1Hickey
02-22-2009, 12:54 PM
Last night (when I should have been studying), I went out on a fox hunt with some folks from LARC. It was a TON OF FUN! A fox hunt is a transmitter hunt. Basically, someone gets in their vehicle, hides somewhere in the county, and transmits at regular intervals (the fox). The other participants (the hunters) use directional antennas and work together with other radios to triangulate a rough location for the fox.
Doesn't sound cool? Well, it is a ton of fun! You make cheap antennas, hook them up to an HT, run around the county on gravel and minimum maintenance roads trying to find someone before the other hunters. You have to work a grid map to figure out where you're going and can't go, jump out, set up the antenna, get a reading, jump back in and GO! Sometimes they go quick, sometimes it takes a couple hours. Regardless, you have to work with problems like hills, ground clutter, the repeater, simplex, etc.
There's going to be more of these coming up. Even if you don't have all the radios yet, you gotta go and experience it! Good fun and good training!
Doesn't sound cool? Well, it is a ton of fun! You make cheap antennas, hook them up to an HT, run around the county on gravel and minimum maintenance roads trying to find someone before the other hunters. You have to work a grid map to figure out where you're going and can't go, jump out, set up the antenna, get a reading, jump back in and GO! Sometimes they go quick, sometimes it takes a couple hours. Regardless, you have to work with problems like hills, ground clutter, the repeater, simplex, etc.
There's going to be more of these coming up. Even if you don't have all the radios yet, you gotta go and experience it! Good fun and good training!