[SMCARA] fox hut in Calvert County

[Jack Estevez]

This is a snippet from the January WATT ( the Calvert Amateur
Radio Association's newsletter ).

 On The Air – CARA plans a Fox Hunt
Radio Direction Finding commonly called Fox Hunting is the amateur radio
version of hide and seek. A transmitter is hidden in a location that
amateur radio
operators have to locate using a receiver. The complexity of the equipment
used
in a fox hunt can vary from a simple transmitter tracked with an HT to a
transmitter that is able to vary output signal wattage and direction and
tracked
with a Doppler system.
This year CARA members are working on exciting projects related to fox
hunting. Plans are coming together to have an antenna building project.
CARA 3
members will have an opportunity to actually build a tape measure beam for
themselves and use it in an upcoming CARA sponsored fox hunt.
CARA members Shawn N3AE, Ron WA4PRR and Brian KB3WFV have
researched and built a prototype fox hunt antenna. The 3 element beam is
made
from PVC pipe and sections of tape measure. Its design is optimized for
finding
hidden transmitters. This unofficial fox hunt committee has also been
working on
building a fox hunt transmitter.
Initial results are really good. The antenna is very simple
to build and can easily connect to a HT. During trail runs the antenna
connected to a HT allowed the radio operator to locate the
direction a transmitting signal was coming from.
The un-official Fox Hunt Committee will have a demonstration of the Fox
hunt antenna and a fox hunt transmitter at the February 7th CARA general
meeting. The demonstration will coincide with a presentation on basic fox
hunting
technics and a discussion on how to build the 3 element tape measure beam.
CARA members who are interested in building the tape measure beam can sign
up at the February 7th  meeting.
On Saturday May 4th CARA members can put their antennas to a test.
CARA is sponsoring the 1st annual CARA Fox Hunt. A fox hunt transmitter
will
be hidden somewhere in Calvert County and participants using their antennas
and skills learned at the meetings will have to locate the transmitter.
Details
about the event will be announced at the February meeting.
For more information on the Tape measure beam that CARA plans to
build check out this website.

http://theleggios.net/wb2hol/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm

Would you like to see a video on fox hunting? Check out episode number
82 of Ham Nation. At about 12 minutes 20 seconds into the video is a
segment
on fox hunt. Click here

http://twit.tv/show/ham-nation/82

73 - KB3WFV

If you like to see the whole news letter it can be seen at

http://k3cal.org/Newsletters/2013/January%202013.pdf

73 - KB3WUM