Central Vermont ARC Fox Hunt, October 24, 2020

Central VT ARC logoFrom Central Vermont ARC  web site:

The next CVARC fox hunt will be held on Saturday, October 24th at 10 am.

Rules

  • Fox will be hidden somewhere within Washington County, in a publicly-accessible location. You will not be required to pay to access an area to find the fox, or to walk onto someone’s property (but don’t discount the end of dead-end roads)
  • The transmitter will be on the air by 10am on the morning of the hunt, and off at 6pm that evening. There will be an announcement on the Williamstown repeater before the box is shut off, so be sure to respond if you’d like more time.
  • Fox will use the nationally-accepted 2 meter fox hunt frequency of 146.565 MHz
  • Fox will transmit a short beep every two seconds, then transmit a CW ID on the FM carrier every 20 ‘beeps’.
  • Fox will be receivable with at least an S1 signal from the Waterbury exit (10) of Interstate 89.

COVID-19 restrictions

  • Teams of up to 3 are allowed but not currently recommended due to pandemic restrictions (unless team members are a family or happen to live together)
  • Masks required in public when you cannot maintain a 6-ft distance from those not in your party

Scoring and reporting 

  • The transmitter will have a laminated sheet with a marker attached for scoring. When you find the fox, fill out the sheet with your name or call sign, and local time at which you found the fox.
  • Once you’ve filled out the sheet, leave the area – if others participating in the hunt see you hanging around, it may tip them off to the location of the fox!
  • When/if you find the fox, please don’t announce it (on local repeaters, the fox output frequency, w1bd.net website, Facebook, etc.) – we want everyone to have fun with this, even those that can’t participate right at the start of the hunt.

Recommended gear

Minimum:

  • 2 meter radio with a removable rubber duckie antenna
  • Paper clip

Extra gear (not required, but helpful):

  • Portable directional antenna (Yagi, Moxon, cubical quad)
  • Adjustable RF attenuator, passive or active
  • Receiver with SSB/CW mode capability
  • Compass or GPS unit
  • Map, atlas, or gazetteer