I first got involved with transmitter hunting back in 1993. The first couple of years were spent doing mobile t-hunting and is what encouraged me to get my ham license.
In 1993, I joined the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio club, and became the Executive Vice-President in 1995. Wanting to get more people interested in t-hunting, I started a Beginners T-Hunt that took place monthly at a local park. This hunt was done strictly on foot without the benefit of a map.
In 1995 Joe Moell, K0OV, put on an on-foot transmitter hunt as part of the Southwestern Division Convention. Winning my age group did wonders for building my interest, and I was hooked.
In early 1998, Joe Moell asked if I wanted to be a member of the first US ARDF (Amateur Radio Direction Finding) team to compete in the 1998 World ARDF Championships. I might add this was about four months after I had a quintuple bypass.
Being more than slightly naive about what this was all about, I said sure. I figured I could walk pretty fast by this time and would do okay.
Wrong. ARDF also involves orienteering, and I knew nothing about that. It also involves being able to run … a double whammy 
.
Gyuri Nagi from Hungary was also a member of the US Team and had won at least one prior World ARDF Championship. When he picked us up in Budapest to take us to the competition location, I spent a lot of the four hour drive asking questions about what this was all about. He also spent a lot of time on the model event day teaching me about orienteering and why it was important. I can’t say enough about how Gyuri helped our fledgling US ARDF Team.
Well, one day is just not enough to learn orienteering. When I started on the first course, I lasted about 700 meters or so. At that point, I just put the map in my back pocked and relied on my direction finding skills to find the transmitters.
What an education! I also found out that walking had to be replaced by running. And that has never been something I enjoyed doing.
When I got back to the US, I immediately started doing orienteering with LAOC (Los Angeles Orienteering Club.) After a couple of years, I got to be okay on the orienteering courses. But running would always slow me down enough that I was never competitive.
In 1999, Dale Hunt WB6BYU, Joe Moell K0OV, and myself gave a talk at Dayton Hamvention about the experience of the US getting involved and competing at those world championships. It was there that we met Bob Frey WB6EZV and Dick Arnett WB4SUV who were avid mobile t-hunters and were in charge of the Dayton Hamvention foxhunting forum.
We were relentless, and soon had both of them wanting to get involved with ARDF. Both were a wonderful addition to the US ARDF Team.
In 2004, I was the meet director/course setter for the 2004 US ARDF Championships that were held at Vasquez Rocks, CA and Mt Pinos, CA. This was a great learning experience and provided a way to put into practice the many years of competing.
In 2004 (Czech Republic), 2006 (Bulgeria), and 2010 (Croatia), I was an international referee and was MOST happy not to be competing!
Sometime around 2005 or so, Joe Moell K0OV, April Moell WA6OPS (Joe’s wife), and me started to put on practice events in Southern California. It was during this time that I found it a lot more fun to put on events rather than compete.
We had known for quite a while that the lack of equipment was holding some people back from getting involved. So in late 2008, we introduced the antenna clinic where people could buy inexpensive kits and build their own tape measure beam. This immediately resulted in more people showing up at our informal practices.
In 2009, I incorporated a housing as an option that held an offset attenuator in the tape measure beam. This worked out very well as people now had a complete unit for 2M transmitter hunting.
What will the future hold?
I would really like to see a transmitter hunting site that would be the goto place for training. It is hard to talk about transmitter hunting techniques in words, so incorporating video will be important. If there is enough interest, a forum where questions could be asked and answers received. A classified section where t-hunting related items could be listed would be another addition. A directory of US T-hunts would be great for people traveling.
And of course, this is all being done to help promote and educate the public on transmitter hunting.