WHEN: First Sunday of each month STARTS: 1:00 pm FOX FREQ: 146.565 MHZ COORDINATION:      447.180 (-131.8) (Primary)      147.645(-110.9) (Secondary)

Transmitter Hunting

T-Hunting is a popular activity among Amateur Radio operators, also known as; transmitter hunting, fox hunting, radio direction finding. A SOARA T-hunt starts with a transmitter on the 2-meter band that is actually hidden somewhere in South Orange County that is "hunted" and located using radio direction finding techniques. The transmitter is usually on the air intermittently, and automatically identifies itself either in Morse code or a tone sequence. Amateurs participating in the SOARA T-hunts can expect low pressure, fun events and we encourage new Hams to participate. This is a good time to ask other Hams for help but they may not tell you ALL their secrets. The T-hunts start at 1300 hrs (1:00 pm) on the first Sunday of the month and usually last 2 to 4 hours. This is a good time to ride with a friend. Snoop around and you should be able to find an experienced SOARA T-hunter to ride with.

When the transmitter is on the air, the hunters "take bearings" using directional antennas by determining the direction where the signal is the strongest. This is done throughout the hunt until the transmitter is found. Usually, driving to the immediate area of the hidden transmitter is part of the game. Once there, the remainder of the hunt takes place on foot while you "sniff" out the actual location of the hidden-T. The transmitter transmits on 146.565 MHz and coordination is on the SOARA repeater 447.180 MHz, PL is 131.8. The transmitter may be hidden anywhere that is safe and has public access in Orange County, south of the 55 Freeway. The hunters may start anywhere they choose.

To put a rumor to rest, you do not need expensive equipment for transmitter hunting! All you need is a 2-meter receiver (a handheld will do), an attenuator and a directional antenna (yagi, quad, etc.). The “tape measure” antenna is a good choice. Other items that can help, but aren't necessary, are a map of Orange County, a compass, a protractor and some refreshments! Most of the equipment just mentioned can be built for a rather cheap price, and it performs exceptionally.

T-hunting is both a fun and a serious activity. The "winner" of a T-hunt is determined by the person who finds the transmitter first. The winner is then the person who hides the transmitter on the next hunt. T-Hunters also use their skills to locate downed airplanes, boaters in distress, and sources of radio interference, unlicensed operators and jammers. T-hunters use competitions like our monthly hunts to test their equipment and practice their skills in preparation for more serious situations.

You may want to be included on the T-hunt email list. If so, please contact Richard at k6rbs@soara.org. Please include your callsign in the subject line.

Be sure to check out some of these links for T-hunt projects:

http://www.homingin.com/

http://home.att.net/~jleggio/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm

http://www.west.net/~marvin/k0ov.htm

http://www.lbara.net/2_meter_4_element_quad.pdf

http://www.homingin.com/dualfeed.html

http://www.foxhunt.com.au/index.html

See you on the next hunt!

 

*********************************************************************

February 2010 Transmitter Hunt - AKA Richard's Revenge

Many of you remember my embarrassment back in December when it turned that I had hidden the transmitter a few hundred feet from where Gray, WA6BJY started hunting. I was determined that this hunt would be different…

We agreed to start the hunt at the earlier time of 11:00AM and finish at 2:00PM giving everyone plenty of time to find the T and get to Super Bowl parties before the game started. I used phone patch to run the pre-hunt check-in to reduce the possibility of anyone DF-ing me on the repeater input. Tom, AE6SH, Mark, KD6LWY and Gray WA6BJY started the hunt with N6UZS, AD6OI and others lurking on the repeater and providing comments and signal reports. WA6BJY was also joined by Gary, KJ6EUH, who wanted to learn about T hunting first hand. Tom gave up early due to equipment failure.

I hid the T a few hundred feet inside Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness park, near the west end of Hollyleaf in Aliso Viejo. There was a high ridge between the street and the transmitter which was hidden in some bushes in a small canyon overlooking El Toro Road and the 73 Toll Road. The park was also closed due to the recent rain.

