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Brainerd Area Amateur Radio Club |
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Club Fox Hunt and Summer Picnic Saturday, August 26, 2006 |
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The fox hunt winner, Terry KIØFW, demonstrated the use of his homemade 4-element Yagi antenna at the starting point in the parking lot at Fleet Farm in Baxter. |
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Terry KIØFW showed off his diode-meter for
close-up hunting. This is a good tool to use when all other
receivers are overloaded The fox transmitter was in a camouflaged
can just above his right arm. It took 35 minutes to cover the
approximately 4 miles to locate the transmitter.
Mark WØMH hid the fox transmitter because he was last year’s winner in the contest. Mark was stationed about 200 feet east of the transmitter location where he was able to see any action around the site without being seen. The weather was great.
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Some of
the Hams who showed up for the picnic and membership meeting. |
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How the fox hunt was won. By Terry KIØFW Hi BAARC members. I thought I would give you an account of my “journey” while participating in the August 26th fox hunt. Mark WØMH, last year’s winner, generously agreed to hide the fox transmitter this year, so that I would finally have a chance to actually chase the fox. The fox hunt again started in the Fleet Farm parking lot at 10 AM. I was using a four element Yagi antenna, and immediately picked up the 146.52 MHz signal at a ESE heading. I headed out along Highway 210, monitoring the fox transmitter signal strength with a radio that was connected to the external 2-meter antenna on my car. When I reached the old water tower (6th Street and Highway 210), it seemed that the signal strength was dropping a little, so I headed south to the parking lot just adjacent to the old Crow Wing County Courthouse, and took another directional reading using the Yagi. The reading peaked at a SSW direction, and I headed down 5th Street to the Brainerd High School South Campus, formerly the Mississippi Horizons Magnet School. I then took another directional reading, and the reading indicated to the SSW. Looking down the hill from that parking lot, I could see the Kiwanis Park in that SSW direction, and so I piled back into my car, and headed around to that park. As I entered the park, I switched the antenna on my radio–- switching to a very small coupling loop (several inches long) that plugged into the top of the radio. The transmitter signal, at that point, was very strong and I drove along until the reading seemed to peak, about three hundred yards into the park. I then took out my Yagi antenna for a final directional signal determination, but I had to attenuate the strong signal by partially disconnecting the antenna lead to my HT search radio. I then headed out on foot. At that point I continued to use the small coupling-loop antenna, but also had to attenuate the signal somewhat to confirm I was on the correct heading. After a short while stumbling around the edge of the woods, I discovered the transmitter! Total time elapsed was about 35 minutes. Fun !!! I wished that more of you were able to participate . . . it’s great fun, and a very good exercise for emergency preparedness. Also, I would like to remind you that there are 5 hidden medallions out there to locate – and their GPS coordinates are posted on our BAARC webpage. 73 Terry KIØFW |
| The fox hunt
and picnic went well. Everyone had a good time.
Join us on September 28th when Jay Bellows updates us on ARRL activities. Details |
This page was last updated 12/31/2006 Ø
