Author: brucep

After mixed numbers throughout the year the Melbourne Fox-Hunt Group came out in force last Friday. The highest number of teams since February 1999 hunted the VK3ZPF Christmas hunt.

Eight teams assembled at the start location, outside Disk Smith Electronics in Springvale, where a simple instruction sheets was handed out.

The first hunt, started at 8:15 and the eight teams had a good signal to chase. VK3VT joined in midway through the first hunt. The first transmitter for the night was hidden in a new area of the Lynbrook housing estate. First in was VK3BLI followed by VK3TVB and VK3PW. All other teams, except VK3VT, managed to find the fox inside the 10 minute time limit.

The second hunt, a three legged event, promised some fast and furious action. The first leg was in a large shrub at John Lindsay Reserve in Patterson Lakes. First in was VK3PW beating VK3TVB, VK3HDF and VK3VT by less than 20 seconds. The second leg was at the end of Brigantine Court, about 800 metres from the first transmitter. The order of arrival here was quite a surprise with some teams making considerable gains on their first leg performance. Based on leg time VK3HDF was followed by VK3BLI, VK3VT and VK3YQN coming in forth after showing up last at the previous leg. The third leg was down a bicycle track at the eastern end of Armstongs Rd Seaford. The order of arrival was again shuffled with VK3BLN taking the first place on leg time
followed by VK3TVB and VK3PW. Teams VK3HDF, VK3TXO and VK3HBD has considerable trouble with this leg of the hunt and earned themselves 10 points.

The third hunt for the evening was a single leg hunt located at The Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve in Frankston North. Most teams coming in from the north had quite a run to the top of the hill with VK3HDF making it ahead of VK3BLN and VK3YQN. All other teams except VK3PW located the fox before time was called and the hounds regrouped.

For the last event the fox was caught out by a police blitz at the final location for the evening. Not wishing to bring undue attention to the hounds, a new supper location was found and the last transmitter was hidden close by.

All hounds except VK3YQN found the final transmitter with VK3TVB narrowly beating VK3VT, VK3BLN and VK3TXO to the lair.

Supper was at Ballam Park on Cranbourne Rd Frankston. VK3YQN had lodged a protest that they were unaware of the frequency of the last transmitter and called for the last hunt to be discarded. The VK3ZPF team considered long and hard the implications of discarding this hunt and, since the final result was not greatly altered, it was included in the evening’s totals.
The following results were announced:

VK3TVB 10 points
VK3BLN 13 points
VK3PW  17 points
VK3BLI 23 points
VK3HDF 24 points
VK3VT  24 points
VK3YQN 35 points
VK3TXO 35 points
VK3HBD 46 points

The final results for year 2000:

VK3HDF            36
VK3VR/JMD/MZ/TVB  32
VK3BLN            28
VK3YQN            24
VK3PW             16
VK3HBD            15
VK3VT             11
VK3OW/BLI         11
VK3ZPF            10
VK3TKQ            5
VK3TXO            1

Congratulations to the VK3HDF team for their outstanding effort for the year.

Seven teams congregated on Lytton St Carlton on a mild Friday night. Shortly after 2015 signal was heard on 2m and the hounds were away.

First, a note on multi-leg scoring. All hounds were required to find the first leg before proceeding to the second, even after ten minutes were called. The second leg was scored on the basis of leg time, ie the team that found the second leg in the shortest nett time scored ‘0’ and the other teams’ scores were calculated using the difference between their respective leg times and the winner’s. This method prevents the possibility of short cuts and is intended to maximise fairness.

Hunt 1: two legs, 1a under the control of Bruce VK3TJN and Ian VK3YQN and hidden on a railway embankment near the Maribyrnong River, Melway 2TC7. VK3PW was first in, followed by VK3HDF, VK3VR and VK3HBD.

Leg 1b was under the control of Roger VK3HRL, concealed near an unmarked track close to National Rail Corporation’s West Melbourne fuelling point, Melway 2TA11. First in was VK3VR, followed by PW and HDF. BLN reported equipment problems, while HBD and ZPF simply didn’t get in at all.

Hunt 2: A single-legged event, with the “normal” fox concealed in a small alley behind the old Brunswick Market, Melway 29G7. VK3HBD recorded their first ever event win (well done), followed by ZPF and HDF, with VR being the only other team to find the fox.

Hunt 3: Another two-legged event. Roger VK3HRL ran the first leg, in a cul de sac in Newmarket St Northcote 30H10. VT was first in, followed by VR, HBD, HDF and PW. VR should have done a little better but drove straight past me as I was standing in the open – oh well. PW managed to upset a resident and it was left to me to handle PW’s PR. ZPF found the fox as a (a pre-requisite for the next leg), but were out of time. BLN at this stage were still at West Melbourne fixing the Kimberley.

Hunt 3b was run by Bruce VK3TJN, near a bike path under the Chandler Hwy bridge (north bank of the Yarra, near AMCOR, 31B12). Ian YQN and assistant stood in a well-lit clearing and successfully distracted most hounds, who forgot to trust their sniffers and pursued the obvious suspects. Bruce struggled to contain himself as hound after hound ran straight past the fox. Eventual finders were VT, VR, HDF, HBD, PW, ZPF, but nett leg time resulted in HDF taking the honours from VT, VR, PW, ZPF and HBD. BLN still broken, but trying to catch up with the pack.

Hunt 4: A single legged hunt, with the fox being hidden in a playground in Surrey Park Box Hill 47B11. VT skillfully marooned their Commode wagon on a large rock, but most other teams took a conventional approach to this event. VR took the honours, followed by HDF, HBD, VT, PW, and BLN (at last!). ZPF had taken the equipment problem baton from BLN and hunted no further.

Hunt 5: Two-legged hunt, culminating in Supper at Bruce’s. The first leg was hidden near a rock pool alongside Damper Creek Mt Waverley 61D10. Hounds appeared from all sides, but first in was VR, followed within seconds by HDF and later by BLN, VT, PW and HBD.

