April 25th 1999
invitation, rules, hints, links
open images for larger size picture
XARC's first hidden transmitter hunt of 1999 was great fun and challenging for all. Fellow foxhider Bob Scott and I arranged a beautiful sunny day for the hunt. We started in Perinton Park and could just barely hear the fox. Four teams participated:
K2AS, Brian and Greg 
W2SKY, Peter, WA6UCY, Doc and K2OID, Bob
KE2QW, John and Sharon 
WO2P, Fred, and N2KXS, Judy 
WO2P and K2AS had the biggest antennas, but had trouble hearing the fox from the start. They did hear it on their HTs though so we started hunting at 12:31 PM. Several teams stayed in the park for a while trying to get a good bearing on the fox, which transmitted on a semi-random interval ; ^ ) . 
Fred and Judy had a quad mounted on a van, with a rotator control mounted inside. Very cushy. 
Brian was hand-turning a large Yagi while standing in the back of his pickup truck (only while parked I hope). 
Doc and Peter were testing some kind of water-skiing/mop/dowsing rod/dipole contraption. 
Bob had a handi-finder type of gadget on his HT. 
Most of the teams stayed in the Fairport-Perinton area because the signal was fairly weak everywhere else. The rolling hills provided high points to take readings, and the signal could change drastically from one hill to another. When people starting looking around Casa Larga Vineyard and Woodcliffe they were getting very warm.
Bob and I had hidden the fox near a hiking trail in Perinton, "Trail Town USA". A hill between the fox and the start effectively blocked most of the signal and made it difficult to track down.
We used the rubber duck antenna that Fred supplied with the fox that he designed. Bob sneakily covered the fox with pine tree branches so it was hard to see from the trail.
Just when I was beginning to worry that we hid the fox too well, K2AS was the first team to find the fox at 1:59.
The team of OID, SKY and UCY were next at 2:54. At 3:30 Bob and I went to retrieve the fox, a little disappointed that the two remaining teams hadn't reported in. I had given a couple vague clues over the air.
As Bob and I hiked up the trail to the fox, we heard the morse code message from the fox, but we didn't have our radios on! We both thought we were just imagining the sound after hearing it for three hours, when we spotted Judy and Fred very close to our fox. We snuck up on them just in time to see them find the fox. 
John and Sharon were very close to the fox, driving right by the trail entrance on route 250, but never zeroed in on it. 
We all met afterward for food, drinks and awards, 
and agreed that we want to do this more often. We'll definitely have some lunchtime hunts at Xerox and maybe some more casual ones on the weekend.
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From: Karz, Robert S
Sent: Monday, April 26, 1999 4:17 PM
Subject: RE: Foxhunt results
As one of the participants, I'd like to thank Jon and Bob for a great job. Doc (WA6UCY), Pete (W2SKY) and I had a great time with a hunt that was challenging from beginning to end, and I'm sure the other participants felt the same.
Jon didn't mention, but he did a nice job "customizing" the trophies as well.
73
Bob, K2OID
