Foxhunter activities 14-April-1996

Denver Area Direction Finding Group, April 14th Hunt

What a hunt! N0XGC (Mike) and N0TZL (Dan) really put on a great hunt! KB0KZR (Matt) was a worthy accomplice. This was a two transmitter hunt starting near Loretto Heights College on the west side of Denver. The hunt had been billed as "difficult" followed by "more difficult". They kept their word!

Here is WB4ETT's account:

The first transmitter was turned on at about 3 PM on Sunday the 14th of April, and provided a nice strong signal for DF'ing toward the mountains. Driving west on highway 285 verified the fox was at least as far west as the foothills.

One rule of foxhunting is that roads do not go where they need to go! Following highway 285 into the mountains seemed to be the best route. As soon as WB4ETT entered the foothills, the signal levels dropped and directivity became a thing of the past. Typical of Rocky Mountain Hunts, reflections were coming from everywhere.

The most consistent signals appeared to come from further up the canyon toward Double Header Mountain. After gaining altitude by circling up Double Header, it became obvious that the fox was much further north and that Double Header had been reflecting the signals. A good bearing was taken to the north and it crossed with the starting point bearing very near Mt. Falcon Park, a perfect hiding point....maybe.

Again, no roads went where they needed to go so backtracking was required. 10 miles later, going up Parmalee Gulch Road, the signals started to coincide with the earlier triangulation. Several more bearings indicated Mt. Falcon Park was the destination. Within a few miles of the park, however, the signal was coming from the opposite side of the valley. This is typical of a mountain top hiding spot without line of sight to the road in the bottom of the valley.

The first beacon was found in KB0KZR's pickup truck in the parking lot at Mt. Falcon. He was sending out a packet TNC generated signal. Matt's instructions were to change frequency to 146.52 and DF the next beacon. After listening for what seemed like forever, there was a short beacon on the frequency, mixed in with the normal chatter on 146.52 MHz simplex from Denver, line of sight below us to the east.

The hunt was on foot from here. The transmit cycle was low, less than a minute every 5 minutes, and reflections were again bad. There did not seem to be a direct signal from anywhere (later found to be the case). The other signals on '.52 really complicated the hunt, too. There would be several fox transmit cycles in a row totally obscured by chatter on 146.52.

After taking a series of bearings for about a mile along a north-south trail, the bearings started indicating a location near "the castle", the ruins of a turn of the century mansion on top of one ridge. The next hour was spent near the ruins with other hunters.

The beacon transmitter was at last found pushed back into a crevice on the eastward facing slope of the mountain. The parking lot where beacon number one was found was 0.6 miles to the west and across the hill. That explained the poor signals and many reflections! A lot of planning went into the hiding of this fox!

The winner, based on time from beacon 1 to beacon 2, was N0BAF, Dan, who will challenge us on the May 12th hunt.

Hardware information: