Fort Wayne Radio Club

Well, halfway through this beautiful summer, on a clear and muggy 13th of July, three foxhunt teams gathered at the Ft. Wayne Safety Academy as the starting point for this month’s contest. The three teams consisted of Jim & Kim Machamer, KB9’s DOT & DOS plus their nephew Brandon, the team of Steve & Linda Nardin, W9’s SAN & LAN plus grandson Alex, and a team consisting of Charles Ward, KC9MUT, Fred Gengnagel, KC9EZP and Ben Myers, N9IRX.

Robert Dean, KC9UHU single-handedly served as this month’s fox and he was hidden out at the Little Cedar Creek Wildlife Sanctuary at the end of Sunlight Lane off East Fitch Rd. in extreme northern Allen County. He injected 50 watts into a quad at about 16′ as the high power fox, and employed the microprocessor based micro fox rig, running around 10 milliwatts, ensconced in a tree trunk, as the low power fox. Both emitted on 146.430 MHz.

The fox commenced transmitting promptly at 13:30 hours and produced extremely weak, but readable signals at the Safety Academy site indicating that the action was to the north, so to the north everyone proceeded. The Nardin team was following Kim & Jim up Coldwater Rd. way north of Dupont when it spotted Charles and crew buzzing rapidly south on Coldwater as if the Cap-N-Cork were passing out free cold beer samples.

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The July 2014 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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Photos from the FWRC’s operation in both the ARRL June VHF/UHF QSO Party and Field day are now available in our photo gallery.

See the VHF/UHF QSO party photos.

See the Field Day photos.

It is finally here: Field Day weekend! We start tonight with QRP night at Dolnick Learning Center. Run what you brung, bring out your QRP rigs and antennas, see what you can do.

This Saturday morning, there is an optional breakfast, at Cosmos’ restaurant, 3232 St. Joe Ctr Rd., in the Marketplace of Canterbury starting at 7:30 am. This place fills up pretty fast!

At 9:00 am, we start finishing the setup for the event that begun on Friday night.

At 1:30 pm, we will have a pre-start meeting to discuss important features of the event

At 2:00 pm, the Field Day begins!

At 5:30 pm, the Hog Roast gets underway. Cost is $7.00 Bring a side dish or desert.

At 10:00 am Sunday, we have the Field Day Breakfast. Cost is $3.00. Bring your appetite!

At 2:00 pm, the event ends and we start the tear down, take a group picture, and go home and take a shower!

It promises to be a great time! We hope to see all club members come on out!

June, ahh June, when graduations abound and summer vacations start and fox hunters shuck their boots, caps, overcoats and sweatshirts for breezier garb. And thus it was that the first hunt of the summer commenced on a beautiful first day of June with the foxhunt team of Charles Ward, KC9MUT and Fred Gengnagle, KC9EZP, the team of Steve and Linda Nardin, W9’s SAN & LAN, the team of Kim & Jim Machamer, KB9’s DOS & DOT, and the team of Bob Dean, KC9UHU & Dave Spence, K9NDU congregating at Buckner Park as the starting point.

The services of the fox were provided by Jim & Annie Pliett, K9OMA & KA9YYI plus Carole & Al Burke, WB9’s RUS & SSE. Jim & Annie served as the high power fox and were ensconced in their van behind the McDonald’s on Coliseum Blvd. near Speedway Dr. while the low power fox was contained in Carole and Al’s daughter’s van located in the north parking lot of Glenbrook Square near the Barnes & Noble store. The high power fox emitted about 20 watts into Jim’s roof mounted Yagi, while the low power fox emitted about one watt using an HT. Both foxes used 146.280 MHz.

Taunting of the hunters started promptly at 13:30 and we believe was heard by all at Buckner Park. Around thirty minutes into the hunt we noticed that Kim & Jim were snooping around the McDonald’s parking lot where Jim & Annie were located, and in fact found them a little bit after that. Then, forty six minutes into the hunt Bob & Dave drove right past our (low power fox) hide, smiled and waved to us. Thus, they were the first to physically find the fox. A little after that Charles and Fred parked on the north edge of Glenbrook’s lot next to Coldwater, dismounted and started hunting on foot, but they stayed on the north edge of the lot. Steve and Linda were driving and walking-hunting much closer to our Barnes & Noble location, and if fact Steve walked past our location, one row over, several times without spotting us.

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