Eastern Ozarks Amateur Radio Club

Scenario: A hiker is lost in the woods. He has” fallen and can’t get up “.

He is not sure where he is since he hit his head during the fall. ( dazed and confused)

Fortunately he has his handy dandy hand held radio with him. He calls out on the local simplex channel for help. Any number of hams hear him and respond in an orderly manner. But they also do not know where he is. So they talk among themselves( Probably on the local repeaters) and decide to get out their fox hunting gear and work collaboratively to find the fallen hiker.

Each hunter takes a bearing reading from their location “ stay at home fox hunt” and reports this bearing to the” net control” volunteer who plots these bearings on a map.

Some where in the area where most of the bearings cross must be the location of the lost hiker.

Activity : at a predetermined date and time the Victim ( fox). Will start transmitting a call, whoever hears him will respond to the victim to reassure him that” help is on the way” and then check in, probably on the local repeater, Probably with the Volunteer net control operator so they can all collaborate. (anyone can keep their own records if they want to)

Operation: the victim will start at the predetermined frequency and time, transmitting at about 5 watts on a vertical antenna. If anyone wants to talk with the victim they may.

Every five minutes the victim will increase power in what ever steps their equipment will allow. ( suggest medium size steps, not some tiny power increase. ) (maybe up to 50 Watts, it is a very good hand held radio)

Any time the “ rescuers “ feel they have the location they may report to the victim that they have him located, tell him his location, and rescue is on the way. If the victim is satisfied with the answer the victim will announce “ the exercise is over. “

The exercise is open to all Amateur radio operators.

This is a work in progress any suggestions for improvement or simplification will be considered.

Ben Townsend W1TBM