Here is the report for the May Foxhunt.

        Five teams of hounds were greeted by a crisp and clear Autumn evening, as they gathered at the traditional start location in Lytton Street Carlton.  Ian VK3MZ and Roger VK3HRL placed seven 2m foxes in a rough line eastward-ish from Carlton to Donvale.  All teams reported plenty of signal, even with beams on backwards or with elements broken off by agressive trees.

        Hunt 1:
                Ian placed the fox in a laneway running north of Rowe Street North Fitzroy, about three km from the start as the crow flies.  First in was VK3YQN, followed quickly by OW, later by BLN.  FVXN and TXO both missed the switch-off time – in TXO’s case the beam was found to be on backwards (about 15 km away based on scratchiness of comms).

        Hunt 2:
                Roger placed the Gaffer Tape Special on a steep grassy embankment at the south end of East Street Westgarth, about 1.5 km from hunt 1 as flown by a husk-gripping swallow (African or European?).  The first hounds were in the area within five minutes of switch-on.  VK3BLN (Marta) was in first, followed immediately by Josh VK3HGI of the TXO team (apparently with better beam orientation).  OW arrive several minutes later, followed eventually by FVXN.  YQN missed out, with excited runners on the wrong side of the river or maybe not the wrong side, but failing to find the fox regardless.

        Hunt 3:
                Ian placed his fox in Rockbeare Park Alphington, about three km from hunt 2 as glided by an adopted pelican.  VK3YQN atoned for hunt 2’s misery by arriving first, followed by BLN, OW, TXO and eventually by FVXN.

        Hunt 4:
                Roger walked into a park just west of Kim Close (or Court?) Bulleen, along some paths and over a bridge and into the trees and scrub just on the east bank of the river thing, about 3.5 km from hunt 3 as the eagle soars.  Realising that he was carrying two heavy transmitters, Roger decided to place the WIA fox and Gaffer Tape Special about 30 metres apart and run both simultaneously.  The hoped-for confusion was not to be, for most of the runners went straight to one or the other.  Oh well.  Bruce VK3TJN of the YQN team was in first, followed by Josh of TXO, then Ewen OW, David XAJ of BLN and FVXN failed to find the fox.  Upon walking out to the meeting place, Ian VK3YQN regaled the rapt audience with bugle hits such as “Squawk of the Light Brigade”, “Tuppence Revelly” and “I’m Too Sexy For My Horn”, before he was threatened several times and took the hint.

        Hunt 5:
                Ian placed the fox in Ruffey Lake Park, about 4.5 km east of hunt 4 as the ibis shtooms.  Once again the bugle-powered YQN team got in first, followed by TXO, BLN, OW and FVXN.  Clifford’s hat was confiscated by the Good Taste Police but reluctantly returned when Clifford would not stop complaining.

        Hunt 6:
                Roger was *supposed* to set up in a residential street about four km east of hunt 5 as the pigeon homes, but elected instead to run a mobile hunt.  The Gaffer Tape Special was pressed into service as an intermittent fox (with WIA fox’s loop cable tied to the roof of the tremendously versatile Ford Territory).  Roger drove loops of the grid bounded by 34F11 and 48H2.  It was sadistically entertaining to drive behind hounds, give them a burst and quickly turn into a side street, TX off, u-turn then out again in the other direction.  VK3OW was quickly onto this scheme and performed a classic interception – those modern vehicles just seem to bounce off each other.  A couple of minutes later Roger found the runner from the VK3FVXN team and after asking him if “you people are hunting aliens or something” the runner reluctantly looked at the Territory and realised it was so much more than just a passing curious local.  Two minutes later, running Marta of the BLN team also attempted to avoid eye contact with the passing Territory’s excitable driver, but when Roger called out “the signal is REALLY strong around here” Marta seemed to observe a peak in signal strength and her team intercepted the Tertie.  After watching Bruce of the YQN team run up hill and down dale for ages, sympathy kicked in and YQN was ‘allowed’ to locate the magnificant beast of a fox car.  Evenually the TXO team found the now-stationary fox just as time was about to expire.

        Hunt 7:
                Ian placed the supper fox at the 100 Acres Reserve, about two Melway pages from hunt six as the navigator thumbs.  YQN found Ian first , followed very quickly by TXO and OW, then BLN several minutes later and FVXN missed the time limit.