The second leg fox was turned on, but being a low-powered fox was unable to be heard by some teams. On realising this, teams were told to head towards supper (within 500 metres of the supper fox, near Gardiner’s Creek 60J8)), but VR had headed for high ground instead. The result was that HDF was followed in by HBD, PW, VT and BLN. VR’s leg time put them 14 minutes ( = 10) after HDF. Needless to say that was considerable discussion afterwards…

Supper was well-attended, and lasted a while – probably due to the very mild weather and fairy bread. Most teams seemed happy with the format, and although the HDF team won the night, congratulations went to VK3HBD for their best performance of the year (and in living memory?).

Scores are tabulated below:

	Hunt 1a	Hunt 1b	Hunt 2	Hunt 3a	Hunt 3b	Hunt 4	Hunt 5a	Hunt 5b
VK3HDF	1	6	3	5	0	1	1	0       17	1st
VK3BLN	10	10	10	10	10	8	3	9       70	7th
VK3VR	1	0	7	1	2	0	0	10      21	2nd
VK3VT	5	10	10	0	2	3	5	8       43	5th
VK3PW	0	3	10	9	2	4	7	7       42	4th
VK3HBD	1	10	0	3	8	2	8	6       38	3rd
VK3ZPF	10	10	3	10	3	10	10	10      66	6th

Hunt 1 was at the Western edge of Box Hill Golf Course; this short hunt was protected by a nearby creek and two very high cyclone fences. First to appear on this hunt was VK3BLN (?).  Shortly after this a torch appeared on the wrong side of the two cyclone fences. The torch holder moved up 50m and then back again and realising there was no way through proceeded to scale the first fence. As he crossed one of the greens on the golf course he realised there was another fence ahead of him and climbed that too. Ten out of ten for effort…but minus several million for crossing private property; this runner was disqualified for that event. Fortunately another member of his team found a legal way in only 1-2 minutes later, so very little was lost.  

Hunt 2 was a two leg hunt on 144.425 and 145.3 MHz. The JMD/VR fox was tucked down a long dead-end court that backed onto some nearby parkland; unfortunately (for the hounds), there was no way through from the court to the parkland. The YDF team was well ahead of the pack here, followed by the OW team. The YQN and ZPF teams dropped runners in the park and had major problems retrieving them…only just making it to the fox before time was up on the first leg.  

Meanwhile Ian (3MZ) was moving into position for the second leg. This leg was particularly interesting for the first 2 teams – who were hunting Ian while he was mobile on his way to the spot. Hurriedly parking his car in a nearby court, Ian jogged off into the darkness of the Koonung Valley. David (BLN) followed no more than 2-3 minutes later, but had a little trouble actually locating the hidden transmitter.  

Hunt 4 moved the hounds to parklands off King Street in Doncaster. We took care to park the car in a concealed spot and wandered down the hill towards the lake. There was a stand of pines in the area and we chose to climb one of these to hide the fox in. Much to our surprise Adam from the YDF team appeared out of the darkness as Mark was passing the transmitter up the tree to me. I hugged the side of the treee and kept as quiet as I could but Adam found me easily. As Adam and Mark moved further away other hounds appeared on the scene. Few had any problems working out that the fox was above them and this hunt was soon over.  

Hunt 5  was perhaps the best of the evening. During the day this seemed such an easy spot to get to. But at night it was exceptional – solid bushland on one side and a creek swollen by recent rains on the other…Ian had considerable difficulty finding the track in even though he knew roughly where it was. Things were made even harder by the use of an intermittent transmission; Ian had inadvertently bumped the switch that enabled BLN mode – random bursts of signal punctuated by long periods of silence. The chatter on 6675 was chaotic; runners were calling back to the car to report they were blocked by the creek or heavy bush while Ian was abusing them because he was beginning to get cold from waiting for so long. A couple of teams even found Ian’s car tucked down a court and the alleyway that he had walked in on…but this was to no avail. Eventually, Steve from the OW team stumbled down the hill to find Ian hiding in the bushes.  

Hunt 6 was in the middle of a powerline reserve North of Warrandyte Road. We parked down a dead-end court and walked through an unmarked alleyway to get to this spot. As we walked into the area we soon realised that this spot had all the hallmarks of a great foxhunting spot. We could hear the hounds chattering away on the previous leg and had plenty of time to pick a good spot. We eventually hid the transmitter under a pile of concrete blocks in a dry creek bed in the middle of a wide flood plain. Plenty of trees and blackberries protected the approaches and unbeknown to us another creek – that wasn’t dry protected the opposite side from us. Roger (recently licensed as VK3HRL) was well ahead of other runners – having little difficulty finding the transmitter under the concrete pile. Steve from the OW team was next – although he misinterpreted the weaker signals and wandered about 50m past the device before turning back. As he did so, the OW team’s second runner – Adam – also appeared. “It’s over towards you” called Adam. “No, it’s not. It’s over in this direction” yelled Steve pointing 90 degrees to Adam’s line of travel. We sniggered over the confusion but soon heard Steve mutter “Hang on a minute it’s much stronger over here”. In no time at all, he located the transmitter under the concrete pile.  

Hunt 6 was an easy one in the carpark of the Warrandyte State Park. Ian had simply parked his car off to one side of the carpark and was transmitting from the car. This was pretty obvious to the OW team who appeared in the entrance about 20 seconds ahead of the rest of the pack – so they pulled up alongside Ian to check in. The other hounds didn’t see Ian’s small sedan parked behind the large 4WD vehicle and roared past…only to return 2-3 minutes later when they realised what had happened.  

The final hunt for the evening was an easy one – a dead-end court in a maze of twisty, turny streets in North Ringwood. On this hunt the YDF and OW teams came in within seconds of one another, followed about a minute later by the rest of the pack.  