A few days before the hunt I met another new ham, Mikkel, KJ6EKX on one of the SOARA repeaters. It was no coincidence that I suggested to Mikkel that he listened in during the hunt… the T was literally line of site to his house. Mikkel not only listened in but he joined us at the end of the hunt and was even able to try some hunting for himself thanks to our winner, Mark, who lent him his antenna and sniffer,

So why was this one named Richard’s Revenge? Gray is the best one to answer that. He first arrived at Hollyleaf around 11:25. After pausing to take bearings he headed off back down the street only to return 15 minutes later. This time, Gray and Gary walked to the top of the ridge, complaining about the workout and comparing it to a treadmill test. They walked towards the T, took some more bearings, returned to their car and headed off back down the road. How do I know this? I was hiding a few feet away behind bushes near the top of the ridge !

Mark showed up around 12:00 and was the first to find the T at 12:10.

After a couple more hours of searching every cul-de-sac near the El Toro Road and the 73, Gray finally returned to Hollyleaf for the third time uttering many of the words that make up the FCC infamous list.

Congratulations to our winners Mark and Laura who will be hiding the T on March 7th.

*********************************************************************

December 6th, 2009

Even though I disqualified myself from the November T-Hunt, it was decided that I should be the stuckee with the job of hiding the T in December. It was not my fault that Tom drove in front me on his way to hide the T in November! And I didn’t follow him all the way to the T!
Oh well… here is the story of yesterday’s hunt.

I spent some time over the past week or so searching Google Earth for a good location. I had narrowed my search down to 4 or 5 sites that I drove to and checked out and any one could have resulted in a challenging hunt.

Sunday morning came around and I still hadn’t decided which one to use. My mind was quickly made up when Kris, KR6ISS, commented on the morning 40M net that there should be a rule that the T can’t be hidden in a hole in the ground so that nobody can hear it. I decided to answer this by ‘hiding’ a T in a location that EVERYONE could hear.

My only fear was that this meant putting the T on a hilltop – the kind of place that T hunters like to start.

I borrowed the new SOARA T that Brian NJ6N has assembled and headed off towards Signal Peak. I had never been there and didn’t realize that N6UZS actually hid a T there a few months ago. I parked at the baseball field on East Coastal Peak and setup my gear. In addition to the SOARA T, I had a 13 element horizontal beam and a brick that was putting our around 50 watts. Giving a total of about 1KW ERP pointed towards Santiago Peak.

I just finished setting up (with the beam on a short PVC mast stick into a stake pocket on my truck, when I saw Gray, WA6BJY stop about 200 yards away. Oh ^%$# !

It was too late for me to move locations and there was no way to leave without passing right by him.

I decided to go ahead with the hunt anyway and try to confuse him by pointing my beam straight at him and hopefully swamping any attenuator that he was using.

I fired up the T at 1:00pm and after a couple of cycles I was delighted to see Gray jump in his truck and head off over the hill. At least for now, I was safe.

A few minutes later his truck appeared again and this time he drove right up to me. His time of ~15 minutes must be a new record!

Mark, KD6LWY and Laura, K6VIX showed up after 42 minutes. They said that the reflections were confusing but they did get a few good bearings that all pointed to Signal Peak.
As for Karl and Dale… I couldn’t get a clear story from them regarding the route that they had taken but they finally showed up 2h, 20m after the start.

Richard - K6RBS

*********************************************************************

T-Hunt Results for October 4th, 2009

This month’s T-hunt was short and sweet. With only one hunter, it lasted only about thirty five minutes. Tom, AE6SH came in first and last, but not second. This means he will have to hide next month.

The “T” was hidden in a tree about head high. I think the ants were first on the scene but they don’t count because they watched me hide it. Unfortunately, my phone died after taking pictures and restoring it deleted the picture of the transmitter box hanging in the tree. The location was off El Road and north of Upper Oso Reservior.

