Hello hunters and thank you for coming out to our first All Day Hide.
We had an exciting hunt planned with a total of 8 transmitters. There was also a bonus transmitter hidden for extra credit to make a total of 9 transmitters. However, due to issues with execution and some equipment failures we ended up with only 5 transmitters on the air. 4 regular and the bonus transmitter. The main transmitter was a 13-element beam sitting on the beach at Pt. Dune in Malibu putting out 80W with a bounce off of Catalina Island hoping to get a signal to the starting point.
During setup and throughout most of the day we were asked by many people what we were doing and most where very interested and though it was very cool, including a retired professor from Pepperdine University. However at one point during setup, crazy lady decided to start yelling at me saying that I was harming the marine life in the sea, 5G was bad for humans and the environment and that she didn’t believe me when I told her what we where doing and why. Not knowing her name we decided to refer to her in future speaks as Karen. While sitting in my vehicle trying to contact the starting point with poor cell coverage and the doors shut so as to hide the crashing waves in the background, a police officer showed up. It seems Karen called and complained about us saying we here suspicious. After explaining to the police officer about amateur radio and what we were doing he though our activity was very cool and said “well it’s a free world and I hope you guys have fun today”.
Some hunters reported hearing a signal with a bearing pointed in our direction and others reported a signal towards Catalina Island indicating that the bounce had worked. Some hunters were not able to hear anything at the starting point. In any case the hunters that did hear a signal reported that it was extremely week and some wondered if it was only in their imagination. The signal turned out to not have much modulation in it for whatever reason. So, near the main transmitter in Malibu, tones on it where 5/9 and it sounded like my normal PacMan themed transmitter. However, as you got further away, the tones became noise only. This was not planned and we believe might have been caused by low audio from the radio going into the transmitter controller box. Some hunters reported that although the signal was just noise from far away, it was in fact distinguishable due to the fact that the noise was verry loud and came on at the normal 15 seconds on and 45 seconds off T-Hunt transmitter duty cycle. I apologize for this as I know it is not fun to hunt a signal with the squelch on the floor the whole time. In our defense though, it is not uncommon for T-Hunters to not have a good signal for most of the hunt and a signal was in fact there. 😊 Although I was told by one hunter that the bounce was unsuccessful, it was interesting to see most of the hunters head towards where 90 degrees of the bounce was in Rancho Palos Verdes and hunt around there for a while, perhaps trying to get higher ground to get a good signal was one strategy employed during the many circles around RPV. One hunter correctly headed north first before heading down to Rancho Palos Verdes to join the other hunters. Many hunters would start to head north and then turn around and head back south again. This was very entertaining to watch on APRS and us hiders greatly appreciate those hunters who had their APRS on and working the whole time. Most of the hunters finally figured out that they needed to keep heading north and we where eventually found. All T’s other than the main 13 element at PT Dune in Malibu were placed on a separate frequency in order to keep from being squashed out from the main.
KF6GQ & KD6LAJ where first to arrive to the main T at 16:38, followed by K6VCR at 16:39 with the lowest milage to the main T, UDZ at 17:00, N6MI at 17:01, WA6RJN at 17:45 and N6SZO & KE6PHB at 18:13. WA6CYY did not find any and quit the hunt earlier in the day.
The winner was the team with the lowest milage who found the most transmitters. Congratulations to KF6GQ & KD6LAJ with the lowest milage at 116.5 and finding all 4 T’s. No one found the bonus T. RJN questioned if there where two T’s in one box but that was not the case.
