[HIham] National Foxhunting Weekend

[Ron Hashiro]

>From Russell Houlton, WH7O

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It's that time of the year again!  No not summer, but CQ Magazine's Foxhunt
Weekend.

What better way to celebrate then to have a fox hunt?

This will be the same as last year's.

What's a fox hunt?  The "fox" is a hidden transmitter.  Your job is to find
it.

The fox frequency is 147.52 MHz. (That's right, 1MHz up from simplex calling
frequency).

There will be two foxes.  One will transmit "MOE" in MCW and the other will
transmit "MOI".  Each will transmit for 1 minute out of every 5.

The foxes will be somewhere between the Kalihi and Kahala Mall and located
in a public area.  What are you looking for?  The fox will be a gray ammo
can with a 19" whip antenna.  It will not be disguised or hidden, but it may
be placed in such a way as to minimize attracting unwanted attention.  (Like
vandals, or worse, the bomb squad.)  It will be in a public area, so there's
no need to go onto private property.

The fox will be placed late Friday night, May 10th and removed around 10PM
Sunday night May 12th, so find some time to join in the fun!  Once the fox
has been placed, and I can check the range, I'll send another email
announcing a "starting point" where you're guaranteed to pick up the
"scent".  But don't worry, if you cruse down the main streets, you're bound
to hear it.

On top of the fox will be a "control code".  Write down that code and the
location and email it back to me at mailto:wh7o@arrl.net to be placed on the
list of winners.  (In case that email got filtered, that's my callsign, wh7o
at arrl.net.)

The winner will be the one with the fewest dents and scratches in their car.
Seriously, take care that you are not distracted in your driving.  There
have been cases on the mainland where solo operators have totaled their cars
trying to do too many things at once.  You may want to team up and have one
person driving and the other operating any mobile direction finding
equipment.

Sorry, no prizes this time, other then the fun and practice.

For tips on RDF (Radio Direction Finding) techniques and equipment, check
out these links:

A crash course in RDF http://members.aol.com/homingin/equipment.html  You
may not need anything more then your HT and your body!  I've done very well
with this simple method.

A good staring point: http://www.homingin.com

A voice of local experience in projects:  http://www.qsl.net/kh7o/rdf.html

One popular project is the "tape measure" antenna.  Simple construction, and
you can find all the parts at Home Depot, build it and still have time to
hunt all in one weekend.
http://home.att.net/~jleggio/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm  Who says building
things has to be hard?  But be careful! You might get bit by the homebrewing
bug!