Story County Amateur Radio Club Fox Hunt Info Page

Next hunt is not yet scheduled.

All SCARC hunts are on the SCARC simplex frequency of 146.43 mHz FM

Open to any interested persons, SCARC membership not required.

Links of Interest

Results 7-14-2007

The Fox was hidden by Dave Fitz, KI0Q, at 117 20th Street, 7 feet up in tree.

If there are any additions or corrections, send them to me at johnjmaurer(at)gmail(dot)com.

Results

Comment

Next hunt I plan to hold a short net 15 minutes before the hunt to find out who is participating. Submitted by KI0Q

Rules 7-14-2007

The Fox hunt commences at 9 AM Saturday, July 14, 2007, on 146.43 mHz FM. We will let it run for 3 hours, until 12 noon. The event will be canceled if unsafe driving conditions exist, and announced on the club's 147.24 repeater.

Area: Within 5 miles of Lincoln Way and Grand Ave.

Transmit power: 1.5 watt

Debriefing: Hy Vee at 640 Lincoln Way

We will be using a modified IARU transmitter sequence using a 3 minute cycle consisting of 1 minute of slow speed Morse Code repeating "MO" followed by a "DE W0YL" indentification, followed by 2 minutes of silence, then starting over.

The other rules will be the same as 4/7/2007.

Results 5-12-2007

The Fox was hidden by Dave Fitz, KI0Q, at his brother's automotive shop on South Bourne Avenue, making the transmitter more difficult to find than last month. The fox transmitter was activated at 9:00AM, and was first found 66 minutes later. We had 5 hams participate in the hunt, along with one spouse. The lucky winner, Todd, happened to find a ten dollar bill waiting for him on the transmitter, and promptly exchanged it for coffee and snacks at the Truck Stop restaurant.

If there are any additions or corrections, send them to me at johnjmaurer(at)gmail(dot)com.

Results

Rules 5-12-2007

The Fox hunt commences at 9 AM Saturday, May 12, 2007, on 146.43 mHz FM. We will let it run for 3 hours, until 12 noon. The event will be canceled if unsafe driving conditions exist, and announced on the club's 147.24 repeater.

You do not have to be a SCARC member to participate.

We will be using a modified IARU transmitter sequence using a 3 minute cycle consisting of 1 minute of slow speed Morse Code repeating "MO" followed by a "DE W0YL" indentification, followed by 2 minutes of silence, then starting over.

The other rules will be the same as 4/7/2007.

Results 4-7-2007

Our first Fox hunt kicked off at 9 AM on Saturday, April 7, 2007. The temperature was around 20F with westerly wind gusting about 20 mph, but at least it was a sunny day. The format chosen for the first hunt allowed participants to start whereever they chose to.

Since this was our first event and since the weather was so cold, I had decided to hide the Fox transmitter on the hillside along the northeast corner of Ada Hayden Park just north of town. In retrospect, I should have made it more difficult to find, considering it only took 27 minutes to find it. I also colocated a Civil Air Patrol training ELT which operated on 121.775 AM that was provided by Roland, KC0IEA and Norma, KC0LIN.

We had decided at the SCARC meeting that we would change the Fox cycle time to 1 minute on, 2 minutes off on a 3 minute cycle. I changed that in the PIC code on Friday. This seemed to work out pretty well, especially considering the cold weather.

We also decided to run the hunt for 3 hours, then meet at the Truck Stop on Dayton Avenue for lunch. We had seven teams participate, not including the CAP cadets. Total number of hams participating was twelve. I thought that was a pretty good turnout for our first hunt, especially considering the crummy weather.

Results

Unfortunately, the CAP cadets were hampered with poorly operating DF equipment. They used some recently acquired DF units that sure looked nice, but failed to operate up to expectations. The cadets finally located the Fox just shortly before the 12:00 deadline. They seemed enthused enough to try again next time, but they may use their older, more reliable DF equipment. Thanks to Roland and Norma for involving the CAP cadets.

Afterwords, we gathered at the Truck Stop to rehash the event. I believe every participant showed up, and also Bob Fitz WAØMUG and his wife.

At the Truck Stop. Clockwise: KIØQ, KNØR, KCØJUO, KCØUDQ, KØKT, WØDP, AG3V, NDØD. Photo by N9WTM.

(L) Dennis Sell, N9WTM and (R) Dave Fitz, KIØQ. Photo by WØDP.

Fox transmitter (Yaesu FT208R) on the service monitor. I decided to check it after the hunt. You can see that it is off frequency by 2.4 kHz and that it was running 1.9 watts on low power instead of 300 milliwatts. This was with VBatt = 12.8 volts. I'll try to find a service manual online and adjust it before next usage. (Further note: there is no low power adjustment. Hi/lo power is controlled by switching in and out a 39 ohm resistor in the PA supply). High power is 4.8 watts at 12.8 volts, and 2.7 watts at 9.5 volts. Low power is 1.07 watts at 9.5 volts, 0.93 watts at 9.0, 0.67 watts at 7.75 volts. I will need to reduce the PA voltage before next time, perhaps by adding a few diode drops from several series silicon diodes.

All in all, I think it was a successful first hunt. We decided that we would massage the rules a bit for next time, perhaps having a common starting point. That might require staggered starting times, with appropriate record-keeping.

We also have some interest in doing an event on foot, perhaps at the Ledges State Park or McFarland Park. If so, we would probably want more than 1 transmitter to keep it interesting.

Any corrections, additions, or changes, please let me know. Thanks to all for participating. 73, John, WØDP 4/7/2007

Rules 4-7-2007

I have changed the on/off cycle of the Fox transmitter to 1 minute on; 2 minutes off in a 3 minute cycle. It will be on the air for testing most days leading up to the hunt.

The Fox hunt commences at 9 AM Saturday, April 7, 2007, on 146.43 mHz FM. We will let it run for 3 hours, until 12 noon. It will be within 2 miles of the Ames city limits, in a publicly accessible place. It will not require the use of I-35 or Hwy 30.

You may start the hunt from any location - we will not have a common gathering place prior to the hunt. You may use your home station antenna if you like. You may partner up with others. Do not use 146.43 mHz for communications.

When you find the Fox transmitter, write down the 6 character code on the green transmitter box, along with the time. Don't hang around the transmitter as that will draw attention to it. We are using the honor system in this competition. Any disputes will be settled by the participants in the parking lot of the Truck Stop at Hwy 30 and Dayton Avenue. We will gather there after the hunt, hopefully we will all be there by 12:30.

Even if you don't join the hunt, you are welcome to join us at the Truck Stop for lunch at 12:30 Saturday. The winner will have his/her lunch paid for.

We will also have the Civil Air Patrol test ELT unit on the air on 121.775 AM. The CAP will have a few folks out looking for that as well. You are welcome to use that transmitter as well if it is of any help to you.

The event will be canceled if we have unsafe driving conditions. The Fox will be stationary. It will be an FM trasmitter and it will transmit with a constant power level, and the antenna orientation will not change during the event.

You do not have to be a SCARC member to participate. You should probably plan on using a vehicle for this hunt, although if we have enough interest we may try a future Fox Hunt "on foot" in one of the city park areas.

We are planning on following the IARU convention of using a 5 minute cycle consisting of 1 minute of slow speed Morse Code repeating "MO" followed by a W0YL indentification, then followed by 4 minutes of silence, then starting over.

The rules are subject to change.