Supper was at the home of Ian Stirling (3MZ). While it was good to finish before midnight, most hounds used the additional time to stay and socialise with other hounds and listen to stories of the Victorian ARDF Group’s recent foray into the World ARDF Championships – congratulations to Adam, Bruce and Bryan for taking part and doing so well.   The VK3OW team came first.  

The May Melbourne foxhunt was held in cool and clear conditions. Eight teams participated in the hunts which commenced at Daisies Hotel car park in Ringwood East. The fox for the evening was VK3HDF.

The team had carefully selected a variety of locations to make for a challenging and interesting evening. As is usual with VK3HDF hunts, blackberries, thick bush and creeks featured prominently.

The first hunt for the evening started about 8:15PM with the fox hidden next to a creek in Chirnside Park. Most hounds were in the area within 10 minutes driving on new roads which were not even marked on the latest Melways. Team runners quickly descended on tens of metres of thick undergrowth and blackberries from both sides of Brushy creek. After some time, VK3YQN eventually found a way through shortly followed by VK3VT with VK3PW and VK3BLN just making the 10 minute time limit.

At 9:15PM, a two hour multi-transmitter hunt was started. The hunt was inspired by the format used in the NSW Urunga Convention. It consisted of 9 transmitters all operating on the same frequency. Locations spanned 8 Melways map pages around the Lilydale, Montrose and Wandin North areas. Transmitters ranged from continuous through to varying forms of timed and intermittent transmission and ranged in power levels from tens of milliwatts to 45 Watts. Brightly coloured laminated tickets were available at each fox with the point score and placing clearly marked. During this hunt, several of the foxes actually spent some time chasing hounds. The VK3BLN land crab was seen on several occasions living up to its name – apparently creating a rather interesting entry to one of the Wandin Nth foxes. At one point it looked like their beam antenna was actually growing branches!

At 11:45PM the supper hunt commenced. The fox was buried in bush area next to the Warburton trail in Wandin North. VK3BLN managed to find a way through followed closely by VK3VR. Most other teams followed a few minutes later.

Supper was held nearby at the Glenbrae Equestrian Centre where hounds were treated to a hot supper and desserts to replace all the calories lost throughout the evenings hunts. The scores were totalled and VK3VR was pronounced overall winner with VK3VT and VK3BLN taking the minor placings. A special mention must also go to VK3HBD who on more than one occasion managed to outperform some of the more established teams. Keep up the good work guys!

Thanks to Steve VK3TSW, Kevin VK3HKB, Adam VK3HSO, David Balogh and Josh Mezzaline for assisting with deploying and recovering foxes at short notice.

Bryan, VK3YNG.

Scores breakdown for the May 2000 foxhunt:

Team H1 *A *B *C *D *E *F *G *H *K SUP Total Place
--------------------------------------------------
 VR      8       10 12 12        8  9    59    1
 VT   9           8  8 10       14  6    55    2
BLN   1        6  7        8    12 10    44    3
YQN  10    12 10  2        7        2    43    4
 PW   1 12     8  6  7              5    39    5
TKQ     10        3             10  6    29    6
HBD               4 10              5    19    7
ZPF            7  5                      12    8
--------------------------------------------------

Scoring: H1 and supper scored as normal 10 minute rule hunt with results “inverted”.

Multileg: 1st place ranged from 8 to 14 points. Higher points generally awarded to more “intermittent” foxes. Points decremented by 2 points per place, then 8 points and under decremented by 1 point per place.

Foxes:
H1 - blackberries-R-us 10 minute rule hunt, Brushy creek, Chirnside
park, 37B6
*A to *K, 2 hour multileg "car-o-gaine"
*A - Next to Warburton trail, Mt Evelyn, 119A9
*B - Olinda Wetlands, edge of accessable island, 38G8
*C - Across creek from Bus Terminal, Lilydale, 38E2
*D - Top of hill, Montrose Reserve, 52A6
*E - Near disused aqueduct, Mt Evelyn, 120B1
*F - Stringy Bark creek, Wandin Nth, 118J11
*G - Next to Quarry and train line, Lilydale, 38B7
*H - Disused paddock, Kilsyth, 51C9
*K - Edward Rd Hill, Wandin Nth, 121C4
SUP - 10 minute rule Supper hunt, scrub next to Warburton Trail, Wandin
Nth, 119 D10

The hunt commenced at the carpark of the Watsonia railway station and the first hunt was just a few kilometres away in the Cresswell forest wildlife reserve. Dough VK3JDO had placed the transmitter in the centre of some blackberries as has become traditional with some teams these days. First in was VK3BLN with VK3HDF and VK3PW second VK3YQN and VK3BYY just made it before time expired. Mark BYY lives nearby and so brought his two sons out to have a look at foxhunting.

Hunt 2 saw Chris VK3CHR park in a new estate in Bundoora and YQN was first to find him; all but two teams located this transmitter.

Hunt 3 was the most difficult of the evening with Greg VK3VT taking a stroll along a “vermin proof” fence which separates a housing estate from a park by the Plenty river. By placing the transmitter over the edge of the river gully Greg was able to convince the hounds that he was in the park on the other side of the river. After much running (the road into the park is closed at night) the hounds found they had to cross the river and then climb a cliff to get to the transmitter. First in were members of the VK3ZPF team who were new to the sport and had not acquired all the sniffing skills – particularly up close work. after some instruction from the fox they located the transmitter and the clock started. Bruce VK3TJN was the only other hound to find this transmitter but there were several in the area when time expired – Ewen VK3OW was close as was David VK3XAJ who was at the base of the cliff.

It took some time to round up the hounds after this hunt and there was still one team missing when the hounds departed to find the next transmitter. They were finally located and reunited with their runner – some 10 to 15 minutes into the hunt. Doug JDO was sitting just on the limit of the Melways at Map 182F1 in Bindts Road and VK3YQN again found him first with all bar two teams finding him within the ten minutes. While looking for this spot the fox team had discovered that when coming from the north there was a hump in the road which if approached at speed could cause the car to fly. Unfortunately none of the hounds came form this direction and so Doug did not see any flying hounds.

