With a break in the weather, 4 intrepid student interns, Zane, Issac, Arthur, and Eric participated in a special JSCARC Fox Hunt held a the JSC Gilruth center on Sunday March 24.
For this event, we decided to deploy 6 hidden foxes, across the 2m and 80m bands.
For 2m, we handed out the Handi-Finder modified detectors, developed by NZ1J. LEDs provided direction guidance through phased orientation of 2 vertical dipoles.
For 80m, we handed out PJ60 receivers, designed by Chinese Radio Sports. The receivers used the technique of nulls and peaks to determine bearing of the incoming signal.
The radio receivers overall worked very well, once one got past the learning curve of each radio’s functionality and characteristics.
John AB5SS, Jerry N5LOW, Kelvin K5KGH, and myself W5OC served as JSCARC hosts.
Once everyone got familiarized with the radios, hunting became easier and proficiency improved.
If we have time to conduct another fox hunt this semester, I think we will challenge our talented hunters with a few hidden foxes within a 2 mile radius- and see what happens!
During Sunday’s activity, John brought his 2m tape measure yagi with a side strap switched attenuator, to show the new hunters more elaborate ways to find the fox. Kelvin K5KGH brought BaoFeng UV-R5 to the students for checkout use. They weren’t used for the fox hunt, but hopefully will support their monitoring and check-in to the W5RRR weekly 2m net as well as QSO use among themselves using simplex and/or repeaters.
