Fort Wayne Radio Club

The May foxhunt occurred on Sunday the 5th of May, which turned out to be a beautiful spring day in Indiana, temperatures in the high 60’s and a blue sky. Wow!

There were three hunter teams for this one. The first consisted of Jim & Annie Pliett, K9OMA and KA9YYI, plus Carole and Al Burke, WB9’s RUS & SSE. The second team included Steve and Linda Nardin, W9’s SAN & LAN plus their grandson Alex (who was celebrating his 21st birthday). And the third team included Don Glick, K9LI and his wife Julie plus her dad Ed.

Charles Ward, KC9MUT and Phil Hooper, AB9IZ served as the fox for this hunt. They ensconced themselves near the ball diamonds at Rockhill Park in west central Ft. Wayne. They attached a magnet to the microfox and affixed it near the bottom of a steel fencepost that bordered a tree line in the park. It emitted about 40 milliwatts of cw for one minute every two and one half minutes on the 146.430 MHz fox frequency. For the high power fox they used a yagi up about 20’ and driven by Charles’s mobile transceiver with the yagi pointed at some high tension lines. As usual the high power fox transmitted for one minute every five minutes.

The May 2019 Issue of the Allen County HamNews newsletter is now available for download using the link below. This and previous issues are also available for download by clicking the “Files” link in the main menu and then clicking “Newsletters.

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achn_2019-05.pdf 1.73 MB 83 downloads

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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.

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The April 2019 Issue of the Allen County HamNews newsletter is now available for download using the link below. This and previous issues are also available for download by clicking the “Files” link in the main menu and then clicking “Newsletters.”

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achn_2019-04.pdf 1.58 MB 37 downloads

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The March 2019 Issue of the Allen County HamNews newsletter is now available for download using the link below. This and previous issues are also available for download by clicking the “Files” link in the main menu and then clicking “Newsletters.”

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achn_2019-03.pdf 2.00 MB 34 downloads

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Minutes of the February 2019 general meeting of the Fort Wayne Radio Club are available for download from the files section of this website or by clicking the link below:

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fwrc_february_2019.pdf 97.19 KB 31 downloads

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The last week of January was a real struggle! Temperatures hit near record lows, pipes burst, water mains broke, and the Interstates were littered with semis that had their diesel fuel gel up. Schools missed up to four days. All this bad weather had us all wondering if having our first Fox Hunt of the year on February 3rd was going to be a bad idea! As it turns out, the weather was just great! Temps heading up into the low 50’s, and the sun was shining with a gentle breeze blowing.

The ‘Fox’ team of Linda and Steve, W9LAN & W9SAN, had chosen to hide out on the eastern side of Allen County at Woodlan K-12 school, just to the west of Woodburn.

At 1:30pm the foxes started transmitting. During the first transmission the fox was accidently set to low power. So although the fox signal was weak at the Cobin Memorial Park start point, the assembled hunters (the team of KC9MUT & KC9EZP, the team of K9OMA, KA9YYI, WB9SSE and ride along hunter Brian Mockenhaupt, and the team of K9LI and his wife Julie plus ride along hunter KD9ITZ) heard it and started heading to the east. Progress was halted for some (more than a half hour for the K9OMA team) by a Norfolk and Southern freight train that came to a halt across several of the grade crossings on roads heading east. (Accusations that the fox team had conspired with N&S engineer Phil Hooper, AB9IZ, to use his company’s trains to impede the hunters was later proved to be fake news!)

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