What is T-Hunting & ARDF?
About Us
News & Announcements
Upcoming Hunts
Rules
Previous Hunt's Report
Hunt Report Archive
Pictures
Equipment Ideas
2001 ARDF Championships
Links
Contact Us!

Previous Hunt's Report

T-hunt report for: Sunday, June 1,2003
Huntmaster: Jack, KD5OEO

T-hunt report for: Saturday, May 18,2003
Huntmaster: Dick, W5UFZ

The Rotating Fox

There were seven teams hunting, a good turnout. The fox was located at the east end of a park at Morris and Osuna in the northeast heights of Albuquerque. It was placed on a rotating platform which rotated at 5.5 RPM. The fox was running .7 watt into a 3 element arrow yagi. The cycle was 20 seconds transmit, 20 seconds off, 20 seconds transmit...

The fox was very loud at the start point, but something funny was happening. Every 10 seconds the signal peaked and then dropped off abruptly. What could possibly be happening? The hunters quickly deduced that the antenna must be turning or there was a variable, timed attenuator in the circuit. There were reflections from the nearby mountains but everyone did find the fox.

As an aside, the huntmaster set up a QRP HF station with Buddipole antenna, in hopes of working the HF Pack stations at Dayton, but the propagation wasn't there. We worked California. Thanks to Brian, KD5VLJ, for his help in setting everything up.

Jack, KD5OEO, is the winner and next huntmaster. See you at the next one............'73 de Dick W5UFZ

T-hunt report for: Sunday, May 4,2003
Huntmaster: Mike, K5ATM and Debbie KD5LOK

aka

"The Detour Hunt"

Debbie (kd5lok) and I (k5atm) headed out Saturday afternoon to look for a place to hide the fox the next day.  I had just finished building my Montreal 525 Fox and was looking for a place to hide in plain sight.  We turned the corner and saw a road barrier laying the in the weeds -- and it came to me.  Problem was ....who was going to be the one to stuff it in the van! So who loaded it up? -- Lets just keep that a secret.

After getting the barricade home I disassembled the sign and mounted the fox to the back. A dipole antenna was stretched diagonally from one corner to the other. I then covered the back with black paper to keep anyone looking between the layers of the assembled sign from seeing any wires.

I then cut a spacer out of 3/4 inch plywood. and distressed the outside edges with the claw part of a hammer, old motor oil, and dirt.  Note that the hole that housed the fox was hidden by the top spreader of the sign's stand.

	It is a little hard to see in the picture above but the fox is on the left and 4ea 9 volt batteries in parallel are to the right.   The whole thing was reassembled into the following:
Assembled transmitter inside detour sign

The site we ended up selecting was at the east end of Rover (which is just north of Indian School) near the open space.  The site is 7.3 miles east of the start point by an arroyo.  The location had alot going for it.  The arroyo ran under the road and the west side of the street had metal guard rails and a metal sidewalk with large opening for rain water to flow through.  Our thought was the hunters would take the hot spot near the sign as a reflection off the metal and go down into the arroyo.  Oh yea ... the road was in the process of being resurfaced so a detour sign fit in well.

We placed several decoy transmitters in the area.  A (deactivated) fox box with a rubber duck was placed under the metal sidewalk.  Another fox box was placed in a nearby bush.  A long piece of thin black coax was wound around a branch in the bush directly behind the sign then run along the ground -- somewhat hidden under dirt and leaves. Here is a wider view of the west side of the road

I was not able to get anything close to the 0.8W advertised at the Montreal site (which I am sure is my fault) so we set up a standard fox on the east side of the road and told the hunters to track the fox transmitting on our standard 145.565 until they were able to hear a second fox on 145.62.  They were then to stop tracking the "565" fox and go directly to the "62" fox. Not much of an attempt to make it hard to find the hunt site was made.  We ran the "565" fox at 1 watt through a multi-element beam and tried to get a bounce off Sandia Crest but I don't think it worked well.  We did get a bit of a reflection off the near by hills and many of the hunters ended up going a little bit to far north at first.

For those of you that don't know much about the Albuquerque T-hunters -- our club fox boxes use the Montreal Fox Controller so the 525 fox sounded just like a standard fox.  These standard foxes use a 7AH gell cell, an ICOM T2H transmitter and are housed in a standard ammo box.  Given all this I knew the hunters would be on a mission to find an ammo can. We hid our car a block and a half away and set up chairs in the arroyo out of sight and waited. Jerry (wb8wfk) was first on site.  We did not even hear him arrive.  He called on the coordination frequency saying he found the fox but could not find us.  I stuck my head up and after a short conversation convinced Jerry he needed to keep looking.  5-10 minutes later Mike (k5mje) arrived.  He was followed within a few minutes by Dick (w5ufz), Steve (aa5cj) and Joe (ab5yc).  All the hunters circled the bush behind the sign for 10 minutes or so trying to see where the fox was hidden.  They kept moving the sign out of the way so they could see into the bush better!  A couple of people looked at the sign pretty closely but I think they just could not believe a fox could be hidden inside.  They finally got too suspicious and started taking the sign apart!

