All about.......

The 2010 IRA Hamfest Foxhunt

Speedy links.......

Who, What, Where, Why, When...
The Rules
Official Results

The IRA Hamfest Fox Hunt 2010

Two Fox Hunts in One

Doppler Antenna Class:

and

Basic Manual Antenna Class:

12:15 PM Fox Hunt Seminar
12:45 PM Fox Hunt Gathering
1:00 PM Fox Hunt Starts
3:00 Fox Hunt Ends (with Laughter and Tall Tales)

Official Rules

Doppler Antenna Class:

This class is for teams using a computer-aided antenna virtual rotation system. This system gives the hunters a directional indication pointing to the fox as the vehicle travels down the street. The winner in this class will be the team who finds the fox first within the 2-hour contest time.

Winners of the Doppler Antenna Group will receive the awe, admiration and jealous stares from their fellow fox hunters.

Basic Manual Antenna Class:

The basic class includes all hunters not in the Doppler class. This includes those with time-of-arrival antennas, yagi antennas and other manual antennas. The winner in this class will be the team that finds the fox within the two-hour limit and travels the least number of miles to find the fox. A tie in vehicle milage will be decided for the team that finds the fox first.

Winners of the Manual Antenna Class will receive the awe and admiration of their fellow fox hunters along with the first option of being the FOX at the 2011 IRA Hamfest.

Hunt Start Details:

The hunt will start from the main parking lot at the Hudsonville Fairgrounds. We recommend that you move your vehicles up to the ticket booth area of the lot before the starting time. (Parking places will become available as early people leave the hamfest.) The Starting Master will be Jim Leys, KD8CAN. Please give Jim your vehicle odometer and trip milage readings along with the names and call-letters of team members. (Ham license is not required.) Many hunts are determined by the 1/10th digit of the trip milage display, so you will be glad you supplied both numbers.

Gathering time will be at 12:45. The hunt will start at 1:00 pm.

Note: Extra cars and trailers can be left in the main parking lot. The gates will be open when you return from the hunt.

Fox Details:

The Fox Team for this event will be Tom Bosscher (K8TB) and Sheila Bosscher (K8AJ). Sheila's Callsign, K8AJ, will be used for the hunt. The fox hunt frequency will be 145.530 Mhz with a backup frequency of 145.580 Mhz. Tom and Sheila will be using a whip antenna, vertically polorized, and their power level will be fixed. Their car/van/truck will be located within a 7.12 mile radius from the fairgrounds.

New for this hunt, the fox will be using an automated transmission controller. The audio will include random "computer generated" tones which will be easy to recognize along with Sheila's callsign in CW. The transmission sequence will be one minute ON and 2 minutes OFF. After 60 minutes, these transmissions will be complimented with voice transmissions giving hints where needed.

Safety of all participants is very important! Please be extra careful as you park and leave your vehicle to make readings.

Have fun! That's what this is all about.

The Good Old Days Hamfest Foxhunt

is being held in recognition and support for the

CQ Magazine, Thirteenth Annual
World-Wide Foxhunting Weekend

The IRA Hamfest Fox Hunt 2010

OFFICIAL RESULTS

It was a dark and stormy night.

Ok, it was very sunny afternoon. A group of hunters and hunter wannabees gathered at the main gate at 1PM at the Hudsonville Fairgrounds. Right at 1pm, K8AJ and K8TB fired up a 25 year old box of silicon, set it to oscillate a little more than 145 million times a second, and began a 1 min on, 2 min off sequence of taunting the hunters.

The "hidden" location? A county park? A large shopping mall? Nestled in a residential neighborhood?

Nope, Sheila and Tom found some county dirt roads that service some old gravel pits, located on the east side of Jenison, within flying distance of the Jenison International Airport. 12th Avenue is the name of road. Long, dirt poor and a major port for tanker sized mosquitoes. One had to cut across 6 or 7 miles of the dense Jenison residential neighborhoods to even get close to this perverted location..

Anyway, the rules state "he/she who drives the least number of miles"... wins. That would belong to James, K8JHR and Chuck AJ8W. They clocked in at 1 hour and ten minutes, but at only 9.9 miles. Just 2 minutes before them was Laryn, K8TVZ, however, due to his smaller sized tires, Laryn clocked 10.3 miles :)

Up for third is father and son team, Jim, KB8ZGK and Mike, KB8ZGL. They showed up with 1 hour and 27 minutes, with a mileage of 10.7 miles. This is only their second hunt. That indicates a stunning performance. In fourth place, we had Bob, N8UYC and Lee, KD8IUI at 1 hour and 45 minutes with 18.3 miles. Bob said something like, "This is fun, I'll be back".

We had two other teams that did not find the fox after the two hour time limit. That means we had a six car hunt, not bad at all.

Special thanks goes to Mike, W8DER for hosting the IRA swap Fox Hunt. Mike gave a talk to the a group just preceding the "tip off" time.

Of note, this hunt was sponsored by the IRA, and as such, James and Chuck get to find and transmit from a hidden location at next year's swap.

We are looking forward to it.

vy 73 de Sheila K8AJ and Tom K8TB