This fall's Fox Hunt was held on Saturday morning, October 26th. The
starting location was the parking lot of the Xerox Research building
W128 in Webster, New York. Although the day started damp, the weather improved
significantly by the 10am start time and it remained dry for the entire
duration of the hunt. Huntmasters Judy Stonehill (N2KXS) and Fred
Miller (WO2P) reviewed the standard rules and introduced a new "tag method" of
confirming that the fox had been located. Under this new scheme, 2"x
3" individually labeled and waterproofed tags with numbers 1 through 10
were attached to the fox. When a hunter located the fox, he was to silently
remove the lowest numbered tag and proceed to a predetermined location
for confirmation with the huntmasters. This method would hopefully
eliminate the problem seen in past hunts where the first hunter finding the fox
would call in (via a repeater) and while verifying the location, would
disclose the fox location to other nearby hunters.
It took slightly over 32 minutes for the first place team to locate the
fox. "Local knowledge" was a plus here since two of the three first
place team hunters were somewhat familiar with the area. The fox was located
in Casey Park in the town of Ontario about 12 miles due east of the
Webster starting point. It was hidden on the North rim of a very large dirt
bank that was excavated and created back in the 1880's when the area was
strip mined for iron ore. The resulting 1/2 mile long 100 foot wide "lake"
and rough terrain, coupled with various hiking trails, provided numerous
ways to "make a bad decision". The extremely high iron content of the
surrounding hills also resulted in many spots where the fox signal seemed to be
reflected or to be seriously attenuated.
At the post hunt lunch, held at "Tom's Original", it was the consensus
of the assembled hunters that the new "tag method" method worked out quite
well. It added a new dimension to the hunt as various "devious"
methods of guise and deception could be used to throw another team off track.
Individual awards were presented to all the hunters and stories of "I
would have", "I should have", and "I almost" were shared and enjoyed by all.
The only down side of event was the untimely demise of Pete Fornia's HT
that, while performing it duties flawlessly, was inadvertently dropped over
the side of a bridge and on to an electronics-eating rock. Pete was fine,
the HT did not recover (moment of silence here)...
Well, tradition dictates that the first place team organizes the
following year's hunt. During the latter part of the lunch, I could already see
Fred, Brian, and Rick with their heads together, scheming to try to perplex
us on the next hunt. We look forward to what looks to be a challenging and
spirited hunt.
Respectfully submitted,
Fred Miller WO2P Huntmaster
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