All Day Mar 27, 2021
I had planned out all the hiding locations prior to leaving home to present a challenging hunt. Of course, things changed along the way. T1 and T7 went as planned. I found that I could not reach the location where the main T was to go because of a locked gate. Fortunately, I had a plan B and didn’t have to use plans C, D, and E this time. The Ts were to be located so that when one was found the next one could be heard. Unfortunately, that’s not quite how it came out.
T1 (3W 3-elem tape meas beam) was to get the hunters going in the right direction. Once at T1 a bearing on T7 could be taken. T1 was on the west of Beaumont on David Mountain Rd in a bush in the middle of a turn around. There were several commercial radio sites in the area.
T7 needed to be in a place that had a view to the west so it could be heard from T1 and a view to the south east to be able to hear T2. T7 (2W vert whip) was located partly up Whitewater hill with a lot of wind turbines on it. The access to it was off of Whitewater Rd which was the next exit on I-10 past the 111 exit. Going farther north on the road would lose the view to the south. This would also complicate finding it if the hunter went to the top of the hill.
The unintended side effect was reflections off the mountains south of Banning through which Hwy 243 ran. A few hunters were very busy triangulating the reflections up at Idlewild. Some hunters took 4 1/2 hours to travel the 21 miles between the line-of-site T1 and T7.
From T7 the hunter was to get a bearing on T2 down by the Salton Sea. It would appear the bounds off the mountains west of Palm Springs provided a better signal causing the hunters to tour Palm Springs.
After a hint or two, the remaining hunters found the direct signal to T2. Along the way they found T6, the Bug T, sitting in a tree on 62nd Ave between Hwy 86 and 111.
T2 (30W 11-elem beam) was hidden in a lot on Hwy 111 that had tall brush, high enough to obscure an 11-element beam, pointed toward T7. Because it was at ground level, the intent was to get a bearing at T7 then have the signal get very weak to none when the hunter got down on the flat. Instead, the untended result was that the only the bounce off the mountains could be heard misdirecting the hunters.
Once the hunters found T2, they could hear T10 – The Beach T (50mW whip) which was only a mile or so away on the Salton Sea beach at North Shore.
Of the 5 hunters, only KI6RXX reported milage for all 5 xmtrs and is declared the winner.
Results
T1 T7 T6 T2 T10
KI6RXX 12:13 3:30 8:08 8:36 9:01 Winner
63 116 247 259 260
N6MI 1:51 6:25 8:08 8:36 9:01
58 150 ? 207 ?
K6VCR 1:50 6:36 8:08 8:36 9:01
59 ? ? ? ?
KA6UDZ DNF 8:14 DNF DNF DNF
219
KF6GQ/KA6TAS 12:18 2:03 DNF DNF DNF
59 98
