Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club 4th U.S. ARDF Championships

80m Mount Pinos

by Jay Hennigan, WB6RDV

The terrain here was much different from yesterday's competition. Mount Pinos is, as the name implies, a pine forest at over 8000 feet elevation. The weather was much cooler than at Vasquez Rocks, and the air thinner

The start was at the western edge of the map, about 200 meters up a trail west of the parking area at the end of the road. Trails from the parking area lead north, west to the start, and east.

I felt that at least one transmitter would be in the area of the map to the west, north of the starting point. My initial strategy was to head to the parking area which gave multiple route choices. Transmitter one came on the air due east. I headed down the trail to the parking area. When T2 came on I got a bearing to the northeast at about 55 degrees. As I did not need to find T2, I knew that it was not in the area to the north of the start. Therefore I headed back to the north trail past the gate at the end of the starting corridor. Transmitter three came on and I got an initial bearing of 25 degrees, slightly east of north. As it turns out the actual position would be further east. I was heading more or less in that direction and was approaching a trail junction where I could turn easterly.

Transmitter four came on, stronger than three and due north of me. My hunch was right and I headed to the north cross-country, starting down a reentrant. I got a bearing to T5 to the southeast. T1 was more east than south, and I guessed that it might be south of where the road makes a loop to the north near the finish. I slowed somewhat as I didn't want to overrun T4. T2 came on, still weak and more easterly than before, probably north of the finish. I didn't need two, but noted where I thought it was as that ruled out other transmitters within 400 meters.

Transmitter three came on again, and This time I got a bearing of northeast, about 45 degrees. Crossing this with my earlier bearing put three closer to me than it really was. My order was four, three, five, one. I continued northward towards four, and picked up the pace as it was still further out. I didn't get it before it went off the air. Another bearing to five put it somewhere along the east-west path between the parking area and the road.

T1 was still east of five, I ignored two, and three was stronger and still about 45 degrees. T4 came on again and I nailed it slightly to the right of my heading. I felt three was much closer than it was, and headed east and slightly north. I shot another bearing to transmitter one, it now seemed to be about 155 degrees, east of south from me. Probably west of the U-loop of the road. At any rate I was committed to three, then five, then one. And the trek from three to five wouldn't be fun.

T2 was almost exactly in the direction I was heading, a little north of east. Three came on again, I needed to head further north, and it was close. I found and punched it, then headed south to five. At this point I wasn't sure exactly where I was on the map, but knew I had to go south and traverse the deep ravine. I picked up the small trail heading southwest, followed it, and trudged down, up, down and up again. Finally got T5 after 29:06 according to the SI stick.

T1 was close, and almost directly in line with the finish. I picked up the trail east and cut off cross-country when it turned southward. The terrain here was easy running. I was pretty sure that T1 was near the road to the east of me. When it came on I realized I had passed it, it was atop a hill behind me. Ran up the hill and punched.

Now on to the finish. I opted to take the road, as opposed to cross-country. This was probably a mistake, but I knew I could make good time on the road and the finish corridor looked like it came in from the northwest. So I took the road. 10:49 from T1 to the finish, overall time 84:31.

In retrospect, the best order was probably four-five-one-three, cutting back through the parking area from four to five and taking the road most of the way from one to three. I was fooled into thinking that three was closer to four than it really was, and it's hard to abandon the quest for a near transmitter to chase one further away.

Photos by Richard Thompson, WA6NOL