Results of the 2009 Victorian Fox hunt Championships

Hunting commenced, following lunch of soup and sausage sizzle, at the home of Greg VK3VT and proceed North to Craigieburn for the 10M fox.  Chris VK3CHR was on a hill north of the township and all teams found the fox within a ten minute period.  6M proved to be a little more difficult, possibly because Wal VK3WZ was new to being a fox and was changing frequency as well as modes; the VK3BLN team coped best with his efforts with the other two teams not too far behind to the hiding spot on the fire trails north of Yan Yean reservoir. It was interesting that team YQN drove right past Doug VK3JDO who was in position to be fox on the next hunt, unfortunately for them they did not see him.  What they were doing there who knows? 
YQN Team and car
Doug was the first leg of the MF hunt on 80M and was mobile doing figure 8's around an area of Eden Park on dirt roads, once teams had located him they headed off to find Greg VK3VT at the Kangaroo Ground memorial tower on 160M for a well earned afternoon tea and rest break.

As time had moved on it was decided that there would be just a two leg 2M hunt before the evening meal and teams headed off to find Ian VK3FFLY and Chris CHR.  Some found themselves on the wrong side of the Yarra and decided not to find the first leg while others were locationally challenged on the second leg and decided to head directly to Greg's for a feed.

The evening meal was soup, casseroles, fried rice, followed by fruit platter & apple strudel and ice cream. While most were eating David VK3XAJ from the BLN team was found to be in the workshop repairing the collapsed motor from their automatic rotation system. At this stage the OW team played tag-team and Ewen OW was replaced as beam swinger by Ian VK3MZ ( A family commitment for Ewen).
 
Teams finally dragged themselves away from the food [Someone was heard to note that fox-hunters had actually left some food behind!! - more on this later] to start the night hunt with Ian FFLY on 2M first leg just a few km away in Wattle Glenn, then off to find Doug JDO on 70cm a little further north in Hurstbridge.  

Team BLN and thier carWal 3WZ was the 3rd leg on 6M and he had camouflaged his vehicle near a water tower in the hills east of Hurstbridge. Once again Chris CHR was furthest out back near Eden Park on 10M and there were some complaints of lack of signal - the hints proved to be right this time and all teams eventually found him VK3BLN taking 13 minutes more that the first team. The final leg was a long run back to Watsonia to locate Greg and Ian FFLY in a court near the Plenty river. Then it was back to Greg's for supper and the results.

Supper was more soup, sausage rolls, party pies, quiches with afters of chocolate cake and biscuits.  Results were announced and VK3YQN were crowned 2009 Champions with VK3BLN second and VK3OW third. Detailed scores are set out below.  Scoring was on a placing basis and points were allocated 3 for first, 2 for second and 1 for third.  Multi-leg hunts were scored on a leg time basis thus you could do badly on one leg but still gain points for other legs. After supper a number of attendees assisted organisers by taking home left overs from the meals so there was not that much left after all!

VK3OW team car                                                                                                                                    

Description

Operator

Location

Notes

VK3YQN

VK3BLN

VK3OW

 

 

 

 

TIME

POINTS

TIME

POINTS

TIME

POINTS

10M Hunt

28.335MHz

 

VK3CHR

Mount Ridley

387 A1.

Hint North West from start

40Min

3

50

1

49

2

6M Hunt

52.1MHz

 

VK3WZ

Jingles Road Humevale 37:30:34S

145:10:28E

Hint West  East# from 10M

Start on SSB then switch to FM

 

2

 

3

 

1

HF/MF Hunt
3.585MHz

1.825MHz

 

VK3JDO

VK3VT

 

Eden Park.

Kangaroo Ground Tower 271 G10

 

East West# from 6M

South East from 80M

Afternoon tea after this.

 

54

62

 

2

1

 

73

43*

 

1

3*

 

54

52

 

3

2

2M Two legs

145.7MHz

144.247MHz

 

VK3FFLY

VK3CHR

 

Wonga Park 279 B4

Pound Bend 23 C10

 

ESE of 160M

WSW of 1st Leg

 

 

 

3

3

 

 

+18MIN

 

-

2

 

 

2

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Night Hunt

145.7MHz,

439.050MHz

52.1MHz,

28.335MHz,

144.247MHz

 

VK3FFLY

VK3JDO

VK3WZ

VK3CHR

VK3VT/FFLY

 

Tower 12 K8

Knowle 185 H8

Goldman’s 264B2

Braemore place

Koora Crt 20K7

 

North East of start

North of 1st Leg

East 2nd   (Water tank)
North West of 3rd Leg

South

 

29

14

20

41

40

 

2

2**

3

3

2

 

28

12

25

54

39

 

3

3

2

1

3

 

32

14

27

42

 

 

1

2**

1

2

-

Final Score

 

 

 

1st

26

2nd

22

3rd

16

 Notes

# Indicates where organiser had put in the wrong (180deg out) clues, thanks to all those that took the time to bring this mistake to our attention.

* BLN hunted on 52.1 as their 160M loop was not operational so OW could argue about this result (probably successfully if accompanied by money!)

** Same leg time – 2 points each

Many, many thanks to those that assisted in the organising and running the event; they include:


BLN fixing at the last minute YQN car from front