FOX HUNT Saturday, July 16, 2011 from 9:30 a.m until 12:30 p.m. CDT.
Starting point: Highland Park on Snelling Ave. S. at Ford Parkway “Under the water towers.” Meet there at 9:30 a.m.
Fox frequency: 146.58 MHz Communications frequency: St. Paul Radio Club Repeater 145.310 MHz – no tone.
Fox is on public property. Foxhunt held rain or shine – unless tornadic activity, big hail, or big lightning. If questionable, call 612 968-6142 for info’ or check website: www.stpaulradioclub.org
Questions: w0qt@arrl.net
How to Find the Fox The fox is only 2+ miles from the starting point – not that it will be too easy to find. The Foxmaster hopes that some level of difficulty has been built into it. Most or all the hunting is close hunting, requiring attenuation of the signal. Try receiving the signal with your HT. To use your HT to find the signal, use the body fade technique. Another method is to point the antenna tip forward (antenna horizontal) and scan around, looking for the point at which you find the strongest signal. If you can receive the fox with your HT, then you are close enough so that polarization does not matter. As you get closer to the fox, further attenuation is needed in order to discriminate the direction of the fox. This can be achieved by removing the antenna and putting a short piece of wire or paper clip into the center conductor. Even closer, you can pick up the fox signal with no antenna at all. If you need to go even closer to find the fox, set the HT to one click off-freq.
Hope to see you at the Foxhunt and Gud Luk!
And the results....
A Foxhunt was held on July 16th from 9:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. CDT. in the St. Paul Highland Park area.
Dan Karg, Patrick Morgan, Tom Bredemus, Monica Bredemus, Sarah Hunt, John Hunt and George Power took part in the Foxhunt. It was the first time for most of the participants and proved to be fun for all. The weather was a bit balmy which is an understatement. Some of the hunters rewarded themselves following the hunt with much deserved refreshments at the DQ on Ford Parkway. It is also reported that some of the hunters stopped at a bakery or DQ during the hunt as it can be amazing where those received transmissions can lead one to search! It turns out that the transmitter was not located inside of that blueberry muffin afterall.
Orcy did a great job in positioning the Fox (xmtr) in a river area near a bridge providing numerous reflections which added to the level of difficulty. All participants successfully tracked down the Fox within the scheduled time frame of the hunt.
A special thanks to Orcy Lyle W0QT for organizing the Foxhunt and providing a great first time hunt experience for many of the participants.
Questions: Email Orcy