The last hunt of the night saw Cris VK3CHR at the end of Hillmartin Rd in Plenty; all hounds bar one found this spot within 5 minutes with VK3HDF leading the way. Supper was held at the home of Chris VK3CHR and all agreed it was an excellent repast; most teams were well on their way home before 00:30 on Saturday morning.

Results:

Team		1	2	3	4	5	Total 	Place
VK3YQN	8	0	4	0	4	16	1
VK3HDF	4	4	10	1	0	19	2
VK3BLN	0	3	10	4	4	21	3
VK3ZPF	10	7	0	4	5	26	4
VK3PW	4	10	10	5	1	30	5
VK3OW	10	5	10	10	3	38	6
VK3BYY*	9	10	10	10	10	49	7
VK3HBD	10	10	10	10	10	50	8

*VK3BYY only attended for the first hunt.

At supper it was agreed that the next hunt would be a week later to allow for those who are taking part in the John Moyle field day.

The monthly WIA 2m Fox Hunt for January was run by VK3s TVB/VR/MZ and JMD. The weather for the evening was mild – ideal for the sport. In spite of short-notice, the summer holidays and a new starting location, six teams turned up to take part. The new start location proved to be worthwhile. On top of a hill and relatively central for most hounds, this new location offered plenty of space and safe exits from the carpark for those taking part – certainly, better than the now congested K-Mart location that has been used in recent times.

The first hunt for the evening was a four-leg hunt on two metres; the hunt in any order, but finish by 9:30 format used offers hounds a choice as to which legs they hunt first and avoids the “we’ve got a convoy…” syndrome that often occurs on single leg or hunt-in-order hunts. Most hounds seem to have headed towards Ian (VK3MZ) for their first leg. Ian was in a back alleyway behind the cinema complex in Glen Waverley; running 25-30 watts he was probably the strongest signal at the start location. First in here was one of the hounds, with another coming a close second (it’s hard to make this stuff interesting when you don’t actually know who won the other legs). Ian watched in amazement as one of the newer hounds followed Paul (3PW) into the alley, but didn’t see him talking to Ian sitting in the car. When Paul headed off, he did too.

The second leg was run by Jack (3WWW) who was hiding in a walkway between some buildings in Tally Ho. First in here was in. In the meantime, the VK3PW team had chosen to hunt the other legs first; this gave them first into Geoff (3VR) who was tucked down a dead-end alleyway at the back of a park in Surrey Hills.

The final leg was Mark (3JMD) hiding in a well fenced off reserve; the VK3PW team was the first to find this leg as well. The second leg was a miniature transmitter concealed within a rock. Transmitting only 10 miliwatts, this device was planted at the opening of a tunnel in amongst some similar rocks. Unfortunately, the piece of rock that covered the opening in the rock fell off and Brian (3YNG) noticed a thin piece of red wire trailing out of the hole. Very carefully, he returned the rock to its place in the rock wall and shot up the slope to tell Ian who was standing nearby. As it turned out, most other teams did eventually find the device – although most took several minutes before finally getting down on their knees to pull the rock wall apart.

The third hunt for the evening was run by Jack (VK3WWW); it was in a park near his QTH.

The fourth hunt for the evening was a multi-leg, hunt in order using the now infamous JMD leg-scoring system. Geoff (VK3VR) was hidden deep in blackberries at the edge of a railway line on the first leg. To make things more interesting he had wrapped himself in black plastic and was lying on the ground. First into the area was Adam (3HDF). Adam did two loops of the area before finally deciding that it really was inside the blackberries. Nonetheless, first to actually find the fox was Paul (3PW) who walked into the area and trod on Geoff before realising that there was something underneath the plastic. Paul commented later “…as I lifted the plastic I thought that there could be a dead body underneath (sorry Paul, it must have been something I ate…). When I saw your foot, I got a bit of a start…but then you sat up and I knew who it was”.

The next leg took hounds to a dead-end street in Mont Albert; it was on this leg that the PW team were followed by a police motorbike. Fortunately, he was just curious and stopped to talk to Ian for a few minutes before moving on.

The 3rd leg was hidden at the edge of a creek behind some houses in Burwood. According to Jack and Glenn several hounds came down the slope towards the creek at hair-raising speed and almost came to grief. Fortunately, nobody was (badly) hurt.

The final leg was hidden in dead-end road behind a park in Blackburn South. As time was dragging on, hounds were instructed to make their way to supper with all possible haste.

After a damn fine supper, the score were announced. First was a VK3, second was another and third was too. (and when I get the scores, I’ll come back and update the appropriate bits of this email. Sorry about the lack of details – more to follow.

Regards, Geoff (VK3VR)

October 1999

Last Saturday saw the running of the second All Day Hunt run in Victoria.
The organisers for this event were Ian VK3MZ and Mark VK3JMD who used all the good ideas from the first All Day hunt run by Peter Vk3ZPF and his team.

The weather was fine which made for good driving conditions for the hounds and a relaxing afternoon for the fox. The fox was located approximately 75Kms from the start which was Kmart Burwood carpark. The start was delayed about 20 minutes due to navigational error by the fox in getting to the location. Hounds had a weak but readable signal at the start and head off
towards the North East. 3 teams were competing on the day with none of them having their usual team in place.

As this was a distance based event there was a nominal finish time of 4pm but no penalties were laid out if this was not met. The only limitation we had was that there was a rally that evening in the area and some of the roads were to be closed.

The fox consisted of a FM rig running about 40 Watts into a horizontal dipole at about 4m in height. The signal was on for 20 seconds and off for 40 seconds running CW except for the regular voice ID given.

The VK3EM team consisted of Luke and partner with a short wheel base cruiser. They had no ability to take bearings on the run so instead had to setup a long yagi every now and then. Unfortunately the whip on the bull bar which was being used for liaison had a nasty break which made it difficult to communicate with others.

