Fox hunting (also known as Transmitter hunting, bunny hunting, and bunny chasing), is an activity wherein participants use radio direction finding techniques to locate one or more radio transmitters hidden within a designated search area.
On Sunday 26th September at 2pm in the afternoon a Foxhunt was in Plynlimon Park.
The fox was transmitting (a voice id followed by carrier) every minute from 14:40hrs NZDT on 146.475 MHz.
The day dawned fine, but by midday the showers began. However the weather was fine when I arrived at Plynlimon Park and deployed the Fox. There were 5 check-ins (ZL3ABY, ZL3RIK, ZL3LSD, ZL3FV and ZL3ASN).
They were told the Fox was in a supermarket bag. There was a decoy fox in a yellow bag, but no-one fell for that.
After about 10 minutes they were all in close proximity to the Fox.
Then Trevor ZL3ADZ arrived – unfortunately there had been a typo in the instructions that said the Fox transmissions were starting at 14:40 hours.I went over and stood about 2 metres from the Fox and announced I could see it. About 2 minutes later Rick whispered that the Fox was in the green bag, closely followed by James ZL3FV.
We went back to the clubrooms and were met by Ian ZL3GIG who was waiting for the Foxhunt to begin – he had not put his watch forward. Back at the clubrooms there a lot of discussion over a cup of tea or coffee.
Photo and word by Ian ZL3TAO
