FYI, I just received this from Joe.

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It's springtime and hams around the country are moving their radio activities outside. Plan now to get out of the shack and take part in the CQ Magazine National Foxhunting Weekend (NFW), May 12-13, 2001. It's a time when foxhunters from around the country will go on their favorite kind of RDF adventure. Perhaps it will be a mobile T-hunt. When you set out in your RDF-equipped vehicle, you never know where you'll end up and you don't know what you'll find.

Other hams prefer their foxhunting to be all on foot in a big park. They call it foxtailing, radio-orienteering or ARDF. There is an internationally recognized set of rules for this kind of hunt, which takes place in about 30 countries around the world. Stateside hams will host competitors from some of these countries at the First USA ARDF Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico beginning July 31 (See article in QST Magazine, May 2001).

For the NFW, your club can make up its own transmitter hunting rules. The most important thing is to make plans now for some sort of transmitter hunting on or around that weekend. You might want to follow the example of foxhunters in Atlanta, who recently held construction parties to build 80-meter radio-orienteering gear for woodland hunts that they will be having throughout the spring and summer.

More information about the NFW, plus photos and stories of last year's weekend, are in the May 2001 issue of CQ Magazine. There's also more information about foxhunting and the NFW at my Web site: www.homingin.com

Besides basic information about the sport and suitable equipment for both mobile and on-foot hunting, there are ideas for NFW activities and a form for reporting them afterwards. Happy Hunting!

73, Joe Moell K0OV