The VK3YQN team headed up by YQN himself had no problems and managed to stop for a counter meal at the pub for lunch. I think the GPS they were using really helped out with the Vic roads and Melways they were using.

The VK3ZPF team also had gear problems with their rotating system failing and a flat tyre on the 4WD.

The fox was located in a clearing near a junction of several tracks between the Melba and Maroondah Hwys NNE of Mt St Leonard. The fox spent the day relaxing in the sun and reading the paper with a BBQ lunch before there was any word from the hounds. The first team to arrive consisted of Bruce 3 TJN, David 3XAJ, Ian 3YQN and Simon 3TUG. Their distance was measured at 115.2Kms and while they waited for other teams to arrive they took advantage of the supper provided by the fox.

The next hound to arrive was the ZPF team some time later with a distance of 159Kms.

Luke VK3EM came in about 20 minutes later just as the sun was disappearing behind the trees with a distance of about 113Kms.

As two of the teams had such close distances, a calibration run was required on the way home to determine the overall winner.

To best represent the distances traveled the fox standardised on the JMD Kms so the results are

1st	VK3YQN		114Kms
2nd	VK3EM		119Kms
3rd	VK3ZPF		160Kms

Congratulations to Bruce and his team. I believe a good time was had by all and that the hunt wasn’t a straight forward drive. The next event will be run by Bruce sometime next year when the masses ask for it.

Mark. VK3JMD.

Three teams HDF, TVB and PW met at BILO, Burnt Bridge Shopping Centre, the one at Burnt Bridge. Later a minimal YQN team of 2 joined the hounds on the second
hunt after giving up waiting for Cameron. Cameron, where are you!?

The first hunt was a two legged. First leg was run by John’BLN and David’XAJ. The “old” fox running on 145.300, with halo (beware the deadly plastic spider!) was hidden in a large clump of reedy bushes, behind a building, up an embankment, on the south side mullum mullum creek (MAP 50, C3) – sort of behind Car City. I know, I know, you’d have to be crazy…. This worked just as planned, with teams running West along the bike path on the *North* side of the creek on Oban Rd. Tee Hee. One team member, apparently a PW, managed to cross the creek. Very impressed. Once on the correct side, the reedy bush had them bluffed! Eventually, they realised they had to walk _up_ the embankment and _around_ the bushes. We were quite amused. HDF was second to find the fox on this leg.

Once teams collected their ticket from the transmitter they headed off to the second leg. Graham’ZKM and Laurel in the ‘sub, were parked in a boggy paddock adjacent to a new housing development at the the rear of Croydon Hotel (MAP 50 E2). Only two teams managed to successfuly complete this hunt, HDF first and PW second.

For the second hunt, John and David hid the fox in some blackberries (especially for you Adam!) in a hard-to-get-to-spot between some buildings off Elsum ave in an industrial estate in Baywater (MAP 50, J11). We “hyperspaced” there in the turbo Lancer. Off course, it’s red and that *really* helps . TVB was first followed by HDF and then PW. Whilst waiting for Bruce ‘YQN, Ron ‘EHF has us captivated with the finer points of some large steam generating machinery located at the meeting spot. Apparently, you must _never_ let the water run low…. Tell my wife!

All teams found the fox for third hunt, which Graham & Laurel hidden with the transmitter at the northern end of Heathmont golf park (MAP 64 E1). This was actually located in a green bit not shown on the Melways and it was accessible from both Miller Rd and Canterbury Rd. TVB was in first, followed by PQ, YQN third (sterling effort for a crew of 2) and finally HDF.

The fourth hunt was located in a narrow alley way behind a vacant builing off Thornton Cr near the south Eastern end Mitcham Rly station (MAP 48 J9). We were expecting teams to approach from the North side and so I’d jammed the gate closed from the Northern end of the alley. Most seemed to follow each other to Thornton Cr Mt Gambier style. Even so, it took them quite a while to realise that the fox was not hidden in the car park, where we were parked. HDF was first to twig, closely twigging by TVB, PW and YQN who had arrived by this time.

Hunt 5 was another 2 legged hunt. The first Leg was to be found in blackberries (Tee Hee) in a freeway reservation off the end off the Eastern freeway (MAP 48 G5). Thanks goes to Graham for finding this spot. We got quite soggy investigating the previous week.

The fox for the second leg was located with Graham and Laurel in the ‘sub parked in a paddock on the south side of the end of the Eastern freeway on the Western side of Springvale Rd (MAP 48 F6). It was possible to enter via an empty house block off Springvale Rd or apparently, if you work for Telstra and have a key for the gate! Again, HDF was first, followed by PW, TVB and YQN.

For the supper hunt (6) John and David used that bastard leaky coax thing hidden in some especially prickly bushes Adam, up on the railway embankment on the South side of railway line in between Madden and New St Ringwood. It was like watching ants at honey as sniffers each found their bit of radiating coax. As expected HDF was in first, followed by PW, TVB and YQN.

Again scoring for the night was based on order, using raffel tickets attached to the fox. First team gets a 0, second team scores 1 point, and so on. Teams that don’t “get in” will score two points more than the last team to find the fox. We find this much easier to run compared to timed hunts; teams don’t give away the location of the fox and is a bit fairer to the novice teams. Any constructive suggestions welcome.

