[today’s run: 3 miles]
I was away from ham radio for awhile in the 1990’s. I had my radio license, but I didn’t have a station set up. I started getting back into it in 2000 after I went to a meeting about the Y2K problem and the potential for disaster-type happenings.
After that I acquired a few different types of radios and soon I put up an antenna for HF (shortwave) at my house. I had a little desk in the living room and a QRP radio which put out about 2 watts on the 40 meter band, morse code only.
One of the activities I got into was something called the winter fox hunt.
Yesterday I was fooling around and stumbled on the fox hunt stuff again. So I fired up my old HW-8 (a different but somewhat similar rig) and did the 40 meter fox hunt again for the first time in 5 years.
Here’s how it works: Everything happens with low power (QRP, under 5 watts) and it is all CW (morse code). Before hand they announce who will be the foxes for that evening. There are two foxes. Those to guys get set up between 7030 and 7050 kHz. They pick a spot and stay on their frequency and call ‘CQ FOX’. People who are participating try to find them and connect with them. Unlike an animal-type fox hunt, in this case the foxes want to be caught. But with the small signals involved it can be quite a challenge. The event lasts for 90 minutes, in the evening, starting at 0200 UTC (8 pm in these parts).
So I was on last night and I think I caught both of the foxes. The second one was a little tenuous because a strong radio teletype signal came in during our conversation and I don’t know if he heard me completely. But I definitely heard him.
[There is another ham radio activity called fox hunting which involves finding a small hidden transmitter. ]