4/24/1999

Good time was had by all at our fox hunt last Saturday morning.
Dennis, KB8ZQZ hid for us, and we had 2 teams of hunters: Scott, WD8SDW (and his son) and Steve, kb8ukc in one car, and Gary, KC8MAD and myself, AA8LF in the 2nd car.

As I mentioned in the previous notification about the hunt, we started
from the parking lot in the field north of the Armory.
This proved interesting, as there was a team of weekend warriors along with
a real live tank. They noticed our interest, and we were allowed to go inside it
and check it out, which lead to me pondering what a marvelous fox
hunting vehicle it would make, and though Dennis is a good friend of
mine, it did paint an interesting picture of a search and destroy fox hunt :-)

In spite of our warnings to Dennis about the tank, he started the main transmitter shortly
after 10:00 am, and the hunt was on. Both teams took bearings from the parking lot
and compared and agreed which direction it was.
I offered my plastic covered hunting map to Scott and Steve to show them the boundaries,
and they showed me their GPS/APRS and Doppler.
(I later found out Scott had a qso with my xyl where he said they had
the equipment to beat me in the hunt)...

Dennis was in Legg park, on VanAtta, just north of Grand River. My initial
bearing was fairly close, but we spent a lot of time in Okemos, trying to
differentiate between reflections and the real thing. end results:
WD8SDW & kb8ukc 25.65 miles
AA8LF & KC8MAD 14.8 miles

I checked the odometer on the way back to the field, and the fox was 9.6 miles
from the start by the most direct root, so our reflections cost us about 5 miles.
Scott and Steve got there well before we did, but payed a price in mileage.
An on foot hunt was had afterwards, with two 300 mw xmtrs running. Both
teams found the first one with equivalent time, and yours truly found the
2nd one first, as well as offered helpful hints about where it wasn't to
Scott and Steve :-), who found it shortly there after, in spite of my help.
The weather for this hunt was perfect, what a day.

We talked for a while after the hunt, and decided to run the main xmtr
for the mobile hunts on a continuous basis, perhaps with some time outs
now and then to let the finals cool down, as a lot of time was lost waiting
for the 15 second signal every minute. When I was trying to figure out
which peaks were reflections it often took 3 or four cycles of the
transmitter. Perhaps a 30 or 40 seconds on, 30/20 off would work as well also.
Scott, WD8SDW offered to hide for the next hunt, depending on his schedule.
Several people have mentioned that Saturday mornings are a bad time for them to hunt.
I'd like to schedule the next one for a different time,
and I'm open for suggestions. Evening hunts are fine, but most parks
close at dusk, so the earlier we start the better. Possibly we could start
on a Saturday afternoon at 4:30?

Please take a moment and let me know what days/times work best for you
in general. I'll try and schedule in about two weeks based on that info.

Good hunting to all.

John AA8LF

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