Front	All good scores -- and I think this was KI7AB's first hunt! So it looks like the next Huntmaster is Dick, w5ufz. And yes ... the sign was reassembled back into its original configuration and returned to its original location! For those that are interested, here are front and back views of the Montreal 525 Fox.
Back

T-hunt report for: Sunday, April 6, 2003
Huntmaster: Brian, N5ZGT and Katelyn

Hello Everyone, What a day for Katelyn and I -- and all of you! It was a fantastic afternoon for an Albuquerque car hunt. There was a slight breeze for the most part, very sunny and somewhat warm. And I had a few tricks up my sleeve, which made it all the better. We hid south of the airport, just 50 yards northwest of the city dump entrance.

The transmitter was a regular T-box that I built up using a PicCon controller. Power was 1 watt, but I threw in a 6-dB pad, which dropped the power down to 250-mW. The antenna, which the old-timers are familiar with was a 14-element yagi polarized vertically and pointed towards the top of the Sandia Crest in plain sight. The antenna was only about 4 feet above the ground on a mast that was staked into the dirt. After being a few minutes late to check SWR and other things, the transmitter was placed on the air -- nothing came out of the hunters on 146.90 (the talk-in repeater) so I assumed that it was readable from the start point.

looking down the antenna at Sandia Crest

Secondary transmitter hidden on a fencepost

I also had a secondary transmitter on the air for sniffing on 146.565 MHz. It is also a new toy of mine called the SquawkBox. It was hidden on a fencepost that had some kind of PVC attached to it, partially exposed. It transmitted once a minute with a voice message, reminding the hunters that there is that 1/10th-mile-per-minute sniffing penalty. There was a piece of wood propped up on the primary transmitter that had the frequency of the second transmitter written on it. This was done since many hunters call it a success once they see just the antenna -- the note on the wood, coupled with the sniffing penalty, was done to remind them that this activity is a transmitter hunt -- not an antenna hunt! HI.

My intention was to have a 3rd transmitter on the air for sniffing, but arrangements with Mike K5ATM to provide me with one fell through due to his responsibilities as Scoutmaster with his Troop outing, and a message left with Jerry WB8WFK apparently wasn't received -- that's okay, as 2 transmitters seemed to be plenty for today! Katelyn and I were waiting for a long time, sipping on coke, eating some cookies, watching a few F16s playing with each other, listening to the radio and shooting trash with our BB gun -- and nobody showed up, nor called on 146.90 for help. Perhaps our RF was well behaved and did what we wanted as planned! Turns out, our plan was a little TOO successful.

"piece of wood propped up on the primary transmitter that had the frequency of the second transmitter written on it"

Keeping an eye out for T-Hunters trying to sneak in with binoculars, I noticed a quail running across the street ahead. Trying to spot it again, it turns out Steve AA5CJ scared it while hiking in at 2:56pm. I announced he was spotted on the radio and told him his penalty had begun. After some time he found the fox (actually the antenna) and finally the transmitter with the wood note on it. Next came Scott KC5VVB at 3:55pm. He drove right up to my truck, so I verbally advised him of his sniffing penalty once both feet hit the ground. Off he went, and it looked like he walked past the transmitter a few times with the big-ol' beam in plain sight. He finally found it. Finally, at around 4:15pm came Joe AB5YC, who also drove right up to my truck. He took off to sniff it, carefully eyeing every bush along the way. He too was successful in finding it (familiar antenna, huh Joe?). The primary transmitter did exactly what I wanted it to do -- cause a nice bounce off the mountain with the surrounding terrain protecting me frombeing heard directly at the start point. Steve got a hint of my signal directly from the start point, and hunted under suspicion that I was indeed down south. Scott and Joe fell for my trick and went to Tramway. Scott actually was going back and forth on Tramway, hunting my bounce and then my direct signal. When he came back down to the southwest, my direct signal disappeared. Finally he came all the way to my location, ready to give up. Joe went up to Placitas! Dick W5UFZ, Brian KD5VLJ and Chan WB1Q got skunked, as they too headed towards the mountain and could hear nothing else. Dan KD5NTG also got skunked.

What about the secondary transmitter? All who arrived found it, but with some difficulty. Everyone except for Steve used their Ron Graham receivers, which are AM receivers -- they have plenty of weaknesses which I capitalized on. I had to nudge each of them away from the primary transmitter for them to hear it well enough to sniff it. Another difficulty was the fact that it only transmitted the short message at an interval of once per minute -- a little too long of an interval. I'll have to shorten it up. Steve had no problems with his HT and beam. Everyone then enjoyed cokes, party snack mix and some homemade chocolate chip cookies! Great job to Steve, Scott and Joe. Glad you hung in their Joe, despite driving a whole lot! As for Dick, Brian, Chan and Dan, superb effort. This was a very difficult hunt from the first bearing all the way to sniffing out the secondary transmitter. The time penalty really had no effect on anyone. It was fun! Can't wait to hide again -- and I'm still planning on hosting an all-day, multi-transmitter hunt sometime after the next national ARDF championships (per Jerry's request).

Steve AA5CJ 11.2 miles, + 0.3 mile penalty = 11.5 miles WINNER!!! Scott KC5VVB 36.4 miles + 1 mile penalty = 37.4 miles Joe AB5YC 72 miles + 1 mile penalty = 73 miles Dick W5UFZ, Brian KD5VLJ and Chan WB1Q Did Not Finish Dan KD5NTG Did Not Finish So here are the final scores, with the time penalties:

Till then, mark your calendars for the next hunt, as Steve AA5CJ is the huntmaster. And please tell us how you did today! Post your story and observations on the listserve, too! 73, Brian, N5ZGT