With field day over it was time for another T-Hunt.
With the weather being hot in July, I wanted to pick a location that was reasonably cooler than most of the desert options of recent hiders and I also wanted to pick a location that would not cause the hunters the misery of sitting in traffic while looking for the transmitters.
Thomas Mountain was the location that was decided upon. This was a location I had tried to use a few years back during the winter time, but it was snowed in and although I made it up there OK Conrad my hide partner was unable to make it up in his 2WD vehicle, so the site had been saved for a later day And that day was today. This time Conrad could not make it, but I'm not 100 percent certain if it was his vehicle or not. This was a 2wd friendly hunt.
I wanted to make it an easier Hunt than normal so I only hid five transmitters. Four of them were at the north east side of Thomas Mountain along various roads and trails on Pines to Palms Highway. The main was up at a rather nice site on top of little Thomas Mountain pointed directly at the hunters starting location so as to make the hide easy. In use was a 13 element beam, which was used with 5 W of power. Reports from N6MI said the signal was zero to one bar, but that’s more than he usually gets from my hides.
Hunters seemed to all have good bearings directly towards me and proceeded south. They all took the 15 and basically headed straight towards me. N6MI along with N6PL decided to take the hard route up the mountain through a not so great dirt road that goes through the antenna eating low hanging trees. Doug knowing this route was not optimal, added 30 miles to his trip and drove around to the easier side of the mountain. On his way up, Doug decided to check out the peak first of Thomas mountain and hung out for over an hour while resting.
N6MI and team was first to find me followed shortly after by N6PL who hiked in from the lower road. Doug arrived an hour later after his rest stop at the peak. He hung out so long at the peak that I had to go drive to find him to make sure he was OK, then followed him back to the hide site. Since Doug was last to find the main transmitter, I packed it up and then followed him as he looked for other transmitters. At the bottom of the hill, I found N6MI at the lake. They reported that they where signing into their last transmitter. Seth reported shortly after that he was in need of gas and was quitting. I went and found Doug who was signing into his second transmitter, so that was collected. After finding his third T, Doug determined that he was missing some parts to his antenna and decided to call it quits.
N6MI and KB6NYW are the winners.
Results as follows thanks all for coming out. It was a fun hide. Hope y’all had fun.
