The *Can’t* *Miss* *Radio* *Event* — Bristol County Repeater Association Fox Hunt #5
Skip KB1CNB and the Bristol County Repeater Association did it again with the fifth amateur radio direction finding event! AA1F and I will not miss these (click here, here, here, and here for blogs). The premise is largely the same as always, involving a 10 mile radius centered around a bridge in Fall River MA. This time Skip was operating the 146.565 MHz transmitter and Kevin K1KJS was in charge of the 146.430 MHz fox. Each fox would transmit for 1 minute and then be off for 4 minutes.
The map above shows a 5 mile radius around the center of Veteran’s Memorial Bridge, which connects Fall River to Somerset over the Taunton River (shown with a red marker). The entire playing field was actually in a 10 mile radius around that center point, which makes the entire area of potential searching over 300 square miles! We went for Fox 1 first. The inset below shows the nine bearings we stopped to take.
We found Skip hanging out at a local church parking lot. It had taken us around 3 hours to locate Fox 1. Skip gave us some clues to Fox 2, and we were off again. Apparently Kevin was in an RF “hole” and was not getting much distance on his transmissions. Nor was he able to communicate via the repeater very well.
We followed Skip’s clues, and were surprised that we were not hearing the transmitter for most of our travels. It wasn’t until we were within a couple of miles from the hiding place that we could actually here Fox 2. We did not stop to take bearings, as simply listening to the quality of the fox from the car gave us plenty of information. And we used quite a bit of deductive reasoning…like following the sign to “Dighton Rock State Park”. Sure enough, as soon as we reached the entrance to Dighton Rock, the signal strength of the transmitter greatly increased. We knew we had found Kevin. We just didn’t know almost everyone else had too!
We hung out and shot the breeze, enjoying each others company on a beautiful day.
AA1F and I used a somewhat different strategy this round, and it seemed a lot more successful. This time we used three handi-talkies. I had pre-programmed all of our radios with the BCRA repeater (which was used for chatter during the hunt), and each transmitter frequency. One radio (a Radioddity GD-77) was permanently connected to a rooftop 2M magmount omnidirectional vertical antenna. This radio does not program easily from the front panel, and I hadn’t bothered programming it beforehand on prior foxhunts. Preprogrammed however, it was a delight! And easy to switch from fox frequency to repeater.
While we were monitoring either the fox or chatter with the GD-77, AA1F–riding shotgun–was listening for the fox on his Yaesu FT-4X HT with a bendable Diamond Superflex SRJF40A antenna. It remains to be seen if bending it into a loop actually makes it function with directionality. I have an Arrow Antenna VHF Fox Hunt Loop, and well, couldn’t find it, almost making us late searching. So, I thought, hmmm, I wonder if this bendable antenna would work? Regardless, AA1F was able to get a sense of signal strength with his radio, which was very helpful. Some day I will do some directionality testing with this set-up as I do have an ARDF transmitter to test it with.
I continued to use my Arrow satellite handheld antenna with just the 2M elements in place. This yagi gives great directionality of course. So between AA1F’s ability to judge signal strength, and my ability to tell directionality, we actually did quite well this round honing in on the foxes.
So, thank you Skip KB1CNB and Kevin K1KJS for providing a great day of entertainment for us! And thank you to the Bristol County Repeater Association for once again hosting a terrific event!
As Always,
KM1NDY