Hopefully, there will be more hunters next month

Gray WA6BJY

*********************************************************************

On Sunday, September 7, what started out as a simple T-hunt turned into an-other SOARA first but first some back-ground. Timothy McGowen, AF6GL was assigned to hide the transmitter. The night before he checked the equip-ment ensured the battery was topped off, a signal was being transmitted and the call sign was reprogrammed. So far, so good. Tim left home and on his way to his secret elusive spot he ob-served the traffic on the freeway was so bad that it would make the hunt far too unenjoyable, so on the fly the loca-tion was changed and the “T” was hid-den.
The announcement was made on 447.180 “Tally Ho”. Shortly thereafter hunters reported they could not hear the transmitter. A few 50 watt “hints” were transmitted in an effort to get teams into closer proximity. Hunters still could not hear it so several over-the-air recommendations were made in order to make a field repair to enhance the signal. Several of the suggestions were already in place such as high power, whip antenna and of course it had been tested the night before. After an hour and 35 minutes still no luck so the transmitter was checked again. The signal seemed to improve somewhat but quality was still in question. After 2 hours and 35 minutes Gray Bickford, WA6BJY made the first find. Hot on his heels, literally, was Mark Hergesheimer, KD6WLY. At 3 hours and 20 minutes Dale Griffith, W8RRV and Karl Mil-jevich, KF6MDF made the find.
Immediately following the T-hunt, the transmitter was returned to Brian Roode, NJ6N and he hooked it up to his service monitor. That’s when the history making moment was discov-ered. SOARA had held its first QRP T-hunt. The transmitter was found to be putting out a mere 2 milliwatts!
Congratulations to those who perse-vered and found the fox. As Brian ap-propriately points out, we practice our skills should they ever be needed in an emergency. The skills used for hid-den transmitters are the same as those used for finding jammers as well as downed aircraft or someone trans-mitting a distress signal that may be disoriented and not know their loca-tion. Another lesson learned here is that even the best plans can fall short. Although the equipment worked fine during testing, it failed when it was needed. All of our equipment can have the same fate so this is a message to all of us to test and maintain our equipment regularly. If available have back up gear.
Let’s chalk up this months hunt as a lesson learned and put it in the history books as another SOARA first.
 

*********************************************************************

March 2009

Sunday's transmitter hunt appeared to have provided a challenge for
the hunters as it took over an hour for the first hunter to arrive at
our location.  It took about an hour and ten minutes for Richard,
N6UZS, to show up and another 20 minutes for him to sniff out the
transmitter.  He was hampered by the lack of a patch cable to hook up
his receiver to the offset attenuator but listening to the third
harmonic, he finally found it.
 
About an hour later, Tom, AE6SH, Richard, K6RBS, and Kriss, KR6ISS,
arrived all about the same time.  Tom was the second hunter to locate
the transmitter, followed by Richard and Kriss.
 
The transmitter was located at the site of the former Black Angus and
Spoons Restaurants that were located just south of Crown Valley Pkwy
on Cabot Road, next to the 73 tollroad.  This location provided a
large number of reflections that resulted just a little frustration
on everybody's part (except mine).  I had my eye on this location for
some time but until recently, there had been a gate across the
entrance so I never tried to get in until the other day while on my
way to get gas at Costco.  The restaurants had been removed but the
parking structure was still there, although it had been liberally
graced with graffiti.
 
Corner of the parking structure.  The transmitter is hanging down just on the other side.

 

The transmitter is the dark box in the center of the picture.  It was hung from a post of the railing.

Richard (N6UZS) still looking.  He has been within ten feet of it but has not spotted it yet.

Tom (AE6SH) has just found the transmitter and is walking away.

Another view of the transmitter hanging over the side of the parking structure.

Gray  WA6BJY

*********************************************************************

JANUARY 2009

Since I was the first to find Tom, AE6SH's transmitter in December, I got the job of hider for the January 5th hunt. The transmitter was hidden in a new housing development (not on any maps) on the ridge just east of the I 5 and RTE 1 exit in San Juan Capistrano. I used a horizontal beam pointing north (my 5 ele tape measure yagi) and Brian, NJ6N's T that I had re-programmed to play the first few bars of Auld Lang Syne.

My idea was that the horizontal beam would make it difficult for the folks with Doppler systems and the terrain was such that the T could be heard from most hill tops but the coverage would be very patchy everywhere else. I guess that Richard, N6UZS didn't get my memo because he found the T first having started at Spyglass Hill in Irvine. His initial bearing pointed straight at me and even though he struggled with reflections in the local canyons, he still found me in  47 minutes.

Next on the scene was Karl, KF6MDF at 1H 28M followed shortly by his other team members - W8RRV and NJ6N. W6ARK drove up at 1H 45M.

Since the 1st Sunday in February is Superbowl Sunday we will probably move next month's hunt to the following week or the next month. Stay tuned for details or email k6rbs@soara.org to get on our mailing list.

*********************************************************************

OCTOBER 2008

HIDDEN by Richard, N6UZS

After the weak signal hunt in September I decided to step it up a bunch
of notches for the October hunt. After thoroughly searching several South
County locations for the past couple weeks we decided to "go high" with a
transmitter atop the Signal Peak neighborhood in Newport Beach just south
of the 73 Toll Road and east of Newport Coast Drive at the far east end
of Ridge Park Drive.
 
