As you know we had to rerun our Trophy Foxhunt on Monday evening as no team found the fox in time on the first hunt.
So our re-run was on Monday night at the slightly earlier time of 19.00 because of the earlier sundown. I arrived late 18.30 at Thorpe Recreation Ground because of extreme traffic caused by an accident on the A47 and much to my horror no teams were there! It turns out most teams had been delayed by the same thing but over the next 20 minutes 6 teams arrived – Phew!
Teams:
‘Bittern DX’: Peter G6ZRV with Alec G3YOA and Ian M0IWB
‘Destruction Crew’: Sonny M0SYW with Paul G4ZBA and Mark G0TMT
‘Ignition’: Richard G3RDE with Mike M7XSP and Richard G
‘Meandering’: Colin M0GMK with XYL Jenny
‘Pick Something’ Andy M0NKR with Kim G4WUG, Laura M0LJD and Chris G0DWV
‘Wrong Direction’: Ben M0VFN with David G3FRD, Rachel SWL and Dylan SWL
The Fox Team Tornado (last years winners) comprising James M0UKS, James G7PQF, Lyn and Tammy M0TC took a different stance with this hunt, from a remote rural location for the original Trophy hunt to something set in Norwich for this ReRun, choosing to locate on the Burnet road on the Sweetbriar Industrial Estate which is very quiet in the evenings…
The Result…
Sounds Easy? Well it turns out it wasn’t because of the 6 teams only two found the Fox in the two hours before 21.00; ‘Wrong Direction’ and ‘Meandering’, with Ignition who were very close but arrived moments after the 9pm deadline when the Fox revealed their location.
Team Wrong Direction found them in 7.9 miles and Team Meandering in 18.6 miles, so Team Wrong Direction are the NARC Champions of 2026 for the first time ever, so Congratulations to them and to runners up Team Meandering! Incidentally the winning did not use one of the more sophisticated Doppler systems but just traditional DF – young team member Dylan made his own DF100 to use with his Quansheng handheld radio to help the big team effort! So Team Wrong Direction become the NARC Fox for Practice and Trophy Foxhunts in 2027!
Thanks to all 6 teams who took part, most of who met at the nearby Whiffler Pub afterwards to enjoy a well earned glass of something cold…
Our final Hunt of the Year is a Sunday Fun one on 23rd August from 10am – thats Sunday week! It is likely we will start from a different location to our usual Thorpe because that is manic on Sunday mornings hosting Football matches. We will also all end up somewhere near for a Sunday lunch, so for this Hunt I ask teams to register numbers and any dietary requirements with me (radio@dcpmicro.com) so that I can let teams know starting point and times etc directly.
Radio Direction Finding really is a fun part of the hobby and the main rule is that there are at least two people per team and at least one person needs to be a member of the club, though they do not necessarily need to be licensed, so members can bring friends or family members to make up a team. Why not come along to find out what its all about?
Could you help? I could really do with someone to come and help me at the start and finish of each hunt as it can be busy for one handing out forms and envelopes, checking milometer readings, taking photographs and checking signals from the fox, so if you would like to help me on future hunts please let me know.
David G7URP for NARC
Some pictures I took of Mondays competition with winning Team ‘Wrong Direction’ at the top and the Fox Team at their location on Sweetbriar Industrial Estate at the bottom.
