April fox hides in steel enclosure

The April foxhunt (hidden transmitter hunt) occurred on Sunday the 7^th of April, which turned out to be a beautiful spring day in Indiana (finally)! The hunters consisted of two teams, the first being that of Charles Ward, KC9MUT, Fred Gengnagel, KC9EZP and new-comer Bill Hopkins, K9WEH who decided to give it a try and rode along with Charles and Fred. The second team consisted of Don Glick, K9LI and his wife Julie.

Jim Pliett, K9OMA, Al Burke, WB9SSE, Annie Pliett, KA9YYI and Carole Burke, WB9RUS served as the fox for this hunt. They located on the western edge of Swiney Park near the baseball diamond. The high power fox consisted of a 40 watt mobile driving Jim’s quad that was located on the roof of his van. It transmitted for one minute every five minutes, starting on the half hour. The microfox was implemented using the 40 milliwatt microprocessor controlled package we use for most foxhunts. It transmitted CW on 146.340 MHz for one minute every two and a half minutes.

Where to hide it, where to hide it, where to hide it??? Hmmm, we spotted a corrugated steel retaining wall that caught our interest. It had vertical pipe-like features on either end that just beckoned to have a microfox dropped down inside where it would be hard to find. So that’s what Jim did. Being inside the metal pipe created a natural shielding effect which meant that one had to get within fifteen feet or so of the pipe to hear the microfox signal.

The foxhunt started promptly at 13:30 local and evidently both teams at the Corbin Park starting point heard the initial high-power fox transmission and were off and running. For our part we enjoyed the gorgeous weather and were entertained by a softball team practicing on the ball diamond.

After about one half hour Don and Julie Glick showed up, localized us, and started hunting on foot. Due to the shielding Don had a hard time hearing the microfox. About thirty minutes later the Ward, Gengnagel, Hopkins team arrived and they too started hunting on foot.

Everyone got quite close to the microfox but had a difficult time actually locating it. But eventually Charles spotted the cord that was attached to the microfox to lower it into the pipe, and so he was the first to find it. Shortly thereafter the rest of the hunters found it too.

After the finding part of the foxhunt was over, the eating part began. We at first had decided to go to Chic-Filet until we realized that they were not open on Sundays. So we then decided to try Coney-Dog in downtown Ft. Wayne and were not disappointed in our choice.

Given that the Ward, Gengnagel, Hopkins team were the first to find the fox, they will serve as the fox for the May hunt which will occur on Sunday, May 5^th.

Scores for the April hunt and for year-to-date totals are as follows:

Why not plan to join us on the May hunt? Given it will occur on Cinco-de-Mayo, perhaps we will choose a Mexican venue for the meal afterwards.