Pete-N6YIF and Linda hid their 5-watt FOX-TRANSMITTER near Loghry State
Park, along Skyline Blvd, about 2700 feet up. The only unusual thing
about Pete's transmitter was he placed the vertical 1/4-wave antenna up
against and touching a tree.I started from the
National Wildlife Refuge in Fremont, about 125 feet up and used a
4-element yagi with
my MK4 Sniffer
to obtain an initial bearing of 183 degrees. By the way, the vertical
signal was very weak and the horizontal signal was very strong. The true
bearing to Pete's locations was 185.2 degrees and he was 20.15 miles
away.
Rich-KN6FW started from the San Leandro animal
shelter, 410 feet in elevation and read an interferometer bearing of 182
degrees. Pete's true bearing from Rich's locations was 179 degrees and
32.73 miles away.
As you can see from my RED GPS Track lines on maps,
01 and 02, I pretty
much drove straight past Pete's location on Skyline Blvd. at 11:25 AM. I
then circled a large area around him for two more hours.
At about 1:21 PM, I passed a caravan of t-hunters on
Redwood Gulch Rd. Rich-KN6FW apparently read an interferometer bearing
over the top of Loghry State Park on Skyline Blvd. and the caravan of
t-hunter were heading back up the hill. I turned around and followed.
At 1:35 PM, we found Pete's car and a few of us walked
the 1/2 mile or so trail to the transmitter.
I didn't do too well on this hunt. If it weren't for
Rich-KN6FW telling me to follow him back up to Skyline Blvd, I think I
would still be looking for Pete's transmitter, even now, as you read
this web page.
What I learned from this hunt, because my U-R-Here
Radio never got above attenuation level-2, was to take many beam bearing
and look in area's where the bearings crossed. The Doppler helped but,
beam bearings are a must when trying to plot directions on a map.
Another piece of equipment I rarely talk about but,
came in handy on this hunt was a Laptop Computer running TOPO Maps and a
GPS. When ever I read a beam bearing, all I had to do was plot a
straight bearing line. My Laptop Computer based TOPO Map knew where I
was (GPS) and how to plot lines.
Jim Sakane KD6DX