        Teams returned to Ian VK3MZ’s QTHR for Loris’s famous soup, plus hot food, cakes, cold ham and turkey, hard boiled eggs, bags of lettuce and lashings of ginger beer.  After a period of waiting for people to stop talking, and a special invitation to Clifford to *please* stop talking, scores were announced:-

Team            Hunt 1          Hunt 2          Hunt 3          Hunt 4          Hunt 5          Hunt 6          Hunt 7          Total           Place

VK3BLN  5               0               1               5               4               4               4               23              3

VK3YQN  0               10              0               0               0               5               0               15              1

VK3OW   1               5               2               4               6               0               1               19              2

VK3TXO  10              1               4               1               1               9               1               27              4

VK3FVXN 10              9               9               10              9               1               9               57              5

        Well done to VK3YQN for the win, and OW for a consistent evening.  BLN faded a bit in the second half, while TXO could have been in second place but for the poor choice of beam orientation on the first hunt, Gary.  FVXN – persevere!

        June’s fox will be the VK3YQN team.

73’s,
        Roger VK3HRL

Sat, 17 April, 2010       

Results of the 2010 Vic Fox Hunt Championships

Hi All,

Thanks for coming. I hope we challenged you all, and provided a wide variety of hunts for the night.

A very special thankyou to Pierre, Ryordan, Jack, Rohan, Tanya, Arneka, Eleisha, and everybody else than lent equipment/took the helm of the bbq for a little while at lunch.

Apologies for the late running at supper, I had some car issues and wound up with 2 flat tyres. The car is home safe now and all is well (except I now need a new set of tyres!)

Scores are attached. But the summary is as follows:

1st Place: MZ
2nd Place: BLN
3rd Place: YQN
4th Place: BLI
5th Place: FAST

Note that in the attached scores file, the scoring for the leg times is based on “what order your leg time was”. This is to simplify the scoring, as there was no maximum “We’ll turn the tx off after this time”. The lowest leg time is scored as being 1st for that leg, the the next lowest 2nd, etc.

I hope you all had a good night.

Cheers,
Josh

Notes:
Multi-leg hunts show leg placings/leg time.
Overall score is based on placings– lowest score is best

Hunt		1	2	3	4	5	6	7
total

FVXN		4	10	3	10	10	10	7	54

YQN		0	0	0	10	4	0	1	15
MZ/VR		2	2	3	0	0	7	0	14

Results of the February 2010 2m Fox Hunt

The February 2010 hunt was run by the VK3FOX team and saw hunts conducted around the North and North-eastern suburbs.  Despite the fox specifically stating that fences should not be crossed some hounds, in the heat of the hunt, could just not help themselves! As things worked out this did not appear to effect the overall result, however there were some heated words exchanged!.

The first hunt was on a new bike track in Eltham North and a good signal was provided to the hounds at the start location, the Nillumbik council offices. Hounds found this spot in short order.  The second hunt was in the back blocks of Diamond Creek around some power lines and there were a number of fences that the fox explained should not be crossed; several teams ignored this and were penalised, much to their disgust. VK3FVXN was the first team to come in the right way and was awarded with a 0.  YQN who had been coming up against fences all over the place was a very close second and TXO was third after finding the fence earlier and then having to determine the correct way in.

The next hunt was supposed to be a quickie but due to the fox battery deciding to give up signals were a little weak!! This resulted in a large spread of times as those closer to the fox as the battery died could still hear the much reduced signal.  Bursts of 80W from the fox vehicle, that was close to the fox, assisted those that were having trouble.

Hunt 4 was near the creek in Hurstbridge and those that had been on a mountain bike event in the area had a distinct advantage with Bruce from the YQN team winning the sprint.  As the fox had changed to a hand held some hounds had difficulty locating the much smaller transmitter and provided much entertainment to the assembled onlookers as they tried to locate the fox..

The next hunt was some distance off in Panton Hill, due to some navagational difficulties the fox was still mobile when the FVXN team ran them to ground the rest found us once we had stopped on the side of Long Gully Road.

Due to the time, the last 2 hunts were dropped and the supper hunt  was a quick selection by the fox  at the end of Dering Street in Diamond Creek, this is a dead end road that has houses backing onto the railway line and beyond that is a large area of parklands.  As a number of teams discovered there is no access to Dering Street from the parklands!!

BLN team were the only ones to find us, thus ensured their win for the evening.  Team YQN were in the lead coming in to this hunt and with a bit of luck could have won the evening, unfortunately Bruce was discovering the railway line and fences just as the BLN team drove up to the fox.

