Fort Wayne Radio Club

The weather threatened to be wet, wet, and wet all day on the 2nd of August when two fox-hunter teams coalesced at the foxhunting starting point at Cobin Memorial Park near Lakeside Golf Course. Team #1 consisted of Charles Ward, KC9MUT, and newbie, and enthusiastic fox hunter Brian Kibiger, KD9OOC. The 2nd team included Linda and Steve Nardin, W9’s LAN & SAN plus veteran fox hunter Alex, their grandson.

The role of the fox was provided by Carole & Al Burke, WB9’s RUS & SSE plus Annie & Jim Pliett, KA9YYI & K9OMA. They had conducted a little scouting and settled on a spot at the very end of the southern portion of Schwartz Rd. where I-469 bisects this former north-south thru-way just to the east of the Chapel Ridge Shopping Center. On the other side of I-469 the northern section of Schwartz Rd. started up again, and the Burke-Pliett team considered locating the high power fox on the southern portion of Schwarz while hiding the microfox on the northern portion. But we have some morals, so we decided not to do that and thus located the microfox near us on the southern terminus of Schwarz close to the high power fox. (Actually, we couldn’t see the northern portion of Schwartz because of the elevated I-469, and thus would not have been able to observe the fox hunters searching for the micro-fox, once they had figured out what we had done to them).

The Fort Wayne Radio Club will hold its August fox (hidden transmitter) hunt Sunday, August 2 at 1:30 p.m. EDT. Hunter meet at in the parking lot of 24/30 Surplus (formerly K-Mart), 820 N Coliseum Blvd., Fort Wayne.

The fox will transmit on 146.430 FM simplex with one minute out of every five minutes. At the fox site, a micro-fox of approx 50 milliwatts will transmit every 2.5 minutes. Intercom for the event is on the 146.76 repeater in Fort Wayne.

All are welcome! You can even help out from home if you have a directional antenna.

Some ride along space might be available. Those who participate in a hunt can receive a free three- element tape measure yagi antenna.

We always have a great time, so please plan on joining the FWRC Fox Hunt Team!

The weather was rather threatening looking in the early afternoon of July 12th as we drove to the southwest side of Allen County Indiana to set up our Fox station. Black clouds darkened the sky as we pulled into a short remnant of Lafayette Center Road. This short chunk of roadway was orphaned when Interstate 469 was connected to Interstate 69. The Roanoke Baptist Church was located just south of this little road. The Fox team of Steve, W9SAN, Linda, W9LAN, and their grandson Alex set up shop for a transmitting signal at the end of this short piece of road.

At 1:30 pm EDT, the Foxes started transmitting for 1 minute on the air with 4 minutes of silence. Our first transmission was at a 5 watt level, and was difficult for some of the teams to copy, so we increased power to 25 watts for the next several transmissions, before reducing to 10 watts and then down to 5 watts. There were three teams participating in the hunt: the Burke/Pliett team of Al and Jim, WB9SSE & K9OMA, (followed closely by their wives Carole, WB9RUS, and Anne, KA9YYI); the team of Don, K9LI, and his wife, and finally the team of Charles, KC9MUT, and Bill, K9WEH. Joining Bill and Charles was newbie Brent Hrabski, who is interested in Amateur Radio and found out about the event from our website. He showed up at the starting location and was quickly inducted into Charles’ Ram pickup to ride along!