Mumbai Amateur Radio Society

Fox Hunt

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FOX HUNT 2006

The fox hunt 2006 was held on the 25th and 26th of February 2006. In Matheran a hill station far away from the hustle and bustle of mumbai .

The fox hunt 2005 was conducted by Zyros Zend VU2ZRS

Nilesh Rathod VU2NLF, Farokh Irani VU2WET, Ivor Simon Pereira VU2IVO.

In all 14 Members participated in the fox hunt.

There were 6 fox hunts conducted in a period of 2 days.

1-“JALDI FIVE”

2-“LIMCA RECORD FOX HUNT ”

3-“NO MOON FOX (ANDERI RAAT MEH ……..TERE HATH MEH )

4-“WHO DARE WINS “ night fox

5-“BRUCE WILLIS FOX”

6-“SCRAMBLE TEAM WORK “

All hunters reached Dasturi point by car in the morning , after breakfast they were issued their hand held radios , antennae, and ponchos . The "Fox" was put on so members could get use to their equipment and fine tune it.

A big thank you to all the non-participating members who lent their equipment for the fox hunt to members who did not have their own handies yet .

Names of lenders are :-

Nirav Sanghvi VU2NHR

Jayesh Karwar VU2ESP

Abhay Shah VU2AIH

Sandip Adiwekar VU2UGO

Huzefa Merchant VU2HIT

Prasant Koli VU2CBU whose hand held was used as the fox .

THANK YOU ALL

Also a big thanks to Ankur Puranik VU2AXN for repairing and getting all 15 antennas working and ready which were in a bad shape for the fox hunt. Sad he had to back out of the event last hour due to personnel reasons.

Also a big thanks again to Ankur Puranik VU2AXN for having the"Fox" repaired and ready for the event also to be completed successfully .

From Dasturi point to Matheran all hunters mounted horses with their haversacks/rucksacks on their back and their handhelds and antennae in their hands and headed towards Matheran .

The distance between Dasturi point and Matheran gave the hunters a good time for adjusting to their horses, the uphill and downhill roads and their equipment which helped them get ready for the 2nd fox hunt of the day that was the -“LIMCA FOX HUNT ” which was to be done on horse back.

All hunters reached Matheran safely and confidently on their horses. On reaching Matheran all the hunters checked into their allocated rooms and got ready for the 1st fox hunt.

A detailed account of all the Fox Hunts is given below

1st Fox Hunt-“JALDI FIVE” 11.40am to 1.10pm

Fox- Santosh Salian

The fox was a mobile fox. A person none of the hunters had ever seen carried around the fox in a bag.

This person (fox) was especially brought from Mumbai just for this event. This fox would move around the market place for 10 minutes and then it would rest for 5 minutes in a spot and then carry on for another 10 minutes and again rest for 5 minutes.

Hunters within these intervals of resting period had exactly 5 minutes to hunt fox down.

Within those 5 minutes any hunter coming within a specified radius close to the fox, his cap was removed by the fox quickly as a indication that the fox has been hunted.

It had to be done tactfully so that no one else could get a visual clue of the same. Only the first five hunters caps were removed.

Winners

1-Rajesh Sethia

2-Kunal Masru

3-Vaibhav Palande

4-Sailesh Desmukh

5-Dilip Bandari

2 nd Fox Hunt-“LIMCA FOX HUNT ” 3.00pm to 5.00 pm

Fox –Farokh Irani

All hunters had mounted their horses at the hotel and were sent of to 4 different locations in Matheran . They were informed about the frequency of the fox and the duration of the fox transmitting.

All together only 12 hunters found the fox out of 13 hunters.

The fox was put around Rugby hotel.

