On May 10, 2025, three members of the White Rock Amateur Radio Club joined the Surrey Radio Club at Crescent park for their annual Fox Hunt.  After a warm welcome by the Surrey club and some instructions on hunting foxes, we headed off into a dark and wet forest to look for our prey.

Our mission was to find 5 small radio transmitters scattered throughout the park and punch our scorecards with the unique punch associated with that individual transmitter.  Not possible to cheat there.  We came with our own radio direction finder and learned that the direction finding involved holding the device square in front of you and listen for the loudest signal as you turn around and then hold it sideways as you turn and then listen for the lowest tone (or a null) to identify a direction.  Each fox would transmit its number for a minute and then the next would transmit in turn.

We were off to a slow start and realized that one of our maps had the wrong frequency written on it and our device needed some adjustment (a good smack) to get it to work properly.  We finally found our first fox at the far end of the park.  Encouraged, we headed off to look for more.  We finally figured out the proper method for finding the direction and also found that Dani was the best at listening for the sometimes subtle difference in tones for the maximums and minimums.  We also learned to have patience and wait 5 minutes for our fox to transmit again instead of switching to a different one too soon.  Considering our slow start, we managed to find 3 foxes within the allotted time. 

The winner of the contest was a Surrey member who also won last year and found all 5 foxes in under an hour.  I don't think I could walk the whole park in that time, let alone find all the foxes.

We rejoined the Surrey club at the picnic area and enjoyed a bbq of burgers and dogs, and exchanged stories of conquest and camaraderie.  A good time was had by all and we look forward to joining them for the fox hunt next year.