Foxhunt – This Saturday, Mar 26th
Did you participate in the recent LARC Yagi antenna building activity? If so, here’s your chance to try out that new antenna (and if not, you can still join on in the fun, even if you only have an HT and rubber duck antenna)!
Sebastian Wessels, NS0W, a former vice-president of LARC, is running a fox hunt this Saturday, March 26th. Here is his announcement of the event:
I decided to run a Fox Hunt this weekend as there seems to be renewed interest in the club. I did a test deployment today and I could copy the Fox with my mobile setup south of 17th, between Airport on the west and Lashley on the east. I did not check the south boundary but I am sure you should be able to hear it all the way to Pike.
I am planning to do this on Saturday, March 26 from 2PM sharp, till 4pm. The frequency is 147.495. It is an FM signal with beeps every second or so for 30 secs and then my call, NS0W in CW, and then it turns off for 30 sec and repeats the cycle.
The fox is an ammo can that will be at ground level. I will attach some kind of password to the top. It will be in an publicly accessible area, but will obviously be hidden behind a bush or something similar. This should be an easy hunt, but be ready for your receiver to be swamped when you get close. You will need some kind of attenuation.
Please record the time, location and “Password” and send it to radio@swessels.org. I will ask Chuck to share the results.
If you are new to fox hunting / radio direction finding, here are some resources you can check out:
http://www.homingin.com/equipment.html
http://www.arrl.org/direction-finding
Sebastian mentions attenuation. This is one of the few times in amateur radio where we actually want to decrease the power of the signal reaching our radio. If you have an HT with a rubber duck (i.e. non-directional) antenna, you can use the “body fade” technique, or when you get really close to the fox, you can disconnect your antenna altogether (just be careful not to transmit without the antenna!)