Supper was at the home of Chris  VK3CHR and after a supper of sandwiches, sausage rolls, party pies, quiches, hot dogs and chocolate cake the following  results were announced. Standard (Time of arrival after first hound in) scoring was used.

Congratulation to the BLN team for an excellent effort.

Cheers
Greg VK3VT from the VK3FOX team

Scores for last Friday nights fox hunt are as follows.  

    Some history about why I have foxes on so many odd frequencies.   As far as I can remember the WIA fox, which we still use, was the first “dedicated” fox. This was originally on 144.480MHz. The frequency was most likely determined by the builder having a crystal on hand which could be multiplied to somewhere in the first 0.5 MHz of the 2M band.  Most people used AM receivers then so it was AM modulated. Also, as mobile phones, hhelds and even mobile TRX’s were unheard of or scarce it was usual to call in the hounds using the fox.   The availability of the IC202 in the 70’s caused the fox frequency of the WIA to be changed to 144.250Mhz. The 202 is a portable 2M SSB transceiver which tunes from 144.0MHz to 144.4MHz in standard form. It made a good fox hunt receiver. You could use it in the car and as a sniffer. If you replaced the PTT switch with a variable resistor you could also control the gain over a wide range.      At sometime I decided I needed a smaller fox.  To make this I rebuilt the TX driver stage from a Pye FM 734 two way radio, simply because I had the bits. In the process I removed the original FM modulator and added an AM modulator, ignoring most of the design rules for AM modulators. Hence it doesn’t work all that well. Never the less it’s caused hounds much frustration and given the fox much enjoyment over the years. It’s frequency was initially 144.480MHz and was changed to 144.250Mhz when the WIA fox changed. This is the small brown TX with the external AA battery pack. Power O/P is about 600mw.   Many years ago, Jack VK3WWW donated a Dick Smith 1watt FM TX kit to the foxhunt group, which I built. This ended up in a larger brown box as I included a 1200ma gel cell  and space for 1 or 2 other bits of circuitry which might happen one day. The frequency is 144.247MHz. Why. Simply because the crystal won’t work at 144.250 MHz even tho it was spec’d to do so. The highest it will go reliably is 144.247MHz.  If someone has a good supplier of crystals let me know and I’ll move it to 145.3MHz. I’ve been going to do this for some time but usually remember the day before the fox hunt……..  This TX is available to anyone who would like to borrow it for foxhunting purposes.   Sometimes a higher power fox is required so the larger black/brown fox came into being. The driver stage of this is home grown and the PA is from an FM 734.  Power O/P is 6-7 watts. The box was originally made so a battery charger could be included but recently I abandoned that idea and cut the box down to a more suitable size. I also added a clip on battery box. Frequency is 145.3MHz   A yr or so ago I needed a low pwr fox so the small black TX with the external 9 volt battery happened. The TX is basically the predriver stage from a Phillips FM747 UHF transceiver. Some unnecessary circuitry was removed with a hacksaw, a jumper or 2 added and I had a 40mw TX. It uses the crystal from the small  brown Tx mentioned above hence O/P frequency is 144.250MHz.  I later reinstalled the original crystal in the small brown TX and tuned it lower in frequency, i.e. 144.470MHz, as the TX produced a little more power there.   regards Ewen  

Results for the December 2009 Fox Hunt

						TOTAL
YQN	0	5	1	1	3	10
MZ etc	3	2	3	0	2	10
OW/BLI	2	1	2	3	4	12
FAST	4	4	0	5	0	13
BLN	1	0	10	4	1	16
VT/FOX	10	10	10	2	10	42

Locations were as follows:

Start: Ruffey Lake Park, Victoria St. Doncaster

Hunt  1:
Eltham: Griffith Park, Yarra River bend, South end Griffith Park Road
Melway: 22 K11
http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-37.735825,145.148975&z=17&t=h

Hunt  2:
Heidelberg: roof-top CP, off Cape St, near cnr Burgundy St
Melway: 32 A4
http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-37.755974,145.069764&z=17&t=h

Hunt  3:
Templestowe: Kenman Close / Chivers Rd, un-marked park/estate
Melway: 33 J5
http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-37.75929,145.144431&z=18&t=h

Hunt  4:
Viewbank: Bike Path behind Riding for the Disabled
(entry to bike path at roundabout/intersection Banyule/Hendersons)
Melway: 20 H12
http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-37.742638,145.096564&z=16&t=h

Hunt  5:
Templestowe: Templestowe Reserve, Porter St/Hawtin St.
Flagpole at Scout Hall
Melway: 33 G4 
http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-37.753656,145.136111&z=19&t=h

Supper:	Ruffey Lake Park, Victoria St. Doncaster


Memorable Moments for the Fox Team included:

Hunt 1:
* All hounds departing from the start - in the wrong direction.
* The on-air speculation about runners being on the wrong side of
  the Yarra (not to mention "crossing over").