Summary:
~~~~~~~~

Team    Hunt
        1   2   3   4   5   6   Total   Place

HDF     0   1   3   0   0   0   4       1

PW      1   2   1   2   1   1   8       2

TVB     3   0   0   1   2   2   8       2

YQN     3   4   2   3   3   3   18      3

BTW: Thanks for the positive feedback. We went to some trouble to ensure the night went smoothly. We tried to keep them short and compensate by tricky locations (inspired by previous month). Much thanks goes to John’BLN and Sophie as this was the night of their wedding aniversary! Also thanks goes to Bryan for kindling lending us a second fox.

Regards

dB ‘3XAJ

“You Bastards!”, “How am I supposed top get through this!”, “If we go four abreast, eventually we’ll stand on him!”, “Anyone got any Napalm?”, “There must be an easier way out of here!”, “We’ll get you back for this….” …. Some of comments from cheerful participants on the September 1999 foxhunt.

The hunt was held in dry conditions in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The fox for the evening was the VK3HDF team. A challenging evening was planned with a few surprises. The hunt started just after 8PM at Knox City shopping centre.

The fox was Adam VK3HDF who was riding a pushbike along the bike track from Ferntree Gully. A mix of strange bearings sent some teams headed even towards Mt Dandenong. Greg, VK3VT was first to find Adam as he was riding alongside a street. Greg tooted some morse code on his car horn to raise the fox’s attention. Sorry Greg, Adam didn’t quite understand what you said… Paul, VK3PW later found Adam at the top of a multi-story car park in Knox City to take second place.

The first leg of the second hunt was in a rather overgrown lane behind some factories in Wantirna. The VK3TVB team arrived well ahead of the others. Less than 3 metres from the fox, Geoff, VK3VR took a look at the blackberries and decided there had to be an easier way in. Mark, VK3JMD aborted soon after even after shining his torch in the foxes face. 10 minutes later, the VK3PW team bashed their way through to first place, with VK3YQN and VK3VR (back for his second attempt) following just minutes later.

The next leg was in a rather swampy area near a new housing estate in Rowville. VK3YQN came in first minutes ahead of VK3TVB. VK3BLN effectively ended up in second place on leg time.

The third hunt proved to be the most challenging for the evening. This hunt had 4 legs. The first leg was near the joining of two creeks in Knoxfield. Bruce, VK3TJN crossed one of the creeks to find this transmitter minutes ahead of VK3VR. Most other teams did not arrive until nearly 15 minutes later as they chose a very difficult way in and had to battle some soggy mush, thick undergrowth and blackberries.

The second leg was only a few hundred metres away in another significantly overgrown lane behind factories. VK3VR found this transmitter nearly 15 minutes ahead of VK3TJN “oh no! Arrgh! I came in the wrong way!” There were indeed two ways in. While most teams picked the easier entrance, In true foxhunting style Bruce, VK3TJN elected to try the “impassable” route. A T-shirt is definitely not the recommended armor for this operation. Arriving around 15 minutes later VK3PW and VK3VT effectively tied for second place on leg time followed closely by VK3BLN.

Barely a couple of kilometres away, the third leg was hidden in amongst reeds. Once again, there was an easy way in – even to drive there! – but some new streets, not even marked on the latest edition of the Melways helped add to the confusion. Once again, the most direct path required negotiating a creek and some blackberries. VK3VR found this transmitter well ahead of VK3YQN. No other teams found this transmitter in time.

The last leg was behind a group of factories near the Model Aero club in Scoresby. VK3VR was the only team to find this transmitter in time and actually found this transmitter a good 5 minutes before anyone else had even found the transmitter for the previous leg.

The last hunt was behind some factories in Kilsyth. The first leg was at the back of an open paddock near a large brick wall. The fox was just hanging in a tree and not particularly hidden. Even so, some teams had some difficulty finding the transmitter once they were within a few metres of it. VK3YQN arrived nearly 15 minutes ahead of any other team to take first place on this hunt.

The second leg was less than 100 metres away and was down a rather narrow gap in between two factories. VK3YQN found this transmitter first, although Paul VK3PW did significantly better to take first place on leg time.

Supper was held in Ferntree Gully at the QTH of Steve, VK3YLE where the scores were announced. VK3TVB took out first place with VK3YQN and VK3PW taking out the minor placings.

Most of the hiding spots were chosen by Adam, VK3HDF who also did most of the planning for the night.

The emphasis on this hunt was to give some of the less advanced teams a chance to successfully find something for the night rather than hearing “the hunt is over” for nearly every hunt. For this reason, each leg of the multi-leg hunts was run for the entire duration of the hunt, or until nearly all teams were through. This was necessary as many of the hunts were also designed to provide a significant challenge to the better teams. I.e an attempt was made to try to please everybody.

A primary goal was to keep the night moving and minimise waiting times. The scoring method was designed mainly to do this rather than give the better teams blitzing scores. A 15 minute scoring limit and final clock were used on all multi-leg hunts to try to keep it all simple.

It turns out that, as expected, there has already been some controversy over some of the hunts. Some have indicated that the last two hunts should be null and void. Firstly, one particular team did not start from the meeting spot. I was actually quite surprised that their vehicle was first seen barely minutes from when I had parked mine! Secondly, some teams were told that the hunt would conclude at about 12:10 while others continued hunting the second leg which was being run using a 15 minute rule. (This leg had started before midnight) There has also been call to
null and void the 4th leg of hunt 3 as a complaint over the scoring method. It is interesting to note that if this and the last hunt are omitted from the scores, the order of the placings does not change.

