Transmitter Hunting in the San Francisco Bay
Area
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PARTICIPANTS
in this Pack-A-Lunch Hunt HUNTERS |
Participants in the Fremont mobile hunt |
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Foxes: Jim-KD6DX and Kathleen-N6DOB |
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| TEAMS (6) |
Mileage |
Time |
Notes |
| Henry-KF6PCE, Joan-KF6QGJ, Bill-KF6QGK | 90.7 |
12:57 PM |
1st |
| Dave-KG6ACD | 100.3 | 1:14 PM | 2nd |
| Rich-KN6FW | 102.7 | 2:20 PM | 2nd (10% rule) |
| Bob-KF6VSE | 103.1 | 2:10 PM | 2nd (10% rule) |
| Chris-KF6VFU | ? | 3:30 PM | 3rd |
| Paul Shinn | Started from Stockton. | 1:17 PM | |
 Profile map, elevation. |
 3D map, terrain. |
This Pack-A-Lunch hunt was originally intended to be an easy hunt,
getting the hunters close to my mountain home so that I could cook them
lunch. Starting at 10 AM most of the hunters should have arrived at my
location by 12 Noon however, the earliest arrival was about 1:00 PM and
the latest arrived at 3:30 PM. I discovered there is no such thing as an easy hunt when hiding in the mountains. Most hunters obtained a pretty good initial bearing (85*) towards Groveland. I understand the signal was good until they arrived at the foothills. This was expected, as you get under my transmitting antenna, the radio signal is over your head and shadowed the crown of the mountain. Hunters later advised their Doppler's were spinning and not giving a definite direction. I tested my Doppler in the mountains and found it had pointed directly towards the transmitter (when it wasn't spinning). This leads me to a
possible Doppler rule while hunting in the mountains. As you can see from my pictures, I was pretty high up, in beautiful mountain country. The 5-watt transmitter through a 3-element MFJ beam was enough signal to travel the 80 miles to the start point. |
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Hunters were finely arriving, 3 to 5 hours after the hunt started. | ||||
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Bob
Cooley (KF6VSE) arrived, showing us his newly acquired "SNIFFER-4", made
by "VK3YNG". Hooked up to a simple (foldable and very portable) measuring tape beam, Bob was able to receive my 5-watt transmitter 80-miles away with his "SNIFFER-4" set to attenuation 1 (-15db). Bob didn't use his "SNIFFER-4" as a U-R-Here radio for this hunt but, he should have. I think the "SNIFFER-4" would be a great U-R-Here radio with it's 9 attenuation levels. By the time Bob arrived on Merrell Rd. and the roadway I had hidden on, his "SNIFFER-4" had automatically dialed it self to attenuation-4. Keep in mind he was still 1/2 mile away and had a small hill between him and my transmitter. As Bob crested the hill, his "SNIFFER-4" had automatically jumped another level to attenuation-5. Using his tape-measure beam, Bob walked right up to the radiating element of my transmitting beam (less than 1" from the single radiating element). As Bob walked, I saw the "SNIFFER-4" automatically switch itself from attenuation 5 to 6 to 7 to 8 and then to 9 when he was right on my radiating element. The signal strength meter on the "SNIFFER-4" is a variable tone generator. The weaker the signal, the lower the tone, the stronger the signal the higher pitch the tone. When the "SNIFFER-4" automatically changed attenuation levels, the tones started over, through its range of low to high tones. |
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The inside of my Fox Transmitter is shown to the left. I'm using a PicCon fox controller connected to a Yaseu FT51 and an 8-amp GelCel battery. There is also a small muffin fan cooling the radio for continuous duty. The single GelCel only lasted about 4-hours, powering my FT51 at 5-watts. A second GelCel was added (thanks to Rich-KN6FW) to finish out the hunt. I also found out, my FT51 would cycle down it's power when it got hot and when it cooled, it would cycle back up to full power. This made it difficult for beam hunters. | ||||
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Here we are, at
my house in Pine Mountain Lake (Groveland). We had a full layout of
hordurves and homemade hamburgers. I thing everyone enjoyed themselves, the hunt was difficult but, fun and the comradely during dinner was grand. Jim Sakane (KD6DX) |
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