Hunt 2:
* roof-top vantage point as teams drove along Burgundy St
* Hound investigating "false" fire hydrant on Burgundy St... a
  spurious diversion which had nothing whatever to do with the fox team!

Hunt 3:
* Finding a reserve/estate NOT in the Melways
* It seems to be in this tree... somewhere.

Hunt 4:
* a hound's attempt to negotiate the electric fence - when there was
  a perfectly good bike path from which to approach the Tx!
  (a later suggestion was that we should have awarded bonus points to
   runners who actually did run/ walk in along the bike path)

Hunt 5:

* The "swarm" of hounds below the flagpole.
  (is it a bird... is it a plane... no it's "Super Tx" flying high!)

A big thanks to all participants - we thoroughly enjoyed bringing
you the night.

Johanna  [VK3 FJMB]
Neale  [VK3 XJH]
Pierre  & 
Dianne [VK3 FVXN]

Sat, 16 May, 2009

Results of the 2009 Victorian Fox hunt Championships

 Notes

# Indicates where organiser had put in the wrong (180deg out) clues, thanks to all those that took the time to bring this mistake to our attention.

* BLN hunted on 52.1 as their 160M loop was not operational so OW could argue about this result (probably successfully if accompanied by money!)

** Same leg time – 2 points each

Many, many thanks to those that assisted in the organising and running the event; they include:

• Operators and co-conspiritors – Doug VK3JDO, Chris VK3CHR, Ian VK3FFLY and Wal VK3WZ
• Food preparation and serving –  Sandra and Denise & Ian VK3MZ for collecting food
• Equipment loan from Ewen VK3OW
• The three teams that participated and made the effort worthwhile

Results of the April foxhunt FYI.  

Scoring was based on your placing in a hunt. ie first got 1 point etc. Therefore the table below shows place and score.  

There were no time limits on the hunts. The hunt ended when either the last team was in or at some arbitrary time after the 4th hound was in. Once or twice the fox went hunting for the last hound to speed things up a little.  

Team        Hunt 1        Hunt 2        Hunt 3        Hunt 4        Hunt 5        Hunt 6        Total

FVXN           1                1                4                 3                  5                4                18

FOX             5                5                5                 1                  2                5                23

YQN            4                2                2                  4                 1                1                14

BLN             3                3                1                 5                  4                2                18

FAST            2                4                3                 2                  3                3                17  

The first hunt was in some bush on the western side of the Plenty River near where the river goes under the Greensborough bypass. The hounds all appeared on the eastern side of the river, decided it was not crossable and found other much more difficult ways in. The river was crossable only a few metres from where most of the hounds decided it wasn’t crossable. Well done to the Vixon team for being first in.  

The second hunt was near a disused aqueduct in Eltham with a second leg an easy runnable couple of hundred meters away. Most teams worked out where the second leg was before driving too far away. Well done to the Vixon team on this one also.  

The third hunt was beside a creek behind some houses a KM or so from the second hunt. Only the vixon team came down the correct side of the creek. All others were faced with a steep bank to climb down with water at the bottom. A few wet feet resulted from this. Most satisfying to the fox.  Well done to the fritzl team for being first in on this one. The swearing must have helped David.

The fourth hunt was south of the Yarra near the Fitzsimons Lane bridge.  The FOX team were first in on this one. Their new handle had apparently taken a while to warm up. I suspected the BLN team weren’t going to go so well on this hunt when I saw them heading down a dirt road to nowhere way too early in the hunt. Dog must have barked at the wrong time??  

Fifth hunt was in some bushes in Alistar Knox park near the railway bridge in Eltham. Bruce was first on the scene and spent some time jumping back and forth over fox while trying to find it. How he didn’t stand on it about a dozen times I don’t know. Fortunately he didn’t and was eventually first in.  Gregs handle was still working well but must have cooled a little since the previous hunt.  

Supper hunt was also beside a creek behind some houses in Eltham.

Well done the YQN team.   Thank you all for comming.   regards Ewen