Fort Wayne Radio Club

It’s once more time to dust off our roof-mounted mobile and hand-held direction-finding (DF) Yagis, check our DF receivers, and upgrade our maps of Allen County in preparation of the 2018 fox (hidden transmitter) hunting season. The first hunt of the season will occur in early February with hunts planned for the following dates through November:

Fox hunters gather near Daryl B. Cobin Memorial Park (in the former K-Mart parking lot) off Coliseum near the Lakeside Golf Course. 

Each hunt starts at 1330, with whoever is serving as the fox transmitting a high power fox signal, strong enough to be heard at Corbin Park, on 146.430 MHz, for one minute.  After that, the fox transmits a high-power signal every five minutes, immediately followed by a low-power (microprocessor-controlled) hidden fox transmission, also on 146.430 MHz, for one minute. The low-power fox transmission is a cw signal. Generally speaking, the low-power fox is camouflaged to make it difficult to detect visually.

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The January 2018 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.”

The December 2017 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.”

The November foxhunt, the last one of the year, was held on 5 November, 2017. Three foxhunting teams awaited the start of the contest at Cobin Memorial Park. They consisted of the team of Charles Ward, KC9MUT, Fred Gengnagle, KC9EZP and Tim Hearld, KE8ECF, a visitor from Galesburg Michigan, the team of Steve and Linda Nardin, WA9’s SAN and LAN, and the team of Jim and Annie Pliett, K9OMA and KA9YYI plus Carole and Al Burke, WB9’s RUS and SSE. Jim was trying out a new piece of software he had acquired that depicted our GPS derived current location on a Google Maps type display and allowed him to draw vectors from our current location on the true DF bearings we were getting off the roof mounted quad antenna. The idea was that after a few bearings were taken the crossing point of the bearings would indicate the general location of the fox, i.e., it was quasi automated triangulation.

Their prey was provided by Don Glick, K9LI who was ensconced a little over seven miles from the starting point at Buckner Park off Bass Rd. The weather was very freaky around the start time of the hunt with torrential downpours occurring off and on. (Weather Underground was forecasting ¾ of an inch, just between 1:00 and 2:00 pm, and further significant downpour through the rest of the day)! With all of the rain predicted Don decided to hide the microfox in the trunk of his car rather than put it out in the park thus likely preventing (somewhat) the drenching if not downright drowning of the hunters.

As it was, Don parked his high power equipment under an open-sided pavilion which provided some protection until the rain was driven horizontally by the high winds accompanying the storm. Needless to say he got WET and cheered his pursuers on. His high power fox consisted of a 25 watt radio driving a soggy four element beam situated about seven feet of the ground.

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The November 2017 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.”