The 3rd Tuesday in May
Fox Hunt

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

All hunters are more than welcome to participate.  If you don’t have fox hunting equipment yet, ride along with someone and see how it’s done…or see how it’s not done, depending on who you’re with.  In any case, the more the merrier.  The hunt is free and open to anyone who wants to participate or just ride along, have fun, and maybe learn a bit.

The hunt will begin at the parking lot of the Ken Groom Technical and Training Center, 280 East 8th Street, Holland at 7:00 p.m. (1900 hours for the technosquad) and will end at 9:02 p.m. (that's sunset, for the romantics and those without watches) on Tuesday, May 18, 2010.

Odometer readings will be taken before the hunt begins.  The winner will be the person or team whose vehicle puts on the lowest number of miles finding the Fox.  In case of a tie, the person or team who found the Fox first will be deemed the winner.  To “find” the Fox, one person from the team must identify him/herself to the Fox by name and call sign and give the Fox the final odometer reading.

Once a team has found the Fox, they will be given directions to the site of the “Post Hunt Social Hour” and should then exit the hiding place without giving other hunters any hints as to the whereabouts of the Fox.  Taunting, gloating, bragging and razzing will be reserved for before and after the hunt.

Any type of direction finding equipment may be used, but Doppler users will compete only against each other and will not be eligible for the Grand Prize...if there is one.  The Fox will be hiding within an eight mile radius of the clubhouse.  The Fox will remain in or near the car in a publicly accessible spot.  The geeky stuff - the Fox will use a robofox, transmitting one minute on, two minutes off at 145.53 and there's something about a vertically polarized whip antenna and the frequency and power not varying, blah, blah, blah.

All traffic rules and regulations must be obeyed.  Driving backwards to conserve mileage, while somewhat effective, is not recommended.  Be careful when jumping out of the car to get a reading.  You don’t want your family to have to explain to the other mourners just exactly what it was you were doing when you were hit by the truck and why that antenna is sticking out of your chest.

Be safe, have fun, and try to find me!

73,

K8AJ, The Fox

Official Results, Holland Fox Hunt, May 18, 2010

By W8DER
Picture by Jim, WD8CAN

After each fox hunt here in West Michigan I find myself driving away thinking “What a blast! – This was the best hunt yet!” ….. And then the next fox hunt comes along and it is just a little better yet. Such was the case with last Tuesday's hidden transmitter hunt starting at the Holland ARC Technical Center. Fox for the event, Sheila Bosscher, (K8AJ) gave us a real test of our ADF abilities with her imaginative hiding spot along with new ideas for the hunt. Once again I drove away saying “not THAT was really fun! This was the best hunt yet.”

Sheila picked a hiding place that shocked most of us who are used to the fox hiding in an obvious ham vehicle in a public park, cemetery or on a country road. Instead, she picked a perfect lair by a tot-lot park in an up-scale residential neighborhood. Surrounded by a row of tall pine trees, a lake and a metal container, she sat hidden a the back seat of a borrowed car. Although the car was adjacent to the residential street, it was only visible for an instant as we passed by. We were tipped-off by the smallest of black magnetic antennas on the roof of the car.

The first to find the fox was Tom Bosscher (K8TB), Sheila's husband. Tom was our first local entry using a Doppler antenna. Obviously Tom was in a class by himself.

Following shortly behind Tom was the surprise of the night. In just 27 minutes into the hunt, first-time hunters Derrick Noland (W8DDN) and Jim Heyl (N8QMD) found the fox using a borrowed tape-measure antenna. We are going to have to watch out for these two in the future! Their hunt took 8.2 car miles.

Winner for the night in the manual antenna class was Laryn Lohman (K8TVZ) and Ike DeWitt (K8EMU) with 5.1 traveled car miles. Second place went to the team of James Richards (K8JHR) and Chuck Nowak (AJ8W) who also had 5.1 car miles. Total hunting time was the tie-breaker in this case.

If there was an award for the most “hi-tech” looking vehicle, it would have gone to our third-place team of Jim Lamberts and Phil Van Huis who traveled 6.7 miles in their search for the fox. With a 4 element CushCraft beam floating over their truck, they turned a lot of heads as they charged over the course.

All teams found the fox within the allowed 2-hour time limit. This included the team of Jim Leys (WD8CAN), Jeff Ver Hage (KB8QAP), Robert Holton (KC8USP) and Mike Hill (W8DER) .

New to this hunt, the fox used an automated transmitter “PitCon”controller by a Byonics. This transceiver controller is specifically designed for hidden transmitter hunting and has been used on several practice hunts locally this year. (Ref: http://www.byonics.com/piccom ) Hunters were treated to random computer tones instead of the normal chatter from the fox. Hints, which are ordinarily given verbally by the fox were issued to each team in sealed envelopes before the hunt. Each hint in the envelope was labeled with a time it could be opened.

The first hint, labeled “8:00 o'clock”, Said “Hope you're not heeding Horace Greeley's advice tonight” Of course, Greeley's “Go west young man” would have put the hunters squarely in Lake Michigan well before 8:00 o'clock. The last hint suggested that the hunters should look for everyone else at Wendy's on US31. It was a fun night!

Everyone left Wendys looking forward to the next hunt at the IRA Hamfest in Hudsonville on June 5th and the next Holland Hunt on the third Tuesday in June. (June 15th)