In our local club we have 2 foxhunts each year and today was the spring event. N3CRT, last events winner, was responsible for placing the transmitter and this time he placed 2 of them, automated, which each transmitted for 1 min and waited for 2 mins before transmitting. So every 2 mins, one of the transmitters was broadcasting. They were placed about 1/4 mile from each other.

It took a while for my team (included K2ZC and KC2QGL) to even hear the transmission, but once we got it, we could get pretty close. We got out a few times to try and determine the direction and we were usually correct. We used a combination of methods from vertical mobile antennas to hear the signal, a more directional antenna that K2ZC made up, and just a HT and its antenna. We got out of the car at a local park where the signal was very loud but it wasn’t the right location. Back in the car for a bit more tracking until we got close enough to start looking on foot.

While we searched for it, we heard that someone else had found the other hidden transmitter. We got close to where the transmitter was and could hear it without any antenna attached to a HT and we found it on the next transmission. I don’t know if doing geocaching for many years helped me look for things that just seemed out of place, but regardless, we found it!

We all then met up at a local pizza place to have some drink, food and talk about the hunt. I look forward to the fall hunt and maybe I’ll look for or make up some equipment to use.

73,
K2DSL