A word to the wise. Setup and check your equipment 12
hours before the hunt. It will give you incentive to hunt when the time
comes and give you the opportunity to make small repairs to your
equipment.
On the way over to the start point, I
discovered a problem with my Doppler. It was 30* off calibration and would not
receive a clear signal. It was terrible, I had to hunt like this all evening.
The next day I found out, I had a resistive short in my radio to Doppler
audio line.
My initial bearing
to the 1st Hard Fox was 230*, about 14* off from the actual bearing of
216*. This didn't cause to much of a problem. As I got closer to the
Fox, it was obvious I had to head further south from my initial bearing.
Even though my Doppler was not quite right, as I circled the Fox, I was
able to mentally make the necessary corrections to my Doppler display
and located the Fox. Close-in, I used the Icom R3 receiver on my Arrow
4-element beam and as I got really close, I used the Scout-40 frequency
counter to pin point the transmitter.
I should
mention, using the Icom R3 with it's 4-attenuators, as a U-R-Here radio,
really helped me locate the transmitters while using my handicapped
Doppler.
My initial
bearing to the 2nd Easy Fox was 250*, about 24* off from the actual
bearing of 274*. This error caused me some anxiety. As I drove north on
Hwy-880 my Doppler pointed left, 270*, over the incorrect initial
bearing. Remember my Dopper was in error about 30*. This little mistake
made me check out a bunch of area's south and east of the actual
transmitter. The afore mentioned U-R-Here radio (Icom R3) help eliminate
all the incorrect locations, allowing me to find the Easy Fox.
Three new hunters showed up to this hunt.
Jason-KG6LRF, Susan-KG6LRG and Ken Bell.
Jason and Susan did really well. They never hunted before and didn't
have any t-hunting equipment, other than their two handheld radio's.
Jason and Susan followed their initial bearing towards the easy Fox (Rule
#1) and listened to their handheld radio's. Susan's radio heard the
Fox first and as they got closer, Jason's radio began to respond. Jason
said they began exploring side roads in the area when his radio stopped
responding. Susan suggested they get back onto their initial bearing (Rule
#2) and as they got closer, Jason's radio began responding again.
They found the Fox without help.
The amazing
part of Jason and Susan's story was they invented the first two rules of
transmitter hunting on their own. This might well be the proof we needed
that the first two RULES
of hunting are the most important.
Thanks to
Don-KC6IPO and Dan-KO6YG for putting on this December hunt. Don and
Dan setup a standard Fremont Hunt without special considerations, making
this an enjoyable evening for all and especially nice for the new
hunters.
