Fox Hunt Report – February 19th, 2022
Fox Hunt Report – February 19th, 2022

Report

On Saturday, February 19, 2022 we had our first official fox hunt of the year. The initial fox location had to be abandoned because someone found the place before the fox hunt had even begun. The foxes were then hidden at Brickyard Park in Kingsport. We ran 3 foxes at different power levels (5 Watts, 700 Milliwatts, and 15 Milliwatts) to help people get closer to the foxes closer. This seemed to help, but some had issues with the foxes being at a higher elevation. Overall it was a very good fox hunt with 7/8 people finding all of the foxes.

General Information

    • Date: Saturday, February 19, 2022
    • Time: 20:00Z - 22:30Z (3:00PM - 5:30PM EST) 
    • Location: Brickyard Park, Kingsport
    • Hunters: W4GAJ (first finder), KM4NWH/KO4SCU, KO4LBE, KO4WFI, KW4AG, N4CRS, and KI4AAU
    • Supporters: WX4ET
  • Primary Fox: 5W Baofeng in the parking lot

    Secondary Fox: 700mW fox in the parking lot

    Tertiary Fox: 15mW fox hidden by a drainage pipe about 300 feet away from the parking lot

Photos

After Action Report

We had a very successful fox hunt for this month. We had great participation and a lot of fun conversations on the repeater. We had a few issues getting started but once everything was rolling, it went smooth. Some people had a hard time finding the fox area because they had thought it was closed due to a gate being closed, but the proper entrance was right in front of the gate and kind of hidden unless you drove up to it.


Strengths:

  • Running 3 foxes at different power levels helped people get closer a lot easier
  • Some people used yagis and had very good maps of the city that helped them plan out beam headings easier
  • Check-ins on the repeater helped us know who was still out there and we were able to track everything easier

Improvement Opportunities:
  • Had some issues with the primary 5W fox that need to be worked on. Seems to be a power lead issue and also the duty cycle was too high
  • The fox frequencies need to be spread out more. There was a lot of bleedover between the foxes.
  • Having a proper backup plan in place is needed. After the original location was found before the hunt started, my backup location was no longer accessible and had to rush to find a new spot.

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