then located T-3 & T-2 for a total mileage of 57.7 and 11/12 hidden T's.
The following times and mileages for KI6RXX, KG6JEI and N9SCD, AJ6XP are below.
KI6RXX N9SCD
MILEAGE - TIME MILEAGE - TIME
T-12 0 0 194 16:00
T-11 41.3 12:10 117 13:30
T-10 43.6 13:13 120 14:21
T-9 50.5 14:25 0 0
T-8 47.7 13:37 172.9 15:05
T-7 49.3 13:54 125.2 14:42
T-6 49.3 14:02 174.1 15:15
T-5 53.0 14:48 0 0
T-4 53.0 14:56 0 0
T-3 57.7 16:06 0 0
T-2 56.3 15:48 0 0
T-1 55.3 15:14 0 0
The winners of this hunt are...... Greg, KI6RXX and Conrad, KG6JEI which make them the designated hiders on the next County-Wide T-hunt on December 30th. 2023, Congratulations! We are sorry that Tom & Bill encountered problems on this hunt but we do appreciate your participation!
Hiders and hunters adjourned to Bongiovanni's for dinner and discussion of the "Re-Run" hunt.
Joe N6SZO & Greg W6BAF