Running 50 watts into a 4 element quad for the 1st hour of the hunt we
had a full scale signal over a wide area from Irvine to San Juan
Capistrano. After an hour we cut it way down to 5 watts but that didn't
matter as Gray WA6BJY found himself facing private gates leading into the
rich enclave of Shady Canyon just southeast of the UCI campus. The other
hunters W8RRV and KD6MDF were both equally as confused.
 
My idea worked better than planned as the area with the BEST signal
didn't have a direct road to the transmitter. Shady Canyon is in a bowl
and surrounded by the hills of Turtle Rock which was Reflection City. We
had fun hiding and here are the results:
 
WA6BJY, 3:25pm**WINNER!**
W8RRV, 3:36pm
KD6MDF, 3:36pm
 

*********************************************************************

MARCH 2008

After a couple of gray cloudy days, the sunshine was a pleasant change last Sunday, March 2, 2008. It was the first Sunday of the month and time for the SOARA T-hunt. Karl, KF6MDF, and Dale, W8RRV, had the honor of hiding the transmitter. They chose a small park in Laguna Hills. The park is at an elevation of 488 feet above sea level, and seemed to be not greatly obstructed in any direction. The hunt started, as scheduled, at 1:00 in the afternoon. About five hunters checked in at the start, including one first-time hunter. Some hunters were unable to hear the “T” at their starting location, so in a burst of uncharacteristic kindness, the hiders made a transmission from one of the car radios. This gave all of the hunters a chance to get an initial bearing. (Yes, the car transmitter was at the park!)

One hunter had some equipment failure which made it very difficult for him to hunt. He was getting close to finding the park when his time ran out — he had another commitment — and had to drop out. The first hunter to arrive at the park was Gray, WA6BJY. By 2:25 PM Gray had found the transmitter, which was not actually in the park. It was in shrubbery about 100 yards down a horse trail. Howard, KG6GI, arrived shortly after and quickly located the transmitter. His time was about ten minutes later than Gray. Both Gray and Howard had their vehicles well equipped for hunting. Gray has a rotatable antenna in the center of the roof (he doesn’t have to get out of the car to get a bearing.) and Howard had his Doppler system mounted on his car. Equipment and experience are big assets.

Brian, NJ6N, who is recovering from a foot injury came by, but he was not in shape to walk around hunting the transmitter. About two hours after the first hunter arrived at the park the other hunters arrived. Lou, KG6FCT, was the last to arrive, but he quickly found the transmitter to come in third. Tom, KI6GOA, (first time hunter) and Steve, N6XFC, (an experienced hunter) were mislead by reflections and had too many false starts once in the park. Eventually everyone found the hidden transmitter, and all agreed that it had been an interesting and fun hunt.

The park is Lost Trail Park in Laguna Hills (33N 33’ 56”, 117W 41’ 17” was the location of the “T”) — it is small and not shown on some maps. The streets in the vicinity of the park are something of a maze, and the transmitter was closer to some streets than to the park. The difficulty was that you couldn’t get to it from those streets. The intent was to make it fairly easy to get in the vicinity of the “T” and yet present enough of a challenge to make it fun.

The next SOARA hunt will be held on Sunday, April 6. Gray Bickford, WA6BJY, the winner of this hunt, will hide it. Thanks to everyone who came out on a beautiful, warm Sunday to participate in the hunt.

 

 

*****************************************************

A Tale of Two T-Hunts - February 2008

It had been roughly a year since the last SOARA T-Hunt, so we decided at the last board meeting that is was about time to get them started again. The first hunt was scheduled for the first Saturday in February so as not to conflict with Super bowl on the 3rd. After a quick email, web, newsletter and repeater publicity campaign, we were ready to go. One of the emails I sent out was to a list of folks who had been involved with hunting a fake mayday caller who had been operating on marine channel 16 a couple of years ago. I did not notice that the list also included Gordon West, WB6NOA. Gordo replied to the email saying that he would not be able to hunt because he was giving a class that day. However, we were welcome to hide the transmitter at his house so that his students could get a taste of what T-Hunting was all about. This seemed like a great idea at the time... more later.