Winners

1. Huzefa Merchant VU2HIT

2. Rajesh Sethia VU2VCS

3. Nilesh Dixit SWL and Sailesh Deshmukh VU2LOC

4. Surendra Shetty VU2SFH

5. Ulhas Paralkar VU2UBP and Nilesh Malpekar VU2MLW

6. Dilip Bhandari VU2DGB

7. Feroze Patel VU2FEO & Mohammed Bhawandwalla VU2GYM

8. Vaibhav Palande VU3ICU

9. Kunal Mashru VU2KWE

10. Harsha Salian VU2HRU (dnf)

3 rd Fox Hunt--“NO MOON FOX

(ANDERI RAAT MEH ……..DIYA TERE HATH MEH )

7.30pm to 8.30 pm

Fox- Nilesh Rathod

This fox was conducted in the dense woods of Matheran in the night. Pitch dark conditions. all hunters left from one location with equipment and torches in their hands . They were sent in teams of for sake of their safety. Also their ponchos had reflector strips on them so that it would help in the night to search them if they were lost or any emergency. Only 5 teams found it

Winners

1- Dilip Bhandari and Surendra Shetty

2- Nilesh Dixit and Kunal Mashru

3- Harsha Salian, Rajesh Sethia ,Mohamed Bhanvadwalla

4- Ulhas Paralkar and Sailesh Deshmukh

5- Firoze Patel and Nilesh Malpekar

4th Fox Hunt-“WHO DARE WINS “ Night fox

Fox Nilesh Rathod and Zyros Zend

Since every one were quite happy and comfortable with the darkness and dense woods of Matheran even after the street lights of Matheran go of at 8.15pm they requested if another night fox hunt could be conducted.

Well this fox was almost found by many. The hunters came in teams of 2 very close to the fox but it was a small drop/ valley that separated the fox from the hunters and no one had the will to cross the drop/gorge and hunt the fox down. SO CLOSE YET SO FAR.

Winner none but they all were winners as far as team work was considered.

But it was noticed by the foxes NLF and ZRS that a lot of healthy team work was going around amongst the hunters to hunt us down and that was a positive sign to our members

Their individual effort to coordinate with other team members to hunt the fox as a group. :::Good team work :::: good show guys

5 th Fox Hunt--“BRUCE WILLIS FOX”

Fox – Nilesh Rathod

All hunters were once again taken to the location of the 2nd fox, RUGBY HOTEL. This fox was a very well camouflaged fox. It was fully covered by leaves and wood and the hunters had a real new experience trying to hunt this fox down. They had to use all their experience and knowledge of hunting to hunt this fox. Altogether 10 hunters found this fox.

Time was extended for this fox by 30 minutes

10.30 to 12.00 pm

1- Sailesh Deshmuk

2- Kunal Masru

3- Nilesh Dixit

5- Huzefa Merchant

6- Dilip Bhandari

7- Phiroze Patel and Vaibhav Palande

8- Surendra Shetty

9- Nilesh Malpekar

10- Mohammed Bhanvadwalla

6 th Fox Hunt--“SCRAMBLE TEAM WORK “3.30pm to 5.30pm

Fox –Nilesh Rathod

All hunters were divided into 2 teams. The basic aim of this fox was that if any one team member found the fox he had to coordinate with his other team mates on a frequency allotted to them and use the maps, compasses and reach the location of the fox and find it together as a team.

Winner’s -Team 1

Huzefa Merchant

Kunal Masru

Vaibhav Palande (found the fox first )

Harsha Salian

Yogesh Thakar

Rajesh Sethia

Over all winner of this event will be announced during the AGM 2006

All please be present.

Thanks to all the organizers who helped in the event and during the rekhi done a week before -Farokh Irani , Nilesh Rathod , Ivor P. Santosh S .

Thanks to VU2WET Farokh Irani for his tasty cake he got for all of us from his famous Pune bakery called IMPERIAL BAKERY ,East Street .

A special thanks to Ivor Periera VU2IVO for being present on the frequency through out the event at the hotel HOPE HALL for any emergency traffic. Thank god none happened.

Hope I have not let any ones name out.

Thanks and regards

Zyros Zend

VU2ZRS

(Event manager )