Fox Hunt 35
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Sunday, January 11, 2026
1300 Hours - 1400 Hours
Somewhere in Gloucester County
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Fox Hunt 35 - Foxhunt Fun 1-11 @ 1!
By Jim Wright N2GXJ Something special happens Sunday, January 11, 2026 at 1pm, and we’d like for you to join in! This is the date and time of the next GCARC radio fox hunt. Some of the most memorable and fun foxhunts have been the winter ones! Reserve the date now. What a great way to kick off the new year! Never been in a fox hunt before? No problem! This family friendly event is great excuse to get some fresh air out of the house together. Part of the fun is in the experience, learning and improving by trying new things hands-on in the field. Care to give it a try? Some words on what to expect I’ve included below, but if questions, please feel free to reach out to me (Jim Wright N2GXJ) ahead of time. My number and email address are in the Club Roster. These really are fun events. You should plan to join in, if you can! Marc Federici WM2Y, will be the “fox”, hiding the transmitter this time. He’ll send an email to all Club members via the Club’s email reflector the day before with further details. If he’s nice, we might be able to find it without having to get out of our cars. But then again, this is Marc. He’s built his own transmitters for us to find in the past. What have you got in mind for us this time, Marc? We’ll see! What to expect? |
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A radio foxhunt is like a hide and seek, where we, as hunters (the “hounds”), try and locate a low power transmitter that the “fox” has placed in a publiclocation, and turned on at a designated time for us to try and find.
In our hunts, hounds can work individually, or together in teams, using whatever methods and technology and techniques they choose to try to home-in and find the transmitter. A common approach involves using a portable radio and taking signal strength measurements, knowing that the closer you are to the transmitter, the stronger the signal will be. Some will use directional antennas, with attenuators to knock down the received signal strength when they get in closer, but other techniques have been successful as well.
Some hunts involve an on-foot only search, with everyone starting from the same spot (such as for a hunt in the 4H Fairgrounds, starting from our Clubhouse parking lot). Some hunts involve driving only, where you can drive right up to where the transmitter is without having to get out of your car. But most involve some combination of the two, where you drive until you are close, then finish on foot. The person hiding the fox transmitter decides, and lets us know what to expect ahead of the event.
On the day before the scheduled hunt, the fox will send out an email to the Club’s email reflector with a description of the hunt area, narrowing it down to just a few square miles, to give us hounds a fighting chance to find it with less than an hour of searching. With that information, and knowing that the hiding spot has to be on public property, not on private nor school property (to avoid problems with that), hunters will break out their favorite mapping apps and plan out their hunt strategies.
Hunters are encouraged to pre-program their radios with hunt frequencies and test them prior to the start of the hunt. The Pitman repeater transmits on 147.180 MHz (listening +0.6, PL tone 131.8). The fox transmits on 146.565 MHz (FM Simplex), with third harmonic 439.695 MHz for closer-in tracking, unless informed otherwise by the fox prior to the start of the hunt. Just a reminder, if you use an offset attenuator when hunting the fox, you’ll have to program a different frequency that is offset from this for the attenuator to work properly.
Ahead of the start time on the day of the hunt, hunt teams drive to position themselves to wherever they chose to start in or near the hunt area. During the 10 minutes before the start time, hunt teams are asked to check-in with the fox on our Pitman 2M repeater, so that we’ll all know who is hunting. That way, we’ll know if anyone is still hunting after an hour, so we can help talk them in to the finish line. If you can’t reach the repeater via RF, you can try via Echolink W2MMD-R if you’ve set it up ahead of time on your cell phone. If all else fails, and you’re in the hunt area, you can try and contact other hunters on the fox’s simplex frequency, for them to relay in the information.
At the start time, the fox will turn on the transmitter, and announce it over the repeater. Once the hunt starts, we all move off the repeater frequency, and onto the fox’s simplex frequency, and continue there until the event is over. If you need help during the hunt, or if the fox needs to contact us with additional instructions or hints during the hunt, we’ll use fox’s simplex frequency during the gaps between the fox’s transmissions.
First to find the transmitter gets the honor of being the fox to hide it for others to find the next time. If any teams are still hunting after an hour, they’ll be talked in to the finish, where we’ll exchange hunt stories and pose for a group picture.
Typically, we run one foxhunt per season, which means you might want to make an effort to not miss the next one. So gear up, and don’t miss this next one! Future foxhunts will get announced a few weeks ahead of the event at our Club meeting, on our website, via our email reflector, and in CrossTalk.
That’s it! Hope to see you on the next hunt!
In our hunts, hounds can work individually, or together in teams, using whatever methods and technology and techniques they choose to try to home-in and find the transmitter. A common approach involves using a portable radio and taking signal strength measurements, knowing that the closer you are to the transmitter, the stronger the signal will be. Some will use directional antennas, with attenuators to knock down the received signal strength when they get in closer, but other techniques have been successful as well.
Some hunts involve an on-foot only search, with everyone starting from the same spot (such as for a hunt in the 4H Fairgrounds, starting from our Clubhouse parking lot). Some hunts involve driving only, where you can drive right up to where the transmitter is without having to get out of your car. But most involve some combination of the two, where you drive until you are close, then finish on foot. The person hiding the fox transmitter decides, and lets us know what to expect ahead of the event.
On the day before the scheduled hunt, the fox will send out an email to the Club’s email reflector with a description of the hunt area, narrowing it down to just a few square miles, to give us hounds a fighting chance to find it with less than an hour of searching. With that information, and knowing that the hiding spot has to be on public property, not on private nor school property (to avoid problems with that), hunters will break out their favorite mapping apps and plan out their hunt strategies.
Hunters are encouraged to pre-program their radios with hunt frequencies and test them prior to the start of the hunt. The Pitman repeater transmits on 147.180 MHz (listening +0.6, PL tone 131.8). The fox transmits on 146.565 MHz (FM Simplex), with third harmonic 439.695 MHz for closer-in tracking, unless informed otherwise by the fox prior to the start of the hunt. Just a reminder, if you use an offset attenuator when hunting the fox, you’ll have to program a different frequency that is offset from this for the attenuator to work properly.
Ahead of the start time on the day of the hunt, hunt teams drive to position themselves to wherever they chose to start in or near the hunt area. During the 10 minutes before the start time, hunt teams are asked to check-in with the fox on our Pitman 2M repeater, so that we’ll all know who is hunting. That way, we’ll know if anyone is still hunting after an hour, so we can help talk them in to the finish line. If you can’t reach the repeater via RF, you can try via Echolink W2MMD-R if you’ve set it up ahead of time on your cell phone. If all else fails, and you’re in the hunt area, you can try and contact other hunters on the fox’s simplex frequency, for them to relay in the information.
At the start time, the fox will turn on the transmitter, and announce it over the repeater. Once the hunt starts, we all move off the repeater frequency, and onto the fox’s simplex frequency, and continue there until the event is over. If you need help during the hunt, or if the fox needs to contact us with additional instructions or hints during the hunt, we’ll use fox’s simplex frequency during the gaps between the fox’s transmissions.
First to find the transmitter gets the honor of being the fox to hide it for others to find the next time. If any teams are still hunting after an hour, they’ll be talked in to the finish, where we’ll exchange hunt stories and pose for a group picture.
Typically, we run one foxhunt per season, which means you might want to make an effort to not miss the next one. So gear up, and don’t miss this next one! Future foxhunts will get announced a few weeks ahead of the event at our Club meeting, on our website, via our email reflector, and in CrossTalk.
That’s it! Hope to see you on the next hunt!