In addition to the T-Hunt, Dave KG6QCI and myself held a quick class at Gilleran Park prior to the hunt. Greg N6REG, Kevin KI6LOQ, Mike NM6X and Chris KI6IUC joined us at the park as did Dale, W8RRV. We hid a couple of transmitters, demonstrated how to use offset attenuators, talked about the techniques that we use to find the transmitters and lent equipment to anyone who needed it.

We had to modify our hunt rules since Gordo's house in Costa Mesa is actually north of the 55 (our old boundary). The new boundary was set as a 15 mile radius from Laguna Hills Mall. In addition, I set a simple trivia question that required driving by the Mall and reading the Edwards Theater sign by the freeway. The idea of this was to remove some of the advantage people get if they happen to start the hunt close the hiding place.

We wrapped up at Gilleran at 12:00 and I headed off to Gordo's. I deliberately started by driving south as I left the park in case some of the folks who were there were watching for clues.

I had never been to Gordo's house before and I don't think the folks who produced the map for my GPS had either - it took a little finding. But once I turned on the street I knew I was in the right place. Not only does he have a couple of towers that are covered with antennas, his ham neighbor across the street has a similar amount of fire power.

It was like arriving at a ham radio convention. There are antennas and ham license plates everywhere. With less than 20 minutes to go before the start of the hunt, Gordo took me into his radio room, pointed me at a source of power, the feeder for his antennas and a radio tuned to the SOARA 2M repeater which I could use for coordination.

I took with me Brian NJ6N's transmitter, my Astron 30A switch mode PSU, a 100W Microwave Modules 2M amp and an SWR bridge. With it all hooked up, we were putting about 50 watts into the feeder. At the other end of the feeder were 2 stacked 19 element yagis that were pointing across John Wayne airport towards Santiago Peak (lots of reflections !).

I estimated the total gain of the system to be close to 20DBd giving an ERP approaching 5KW or about 5000 times more powerful than the signal we had demonstrated in the park. This combined with the  requirement that everyone visit Laguna Hills Mall made this hunt extremely challenging. As hunters left the mall and drove up the 405, they drove into the main lobe of the beams. The rapid increase in signal strength resulted in several of the hunters believing that they were on top of the transmitter in Irvine when in fact they were looking straight down the throat of a beam that was over 10 miles away.

The first hunter in the area was Karl, KF6MDF. Dave was camped out at a park about a mile west of Gordo's house and he reported that Carl was in the park taking bearings. Karl then drove off in totally the wrong direction but finally arrived at College Drive about 10 minutes later and was pronounced the winner with a time of 1hr, 17 minutes. He was followed a little later by his partner Dale, W8RRV.

Dave had brought along some drinks and snacks which he tried to hear up using the RF coming from the antennas!

We had a visit from the Newport Beach police helicopter that was beaming LIVE ATV down to the class in Gordo's back yard !

The next hunters on scene were the team lead by WA6BJY who had a little 'fire power' of his own on the roof of his car.

Our remaining hunters all gave up with several complaints that we had made this one far too hard for rookies... I have to agree and I apologize if you had a frustrating afternoon and hope that you got something positive out of it and will hunt again in the future.

In an effort to help some of our new hunters get up to speed, we are trying to organize some practice all day hunts in the Mission Viejo Area. The first one was on Saturday February 9th. The T was hidden in the upper parking lot at Mission Viejo High School. It ran from 9:00am to 5:00pm with 1 watt ERP on the usual 146.565 frequency.

The T was found by AE6H, W6BGR, WA6BJY and W8RRV.

Congratulations and thanks to everyone who came out and found it. We plan to have a similar practice run on February 23rd.

*****************************************************

SOARA T-Hunt December 2006

Since the December transmitter hunt fell on the same day as the SOARA holiday party, I decided to hide the transmitter close to Mission Viejo so that our hunters would have time to find the transmitter as well as get to the party. Even though the transmitter was close to where most of our hunters start, this was far from being an easy hunt.

The transmitter was located under a tree root on the side of Also Creek bed with 3 ele hidden in a tree and point NW along the creek towards the I5 freeway.

map

There were several aspects of the hunt that made it quite difficult.

• The low powered transmitter at the floor of the creek bed could only be heard from locations that were either high up or close to the transmitter location (Alicia and the I5).

• There was no direct access to the creek area from the adjacent streets (Georgia Sue and Christina). To mobile hunters on these streets, the fox would appear to be beyond a row of houses. Access was from the bike trail that runs along the creek.

• Once the hunters had found their way into the canyon, they were confused by the multiple reflections off the walls of the canyon and gulleys.

