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Activities of the NORTH EAST RADIO GROUP (NERG), Inc.

HIDDEN TRANSMITTER HUNTING

Once upon a time there was a group of amateur radio operators that were active
in fox hunting around Melbourne and met each year to compete at
the SERG convention in Mount Gambia, South Australia.

After a while the group did rather well at winning many of the events and
soon required a name to put on the trophy. (Event Photos)

As many of the group lived in the north-east suburbs of Melbourne,
the name North-East Radio Group was chosen.

Many NERGs are still active in hidden transmitter hunts, which come in two forms:

Fox hunting
(not to be confused with anything involving dogs and horses!)
Fox hunting is a team activity, requiring the use of a vehicle to track down a hidden transmitter which may be located many kilometres away.   Often the location is not accessible by vehicle and the hunt must be completed by one or more members of the team on foot.  Several hunts are held consecutively, either as a day hunt, or more often as a night hunt.
Regular fox hunts are held in Melbourne on the 3rd Friday night of each month.  Popular hiding spots include the centre of large patches of blackberries, on the other side of rivers, suspended under bridges, up trees, inside specially constructed props that look exactly like normal road side hardware, in rubber ducks floating in a park lake, buried under the sand at the beach, or even inside Santa's sack while wandering about a busy shopping centre handing out sweets at christmas!

ARDF
(Amateur Radio Direction Finding)
is a competition similar to Rogaining or Orienteering, however, in this case there are no waypoints marked on the map - the competitor must find the transmitters using a directional antenna and receiver.  The transmitters operate concurrently within a area of a few square kilometres.  The competitors may locate them in any order.  The winner is the competitor that finds a given number of transmitters in the shortest time.  ARDF events follow strict international rules, with national and international competitions at regular intervals.
ARDF events are held during the day.
Transmitters are not particularly well hidden - in fact they have a bright orange orienteering flag mounted above them which must be visible from a short distance - very different from the Fox hunt transmitters.

For more information, please send email to: [email protected]

Last updated 8/03/2001