Attention hams living in the cedar valley! This coming Sunday, May 5, there will be a foxhunt in Cedar Falls. Gather your gear and meet us in George Wyth State Park. We will be meeting in the far West lot off the North side of Wyth road. The first fox will begin transmitting at 1:00 pm, but players are encouraged to come early to prepare for the game and prep/test their equipment. A test beacon will be placed very near the meeting point well before the first round begins, for players to calibrate their antennas and meters prior to the first hunt. All foxes for this game will be on the 2-meter band. Google map images of the start location are available online at: HTTP://CABLE.VFTP.NET/CVHOUNDS/HUNT002/ This will be an "easy" level game, with 2-4 foxes in play unless we extend the game. Foxes will be using low power and will be hidden within the park area, and will have a generous transmit window. Although they will also be placed within 200 feet of a drivable road, there is an extensive bicycle trail network in the park, and players may prefer to leave their vehicles in the parking lot and set out on bicycle. Final tag will likely require a some light footwork however. When a fox has been tagged by a player, the next fox will be turned on. Other players may move on to the next fox or continue to hunt the previous fox. There will be no trophies for today's game, this is just a warm-up for more frequent games we will be hosting throughout the year. (and possibly into the winter months, weather and players permitting) A friendly competition and good opportunity for everyone to get the bugs and/or dust worked out of their gear and get back into the swing of things. At the conclusion of the game, we'll probably meet at the last fox's location and discuss where to go from there for dinner etc. You do NOT need to be a licensed ham radio operator to participate in the game! Hams are also encouraged to bring their friends and give them an entertaining taste of your hobby. Work as a team, or compete against each other. A small amount of foxhunting gear will be available to borrow for the day, in case you don't have any of your own yet. Radios will be in receive-only mode and anyone can use them, including players without a ham license. At least bring a 2m HT with you if you can, it doesn't need to have an S-meter but that could be helpful. Talk-in will be on the local W0MG repeater 146.94, negative offset, use PL tone 136.5. Or you may raise one of us on simplex (146.52) Simplex will be used for coordination during the game, to avoid tying up the local repeater. Please RSVP (email me!) if you are considering or planning to attend the game, to give me a better idea of how many players will be attending. Program your radios ahead of the hunt. If you'll be using an offset attenuator, remember to program in another set of offset fox frequencies. Fox-1: 146.565 (oelwein) Fox-2: 146.590 (oelwein) Fox-3: 146.430 Fox-4: 144.100 (also Beacon) Fox-5: 144.525 Fox-6: 144.820 Nathan Fisher / N0ZYC email: n0zyc@vftp.net phone: 319-232-2206 (evenings and weekends) And for those of you new to foxunting or looking for construction information, there are many good resources on the internet: http://www.homingin.com/ http://www.qsl.net/nz0i/equipment/equipment.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qHyIiSK7Lo http://www.hawaiirepeaters.net/ardf/ardf.html http://theleggios.net/wb2hol/projects/rdf/rdf.htm Highlights from previous game on April 27, 2013: Murphy was busy but didn't ruin the day. Foxes 5 and 6 refused to work outdoors on the ground without proper enclosures. I am looking for a couple smallish metal boxes to house them in. Fox-3 and Fox-4 are using gutted printer A/B (25 pin) switches. If you have one or two of these to toss my way, I'd appreciate it. I set up the meeting point at the wrong parking lot. Fortunately everyone was able to find their way there quickly. We will be meeting at a more central location for the next game so be sure to take notice of the location marked on the map. I'll try to do the same. ;) Fox-4's sleep time was too long (1 minute tx, 4 minutes sleep) and somehow managed to corrupt its programming and had to be reset. A few hounds were in the area after it went off the air, but they were looking for Fox-3 at the time and think they may have been there due to a bystander tip-off from when I was spotted hiding Fox-4. This fox was hidden 15 feet off a parking lot that connected on the south end of Wyth road, about in the middle of its north stretch. Fox-3 was running 30 sec on, 60 sec off, and was found at the end of Wyth road, about 150 feet from the end of the parking lot, not far from the water. AE0TB and WA0TPN (and passenger) were first to discover this fox. General opinion among the hounds was this time interval was much better than Fox-4, as hunters were frequently stopped and waiting around for the next transmission. The location of both foxes is marked on a map in the HUNT001 web page. Hounds in attendance: W0SJ Stan Johnson KC0GPB Pete Lilju N8TWO Mark and Talyn Colby K0CQH Dave Knittel WA0TPN Scott and Susan Lowe KB0QAV Rich Jones AE0TB Tom Bicket Specific changes for the next game: 1. at least two foxes will already be placed and ready to begin round 1 as soon as the hounds are ready to get started 2. fox behaviors will all be set to shorter intervals. The first two should be 0:30 tx, every 1:00, the following will be every 2:00 and 3:00, to increase difficulty and encourage planning ahead for readings and recording of bearings for triangulation. 3. I will try to have all four foxes operational in time for this game. Suggestions for the hounds on the next game: overall equipment preparedness was very good for a warm-up session. No one experienced equipment breakdown and had to drop out of any hunt. The most common mistakes made by hunters are (1) switching to close-in / on-foot searching before getting within walking distance of the fox, and (2) taking a new reading straight down the road where the last reading pointed. Your searches will go MUCH quicker if you're planning ahead on where to take your next bearing, so that you are just arriving at the new location and breaking out the gear when the next transmission starts. When starting a round, get your second bearing from as far as possible from the first. Avoid driving straight down your bearing and taking your next reading in line with it, those overlapping lines on the map are useless. To plan your next bearing, look down the line on the previous bearing, and find a spot to take another reading that's 30-40 degrees left/right of the previous bearing. That has a MUCH better chance of drawing a new line on your map that will intersect with previous bearings and get you right into the fox's neighborhood almost immediately. Ebay is an excellent source for parts as well as kits and built equipment for foxhunting. Offset attenuators are available in either form at http://www.west.net/~marvin/k0ov.htm and are very useful for dealing with strong signals that are getting directly into your radio, rendering your directional antennn useless. Tone nulling dual dipole designs (aka "handi-finder") are described http://www.k1ttt.net/technote/doppler.html and can be purchased here http://www.handi-finder.com/ Unfortunately, the ramsey kit with the left/right indicator (http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/downloads/manuals/DF1.pdf) is no longer being sold. Construction of simple bi-directional null toners is simple and all critical parts are available locally. There are many web sites with directions for building a tape-measure beam including this one http://www.open-circuit.co.uk/tape.php and this one http://theleggios.net/wb2hol/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm - One person is even selling it as a kit for $29 (shipped) here http://www.west.net/~marvin/wb2hol.htm