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2 old CB foxhunts:


Years ago, "cat and mouse" was a popular activity for some of the CB'ers in town. We would go out at night
and a car would hide somewhere in the city. We would then race to see who could find them first. We had
gotten pretty good by this point, and so we (A) always played at night and (B) did not allow the use of
directional antennas. You heard that right, NO directional antennas. Just S-meters and omnis on the
vehicle. Despite this, it was common for the "mouse" to be found in under 30 minutes, in an area that might
be 4 x 8 miles in size.

Later, we constructed a "hidden transmitter" - a CB connected to a car battery, voice recorder, and timer.
The game would start when someone hid the HT somewhere around the city. It could be anywhere - on top of a
parking garage, in the woods, under a bridge, in a tree. The transmitter would usually talk for 30 seconds
every 5 minutes and had a runtime of 4-7 days, depending on temperature. This allowed people to participate
that would otherwise not be able to play cat and mouse due to their work or school schedule.

After everyone that was interested had gotten a chance to play, the first person to find it would take it
home, recharge the battery, and go hide it again. Individual hides usually lasted around 3-4 days, but it
might keep getting moved around for a month or more until we got bored with it and took a break.

When things started getting farther off the beaten path, I modified hand-held CBs with large, backlit meters
so we could hunt on-foot where vehicles couldn't be taken.

Of course we also exercised our skills when necessary, such as finding accidentally locked down mics on the
radio. Most of the CB'ers in town knew about us, and one of us would get a call if we were needed.


2011.10.29 hidden transmitter

2011.10.30 locked mic

2011.11.04 bronco and trip

2011.11.06 chip and whiz

epic tales of Cat and Mouse hides

epic tales of hidden transmitters



last updated 11/15/2023 at 11:02:26