March 2014 Fox Hunt

The March foxhunt was run by the OW/BLI/FVXN/Pierre team and started in the car park at the eastern end of Ruffey Park Lake.

The first hunt was on 10 metres with the transmitter hidden in a park off the end of Orchard Grove in Warrandyte. Melway 34 G3. First in was Darrien followed 7 minutes later by the CI, FOX and BLN teams with MZ a minute later. BLN may have done better if Marta had been shown how to use the OW sniffer before she had to use it. We ran carrier for this event, from an old valve transmitter I’d built decades ago for testing 10m loops. It seemed a pity not to use it in an actual hunt. The need to carry a 100AH battery to drive the genemotor high tension supply limited how far we would carry it into the bush!

The second hunt was also 10M but this time it was SSB to make things a bit more like Mt Gambier. Location was in the general area of Laughlin avenue in Nunawading. 48 E10. First in again was the FAST team, followed 3 minutes later by 3CI, then MZ 2 mins later, then BLN 4 minutes later and then FOX 15 minutes after FAST.

The 3rd hunt on 10M was in a small fairly clear area between Aurum Cr and Hygeia Pde in Ringwood North 49E6. Fox was first in very closely followed by FAST, MZ and CI. BLN were unfortunately outside the 10min time limit. Vacuum tubes and the genemotor once again supplied the 5 watts of RF. I promise to build something more modern to use the next time I run a 10m hunt.

The 4th hunt was in a fenced off area off Reilly St in Ringwood. 49H11. This looked like a good spot when we checked earlier in the week but when Henk and Di got there they found the soccer field next door ablaze with lights which spoilt things a bit. VK’s 3CI and 3FOX  arrived at much the same time so started the clock, with Fast +3, MZ, +6 and BLN +7 minutes later.

The next hunt was a 3 legged affair using foxO TX’s for the second and third legs. The location was Ringwood Lake Park, 49 J/K8. We let this event run until all the hounds had found all transmitters, some more than once,  so considerable normalizing was done to arrive at the final score which was FAST with 0 points, BLN with 1 point, FOX and MZ both with 6 points and CI with 10.

The last hunt was not at a planned spot but as we were a bit later than hoped for at this stage of the night I drove back to somewhere in the vicinity of supper and found a high spot. I must have dozed off a little at this point as the next thing I was aware of was a loud banging on the roof of the car. Bug… I thought, must have parked under tree which has dropped a branch in the roof. How am I going to explain a second occurrence of this to the insurance company? Actually it was Bruce trying to tell me he’d found the fox. I made him convince me this was the case which a bit mean of me considering it was about 2m in front of the car and raining. He was very closely followed Roger I think  from the MZ team with FOX +3  and FAST and BLN +4 mins.  These are the correct times. The ones I read out initially at supper were actually the scores for the first leg of the previous ,multileg, hunt. As a result the final scores are slightly different to those quoted at supper. Positions remain the same.

Thanks to all for coming and particularly to Di who did most of the supper preparation. I should also thank Pierre who did most of the heavy battery transport.

Team Hunt 1 Hunt 2 Hunt 3 Hunt 4 Hunt 5 Hunt 6 Hunt 7 Hunt 8 Total Place
VK3CI 7 3 1 0 10 0 21 2
VK3FOX 7 15 0 0 6 3 31 4
VK3MZ 8 5 1 6 6 1 27 3
VK3FAST 0 0 1 3 0 4 8 1
VK3BLN 7 9 10 7 1 4 38 5

regards Ewen

 

 

 

 

One Reply to “March 2014 Fox Hunt”

  1. Ewen, I think the 2nd last paragraph should read:

    …..Actually it was Bruce trying to tell me he’d found the fox. I made him convince me this was the case which a bit mean of me considering it was about 2m in front of the car and raining. He was very closely followed Roger I think from the MZ team with FOX +3 and FAST and BLN +4 mins. These are the correct times…..

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