Arrival times:
     h1   h2-1 h2-2 h3-1  h3-2  h3-3  h3-4  h4-1  h4-2
-------------------------------------------------------
tvb:      9:24 9:46 10:28 10:41 10:56 11:10 12:12
yqn:      9:23 9:40 10:25 10:55 11:15       11:54 12:13
pw:  8:47 9:22 9:50 10:47 11:08             12:10 12:17
vt:  8:38 9:28      10:57 11:18              n/a  12:17
bln:      9:34 9:52 10:54 11:17
txa:      9:27 9:55 10:41 11:08
bli:      9:24      10:41 11:13             12:14
hkc:

Leg clock times:
     h1   h2-1 h2-2 h3-1  h3-2   h3-3  h3-4  h4-1  h4-2
-------------------------------------------------------
tvb:      0:02 0:22  0:03  0:13  0:15  0:14  0:18
yqn:      0:01 0:17  0:00  0:30  0:20        0:00  0:19
pw:  0:09 0:00 0:28  0:22  0:21              0:16  0:07
vt:  0:00 0:06       0:32  0:21               --    --
bln:      0:12 0:18  0:29  0:23
txa:      0:05 0:28  0:16  0:27
bli:      0:02       0:16  0:32              0:20
hkc:

Overall scores:
     h1 h2 -- h3 -- -- -- h4 --
--------------------------------------------
tvb: 10  2  5  3  0  0  0 15 15 =  50, 1st
yqn: 10  1  0  0 15  5 15  0 12 =  58, 2nd
pw:   9  0 11 15  8 15 15 15  0 =  88, 3rd
vt:   0  6 15 15  8 15 15 15 15 = 104, 4th
bln: 10 12  1 15 10 15 15 15 15 = 108, 5th
txa: 10  5 11 15 14 15 15 15 15 = 115, 6th
bli: 10  2 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 = 117, 7th
hkc: 10 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 = 130, 8th

Report on VK3HLP February Fox Hunt 1999

Eight teams took part in the second hunt for 1999. The starting location for the night was at the Dick Smith car park in Springvale. Most teams managed to arrive before the eight o’clock start. Teams were given an information pack with details for the follow hunts and also a card to be handed in at the end of the first hunt to verify that they were at the starting location. If a team didn’t have the card they would have been given a score of 10, regardless of whether got in on the fox or not.

As it happened all hounds had the card so the scores for Hunt 1 didn’t need to be adjusted. The fox was located in Breaside Park. There was no access to vehicles and hounds had at least 1 km into the park to find the fox. The idea for this hunt was to give the runners a good run. Sorry Phil (VK3GMZ), you should have sent one of your other runners for this one.

For Hunt 2 the transmitter was located on the bike path beside the National Water Sports Centre and Carrum Treatment Plant. Again the runners had to run. I am sure they were starting to hate us by now.

Hunt 3 had the transmitter located at the lookout at Earmil Drv Mount Eliza. This location was picked because of its tricky position on the Melways map. And it didn’t disappoint. Several hounds ended up several blocks away and had to run down the beach only to find the transmitter at the top of a rather steep headland. Most hounds found a track up the headland. The transmitter was left on a further 5 minutes as requested by hounds.

For Hunt 4 the transmitter was located at the base of Olivers Hill, Frankston. The idea here was that as hounds were traveling back towards Frankston they wouldn’t hear a lot of signal until they got over Olivers hill as the cliff face would reflect most of the signal out to the bay. Most teams stopped at the top lookout of Olivers Hill only to find that the transmitter was at the base of Olivers Hill this time. So they had an interesting run in front of them.

Hunt 5 was an easy one, the transmitter was located back at the National Water Sports Centre again, but on the other side of the river this time. Teams could drive very close to this transmitter. So the runners got to have a bit of a breather for a change.

Hunt 6 had the transmitter located in Jells Park. Teams had quite a bit of trouble with picking the signal for this hunt, due to other amateurs operating on the Fox Hunting frequency. For this reason teams were directed to head for the supper location to get a better signal, as well the fox signal was pulsed, to help distinguish between the two signals.

Supper was at Andrew house in Glen Waverley

The Official scores were as follows out of a possible 60:

1st VK3HDF 1

2nd VK3YQN 17

3rd VK3MZ 31

4th VK3PW 40

5th VK3TXA 42

6th VK3TKQ 44

7th VK3VT 51

8th VK3BLN 52

The VK3HDF team have to be congratulated on such a low final score. It could have easily been a zero for the night, but for Bruce beating Bryan in on Hunt 3 by only seconds. The VK3HLP team would like to thank all teams which took part in Friday nights hunt.

Report on the VK3WWW December 1998 foxhunt.

Scores:
Placings have altered somewhat due to me misreading VK3PW’s score card (yes, Richard, I fell for it!) By the odometer readings, it looks like there’s a lot of new cars around!

Place Callsign Txs Start OD  End OD  Total Km
1      VK3BLN   2   111619   111675   56
2      VK3PW    2    12958    13032   74
3      VK3TKQ   2    12603    12680   77
4      VK3EM    2    44776    44854   78
5      YQN/HKC  2   202039   202122   83
6      VK3VT    1    19505    19582   77
7      VK3VR    2?   12161     DNF    --

Who found what:
VK3BLN      7, 9
VK3PW          9, 19
VK3TKQ         9, 19
VK3EM       7, 9
VK3YQN/HKC  7, 9
VK3VT                 14

Locations:
Tx#  Freq:    Location:
1    144.000  15J12 - Top of cliff near proposed toxic waste dump,
Niddrie.
5    145.285  41C5 - behind Olex cables, Brooklyn.
7    145.300  44K1 - top of hill, Yarra bend park.
9    145.325  56D1 - under Westgate bridge.
12   145.350  53J6 - behind Hoechst Chemicals, Altona Nth.
14   144.250  27B8 - near Maribyrnong river, Braybrook.
16   146.000  17K9 - park behind Pentridge Prison.
19   145.700  43A6 - Railway bridge, off Dynon Rd, Footscray.

Transmitters were spread out to give plenty of route choice and to challenge even the best navigators. Transmitters 1, 7, and 19 were at elevated locations and should have been easily heard with a bit of altitude. Most other transmitters should have been able to be heard from these locations. From 500m away from the transmitter in Footscray, at ground level I could here transmitters 1, 7, 9, 12 and 19 easily on a sniffer. I drove a few Km west to Maidstone and was then able to hear Tx’s 5 and 14. Despite these transmitters being in low locations, one
