On Sunday, August 11, the sun was shining brightly and the temperature was darn near perfect. With just a few puffy white clouds in the sky, it was a great day to be fox hunting. Two teams, Charles Ward, KC9MUT, running solo, and the team of Linda, W9LAN, Steve, W9SAN, with their grandson Alex, were at the starting point ready to charge after the sly fox. Filling the roll of sly fox was newbie hunter Bill Hopkins, K9WEH, who had chosen a shady and pleasant location on the back side of Shoaff Park in Fort Wayne, a stones’ throw from the St. Joseph River. Bill was sitting at a table hiding in plain sight under some trees with a small vertical antenna and battery power supply.
At 1:30 pm, Bill accidently started transmitting on the input to the ’76 repeater, but quickly changed to the 146.43 simplex fox frequency, and the hunt was off! Both teams headed to the north-northwest, and the strength of the fox rose rapidly. Upon arriving at the entrance to Shoaff Park, the extreme signal of the high-power fox was apparent. However, the direction indicated required driving on the one-way loop inside the park. The Nardin team started around while Charles was set upon by a curious park goer asking questions.
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