Brainerd Area Amateur Radio Club 
Fox Hunt, Summer Picnic, & Club Meeting
August 26, 2000

        The Brainerd Area Amateur Radio Club will held it's August club meeting in conjunction with a picnic.  This meeting replaced the August 31st club business meeting.  The event was held at the Loren Thompson Park in Baxter, MN.  This is the first time in recent years that a club picnic has been held.  The project was the idea of BAARC Secretary Shirley Doree, KCØDCW.  

        Terry May KIØFW started the activities at 10:30 AM with a fox hunt.  He transmitted a low power signal on 146.60 MHz one minute out of each five minutes from a location about three miles distant from Loren Thompson Park.  

Photo by Lyle KØLR

        At 11 AM, the team of Club President Mark Persons WØMH, and Club First Lady Paula Persons WØHA took first place by locating Terry at the Trail's head parking lot.  This is the south end of the Paul Bunyan Trail.  It is just north of the Westgate Mall.  The antenna they used was a 5 element cubical quad.  This antenna had been made as a club project about three years ago when Brian Wermager KØEOU was President.  Names were put in a hat and the antenna was given away to Mark.  An RF attenuator, made by Mark, was used to get the signal level to mid-scale on the Icom HT they used as a receiver.

Photo by Mark WØMH

        Taking second place in the fox hunt contest were Club Secretary Shirley Doree KCØDCW and her husband, Club Vice President Al Doree WØRC.  They used a 4 element Yagi antenna with a step attenuator to control RF going to an HT radio.  Al rigged dual handles on the rear of the antenna so he could use it vertical or horizontal.  

        Following the fox hunt, there was the August business meeting of the club at 1 PM followed by a picnic at 1:30 PM.  

Photo by Mark WØMH

         Everyone brought their own food. (We found out what hams eat on a picnic).   A charcoal grill was setup for everyone to cook on. Bob Feuer, WØZPE brought 'Linguisa,' which is a Portuguese sausage.  Everyone was invited to try some.  It is a delicacy which he ordered from his former home town of San Louis Obispo, California.  About 22 people attended the event.  A fun time was had by all.

How the Fox Hunt was Won  
by Mark WØMH

           Fox hunters showed up at the park just in time to hear Terry transmit contest rules and instructions on the fox hunt frequency of 146.60 MHz.  Terry was transmitting from a location about three miles away.  The power level was high enough so that we could hear it on our 2 meter mobile radios.  Remember, this is point to point simplex with antennas less than six feet above the ground on both ends.

           Club First Lady, Paula WØHA, and I were one of the fox hunt teams.   The antenna we used was a five element 2 meter cubical quad, which is fairly directional and is both vertical and horizontal polarized.   It was built as a club project about four years ago when Brian Wermager KØEOU was Club President.  Brian’s presentation, to the club, showed how an inexpensive antenna could be built in just an hour.  Call signs were put in a hat and mine was the lucky one drawn to take the antenna home.  Everyone participating signed their names and call signs on the wooden antenna boom.

           Terry transmitted for one minute every five minutes with voice, and then CW.  Paula and I used the antenna along with a hand held 2 meter radio which has a bar graph signal strength meter.  We also carried a variable RF attenuator to bring high level signals to within range of the signal strength meter. 

           The first attempt, at the park, to find the fox transmitter was typical in that we found signals coming from the northeast (toward Brainerd) and the north (toward the Baxter School).  After moving about 10 feet, we found an even stronger signal to the southwest.  Paula and put the antenna in the car and drove to the southwest to a baseball diamond where we ran into a group of amateur rocket experimenters.  We looked at them and they looked at us with equal wonderment.  A reading there showed the strongest signal was coming from the north to northeast. 

           We drove to an area close to the Baxter School and took another look.  At that point, we determined the strongest signal was coming from the east in the direction of Brainerd.  We drove into Brainerd and could not get out of the car in time to catch the next transmission, but did listen on the car radio and had a full strength signal at the Paul Bunyan intersection.  We continued on into Brainerd and turned left to a location near the Westgate Mall.  Meanwhile, we saw the team of Al Doree,WØRC, and Shirley Doree, KCØDCW, head further east into Brainerd. 

           We stopped in an empty parking lot and found the strongest signal was coming from the direction of the Arboretum.   We drove into the Arb and found a spot where we were a long ways from any large metal objects.  This attempt pointed us to the northwest so we realized that we had overshot the target.  So, we left the Arboretum and headed east again on the road that goes along the north side of the mall.  We were just going by the Trail’s Head area when the next transmission started.  Paula said, “Just swing into the parking lot and let’s look.”  Sure enough, there was Terry transmitting from his car.  We waved and he acknowledged that we had found him in about 30 minutes of fox hunting.

           It had been my intention to go to the Brainerd Golf Course to get another bearing.  So we went there anyway and did get a good bearing to the east again confirming Terry was between the golf course and the Arboretum. 

           What we learned is that there can be a lot of misleading reflections because the antennas are low and that objects as small as six feet across can reflect a signal causing us to be misled.

           The Doree team had ranged further than us and was circling back to the Trail’s Head when the fox was over.  They had really worked hard for an hour and a half.

           Paula and I really look forward to a fox hunt next year.  We may face even more difficult competition because Terry plans to compete rather than be the fox. 

   73’s de Mark WØMH

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