• The transmitter was only accessible by climbing down to the creek bed and walking along the slippery bank to where the transmitter was located.

The transmitter went on at 1:00. Around 1:30 there was no sign of any of  the hunters so I decided to stroll along the creek with my camera. There were a few folks on bikes, a couple of ducks and a guy in a wheel chair.

At 1:49 and heard a shout, looked up and there was Karl! He was across the creek from my location and seemed intent on crossing the creek and searching from my side. As he walked west to where the bike path crossed the creek, I walked east to another place where the bike path crossed the creek. The result was that we swapped locations and we were still looking at each other but now from the opposite side of the creek.

Karl and the guy in the wheel chair started to become suspicious of each other. Could it be hidden under the wheel chair? What was this guy with the antenna looking for? Karl explained to the gentleman what he we doing... 'yes, that's the b&^%$%d that hid it', he said, pointing at me :-)

Karl hunted around for a while, chasing reflections when, who should show up but Brian, NJ6N followed by Tom, AE6SH. The two of then were to the west of the transmitter chasing reflections by the freeway.

I continued to wander up and down the canyon trails, taking pictures of the wild life (both hams a birds).

Everyone was chasing reflections and looking at each other for clues. At one point they climbed to the top of the hill and started looking over fences into back yards. I think Brian was starting to believe that it was hidden in my camera. It was now 2:28, Karl had been searching on foot for 40 minutes when who should burst onto the scene but none other that Matt, KE6ALM!

Brian, Tom and Karl continued to search the hill-side, looking in gopher holes, in bushes, and very confused. Meanwhile, Matt was a man on a mission. He was going to the find the transmitter first, no matter what.  So after fighting his way through the undergrowth (he'll remember not to wear shorts next time), slipping down the river bank, crossing the creek and nearly tripping over the transmitter, he was the first to discover its location.

Matt's time was roughly 1 hour, 40 minutes. Brian, NJ6N came in second, Karl, KF6MDF was a close third followed by Tom, AE6SH.

 

***********************************
 

 

SOARA T-Hunt November 2006.

I hadn't planned to do this one since my partner KG6QCI was unavailable and I'd already spent way too much time playing with radios this weekend. But as the magic hour of 13:00 approached I decided that since Dale W8RRV and Karl KF6MDF were going to the effort of hiding the 'T' I should at least take a few minutes out of my busy schedule to find it :-)

I set off from my home at around 12:50 and got to my starting point at 12:59 just as Dale was announcing that the transmitter was about to be switched on. A quick switch of memory channels on my 857D to "FOX" and there it was - S8 at Capistrano Valley High School.

1.  My first bearing showed that it was horizontally polarized and roughly north west of me (this turned out to be somewhat off).

2. Get on the 5NB at Avery

3. Signal is weaker - hills to the west of me - get off at Oso to check signal the other side of hills.

4. Signal comes up in strength as I crest the ridge confirming its west of me. Look for somewhere to take a bearing. Pull into Target parking lot. Saturday shoppers ! Traffic ! Rats - wasting time. Take bearing from gas station parking lot. Bearing is towards the sun. Continue to Alicia.

5. Left on Alicia - its getting stronger.

6. Very strong at Alicia and Pacific Park, find somewhere clear to take bearing. Pull up next to some offices on Terrace View Drive. Bearing still points down Alicia.

7. Turn South on Alicia. Its very strong.

8. Could be in the regional park... find somewhere to take a bearing to check.

9. Rats - soccer game - kids - traffic - wasting time! Take bearing - its down Alicia.

10. Ridge to my west. Signal is dropping rapidly. It may not be in the park but it has to be on the other side of that ridge. Find somewhere to turn right.

11. Ridgeview looks interesting but lets try to get on the other side of it.

12. Niguel Road - (I bet Brian has already found it) - lets try up there

13. Dead end! Wasting time! Take bearing - I've passed it... back to Ridgeview.

14. So this is why they call this Ridgeview - and look - there's a park on the ridge overlooking the Regional Park. Stop, get out, walk over to the park and take a look. There's Dale talking on the radio - and there's Karl. Ask if I've found it - they come up with some story that its the other side of the canyon, they're watching it thru binoculars and that I have to find it. Back to the truck, grab my HT, yagi and attenuator. There it is, horizontal yagi just over the ridge.

37 minutes, 13.3 miles, first place.

More T-Hunt stories...