team managed to find Tx14. From here they should have also been able to get Tx5 which was just over 3.5km away. I was never able to hear anything from Tx16 even from about 3km away. The problem turned out to be a faulty coax plug. A hint for future foxes: It is worth carrying a sniffer to check the operation of a fox. A handheld is next to useless.

It was interesting to see than nearly everyone visited transmitter #9. For some this was also their first transmitter. It must have been difficult to get any decent bearings of other transmitters from down there. I was actually expecting this to be most people’s last choice.

The optimal distance to visit all transmitters (path: Start,7,16,1,14,5,12,9,19,supper) works out to be about 91km. At an average speed of around 60km/h with 10 minutes runner time per
transmitter brings this up to about 2.75 hours. Therefore it would have been near impossible to visit all transmitters in the time limit. We just wanted to see what people would do.

This hunt was a bit of an experiment and was put together rather quickly due to an otherwise heavy workload by the organisers. Orienteering punches were used because we didn’t have enough people to look after transmitters. Half of the transmitters were deployed late in the afternoon with timer circuit. This was its first test. My apologies for the use of the frequencies 144.000 and 145.285MHz. On final test I had two crystals which refused to oscillate and it was the best I could do in the time available.

Thanks to Jack Bramham, Stephen Howard, Adam Scammell, Stephen Giles and Glen Downie for helping deploy and look after transmitters.

Thanks also to Steve Wood for doing the start and my brother Ramon for doing the supper.


Bryan, VK3YNG.

Team	Hunt 1			Hunt 2			Hunt 3
Hunt 4			Hunt 5			TOTALS	RANK
	Km	TickNo	SCORE	Km	TickNo	SCORE	Km	TickNo
SCORE	Km	TickNo	SCORE	Km	TickNo	SCORE		
YQN	5	1	1	16	4	2	36	3	4
18	2	2	23	55	1	10	2
TKQ	6	6	6	19	5	4	40	5	6
34	DNC	5	29	61	6	27	7
TVB	4	3	0	17	3	3	28	1	0
18	1	1	26	58	4	8	1
WWW	5	2	2	16	1	1	33	6	2
23	DNC	5	23	53	0	10	2
EM	6	4	5	21	6	5	38	7	5
17	4	0	25	51	2	17	5
HKC	5	5	3	30	7	6	35	4	3
24	5	3	25	52	3	18	6
VT	9000	8	7	8318	4	7	41	8	7
34	DNC	5	32	62	7	33	8
PW	5	7	4	15	2	0	33	2	1
27	6	4	28	60	5	14	4




Regards

John YJK  


(PS. The first two distances for VT are a kludge to give correct
placings.)

The VK3YQN team ran Friday night’s hunt, starting at K-Mart Burwood. The first and fourth hunts were three-legged, with teams being scored on the time spent on each leg. The second hunt was the ubiquitous YQN sniffer hunt. The third hunt was a VK3ROG simplex repeater hunt, where hounds were required to transmit an over to the fox, which would record and re-broadcast it (and thus provide a signal to DF).

Hunts were run on 2m only.

Scores were as follows (out of a total maximum of 80):

Hunt	1		2	3	4		Total	Place

VK3TKQ	10+10+10=30	4	3	9+4+10=23	60	5
VK3BLN	10+2+10=22	7	4	2+10+10=22	55	4
VK3EM	9+10+10=29	10	10	10+0+10=20	69	6
VK3WWW	1+5+0=6		0	3	1+2+10=13	22	1
VK3PW	4+0+1=5		7	0	3+10+1=14	26	2
VK3TVB	0+4+10=14	10*	5	0+1+0=1		30	3

* Would have been 8 except for lack of creek-crossing enthusiasm by VK3MZ.

Well done to VK3WWW.

Next month’s hunt is to be run by VK3BLN…? 19 November 1998.


Cheerio.

Roger Lewis

 the results for  the september fox hunt.  

Team     hunt 1   hunt 2  hunt 3  hunt 4  hunt 5  hunt 6   hunt 7   total   place    

NKC         4           10          4           4           8          5          1           36         4    

PW          9            10          9           5           9          5          2           49         5  

BLN           0           10          9           1           0          0           1           21        2  

YQN          1             9          4            5          4           2          1           26        3  

WWW       1            10          3            1          8           2          1           26        3  

MZ            2             0           0            0          4           1          0            7         1  

JDO          10           10          9            7         10          8          1           55         6

Here are the results of the hunt held on Friday 17th July 98. I’m sorry
to the PW team but I did
not add their result correctly and they actually came equal 5th and OW
came in third.

73 Greg VK3VT

Callsign	Hunt 1	Hunt 2	Hunt 3 	Hunt 4	Hunt 5	Hunt 6	Hunt 7
Total/Place	Place

VK3VR	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	3----1
VK3BLN	4	4	1	1	1	5	8	24---2
VK3OW	5	9	2	6	1	1	7	31---3
VK3WWW	10	2	2	6	2	5	8	35---4
VK3PW	8	1	0	10	2	5	10	36---=5
VK3TKQ	5	9	7	10	2	2	1	36---=5
VK3YQN	7	10	10	3	1	5	6	42---6
VK3TXN	10	10	10	10	10	10	5	65---7

For those are keen to hunt, details of the hunt on Friday 17th July are as follows: Frequencies – 145.3MHz and 438.850MHz (to be confirmed) Start location – car park at the Doncaster Aquatic and Leisure Centre Melways 33 D9 Supper – Selsdon Court Greensborough Liaison frequency 146.675MHz Mobile numbers – Greg VK3VT – 0418535411 Doug VK3JDO – 0411586714 Chris VK3CHR – 0418229875 Now for an update on the police issue: There is a regulation concerning the overhang of loads beyond the side of the vehicle and this limits the overhang to 15 CM – most of us would exceed this. I have written to Vic Roads requesting an exemption for fox hunting – I will post any reply as soon as it arrives. I have also written to the fine people as there are some concerns with the details on the ticket. – they may withdraw or re-issue; this we can deal with when it is clear what will happen. As there may not be any illegal overhang on 438MHz we are running this band this month. Check your equipment with a plumb line – the side of the vehicle does not include mirrors etc At the worst we will all need to build systems that allow the antenna to be located over the roof of the vehicle and I am following up some hardware that may do this for around $150 (this is cheaper than the fine). There is also a regulation that relates to any load should be secured in a manner that is not likely to cause injury to persons or property and thus every one securing a load to their vehicle should ensure that it complies with this regulation. See you all on Friday 73

Greg VK3VT