Ham Radio Fox Hunt

The Venture Out Ham Radio group had a "fox hunt" scheduled for a recent Saturday.

 In preparation, they built directional antennas to help to locate the "fox".

This was at one of the regular meetings of the club so they could see the "fox" and an example of a directional antenna (made from metal tape measure material).

The antenna-building class session.

On the morning of the fox hunt, there was a breakfast for the ham radio group, and Carl had his antenna, radio, and map ready to go!

I rode along to help with photographing the hunt and I piloted the "Fox Hunt Chase Vehicle" (aka golf cart) for part of the time.

We were convinced that the fox would be in a public space in Venture Out, and the signal was bouncing off of the back wall of the community, so we spent a bit of time looking for it in this area behind a few houses.

Eventually, we realized that we needed to try a different direction, and here is Carl having found the fox! (Note that the fox itself is just a prop, there is a transmitter hidden in or near it that is sending the signal that we were "hunting".)

Our fox hunting group -- we initially just had Carl, Roy (on the right) and me, but we picked up a fellow who is studying to take his ham radio licensing exam and he enjoyed coming along!

The fox hunt was named in memory of Alice E Brewer who was a former member of the Venture Out Ham Radio club.

This was the list of participants/teams. Our team (called "Fox Finders" came in third by the time on the photo when we found the fox.

This activity is a little like a game such as a scavenger hunt, but being able to locate a signal with a directional antenna can be useful in many applications. For example, the concept is used in finding "black boxes" from airplanes (but not usually by ham radio operators). Carl shared that the amateur radio club that he belonged to in Columbus, GA had fox hunts that interfaced with the local law enforcement. The hams were requested to help out if any resident of a local memory care center happened to leave the facility without authorization -- the residents wore ankle bracelets (transmitters) and the amateur radio folks could help in locating a lost person. By practicing with a fox hunt, the hams honed their skills in case of a future need.

Activity Office Volunteering

I started volunteering in November at the Activity Office at Venture Out -- just Tuesday mornings. My primary responsibilities in the office are checking in/out movies, and doing copies as requested. But I have also been trained on the "other end of the desk" which is the cashier position.

Tickets available for sale on one of the mornings when I was working -- dances, meals, other events!

The cash register -- I have to find the specific ticket or item on lists within the screen, and it automatically knows the cost of the item.

I was asked to try to get a volunteer program going at the fitness center -- what has worked out to this point is to designate some of the folks who come to exercise frequently as "Fitness Center Volunteer". They can be approached by other users of the fitness center with questions or comments.

I also changed the way that people make suggestions -- there used to be a box so other users were not aware of what suggestions or reports had been made, and there was no way to communicate back what was happening on the request. We decided to try a feedback form. The first three on this particular page were written by me as people saw someone "official" behind the desk and told me about things that they wanted, so I wrote them down. Then, I come back and write in information (on all the lines) about how the request is being addressed. It seems to be working out well.

I really enjoy volunteering in the Activity Office... the fitness center not so much, but at least we've got a bit of a volunteer program going there!

Visitors to the hummingbird feeder

I have posted before that we have a number of non-hummingbirds at our hummingbird feeder:

This one and his mate (who is not as brightly colored) come frequently now.

Staring at the window where I am sitting as if to say, "How come you're not giving me something better?" How do they know where the supplier of sugar water is located?

We like the new location of the feeder as we can easily see the birds from our desk area.

Silent key for Paul

The Venture Out Ham Radio club recently celebrated the life of one of its members, Paul, with a silent key ceremony.

Terry LeDuc led us through the ceremony

Recognition of Paul Riepe

Paul's daughter and friends from within Venture Out joined for the moving ceremony.

The silent key ceremony is a last time that the club calls out the call-sign of the deceased member, and when there is no response after 3 attempts, the call-sign is declared as a "silent key" (from previous times when radio operators were "keying" with Morse code and now their "key" is silent).

Some motorhome work

After church one Sunday, Carl mentioned to a friend of ours from Minnesota, Randy, that he (Carl) might need help changing the air filter on Gracie (our motorhome). A couple of days later, Randy showed up, ready to do the job:

Randy working on tightening the new filter into place

Randy did the work, while Carl supervised!

Old filter waiting to be taken to the trash bin

Gracie in our spot at Venture Out (on a cloudy day)

We had visited Randy and Laureen at their farm in Minnesota last summer (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2024/07/minnesota-farm-visit.html). It is nice to have friends who are ready and willing to help -- or, in this case, to do the job!!!

East Valley Pops Orchestra

We got to hear the East Valley Pops Orchestra here at Venture Out...

The Orchestra set up on the west side of the ballroom, as the whole orchestra could not fit onto the stage in the ballroom.

Lots of Venture Out folks were pleased to be able to hear the orchestra.

A full sized orchestra, largely made up of retirees with a variety of musical backgrounds, many just winter visitors to the east valley area!

Information about the orchestra: https://www.eastvalleypops.org/ 

A video of one of the songs that was played: https://youtu.be/UWhtHgGd_yU
 

Arizona Two Step Lessons

We took Arizona Two Step lessons this winter -- 5 weeks of lessons -- here at Venture Out. 

Dennis and Sandy Boone were our instructors

At the end of the lessons, Dennis and Sandy demonstrated what we had learned so we could record it and be able to re-review it and practice --- I uploaded it to YouTube: https://youtu.be/wjngVYydNLY

There are additional lessons available ("intermediate" level), but we think we've learned enough for what we want for now. We're hoping we'll do enough practicing on this that we won't forget it!

Creme Brule' French Toast Fundraiser

The Ham Radio group had a fundraiser of Creme Brule' French Toast on a Saturday morning. We went in to the kitchen on Friday afternoon, and then back early on Saturday morning to cook and serve...

Pat was wrapping utensils...

Katie was dealing with cooking the sausage links...

Ted was cleaning pans...

Ken and Chef Arthur in the Baja Bistro

Alex and Erwin also in the Bistro

Line up of the customers for the breakfast

Serving line

Serving line from the other side

Delivery of the French toast to the serving line from the kitchen

Nick cutting the French toast to be ready for serving

The breakfast was delicious and well received by all of the folks joining us for the fundraiser!

Golf Cart maintenance and upgrades

As with anything that you acquire, maintenance comes along with it -- as well as the desire to upgrade the new item with additional features. We're finding this with the golf cart. I had posted about us putting new mirrors on it (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2024/12/improvement-to-golf-cart.html).

Carl checking air pressures in the tires -- they were down a few pounds. He had not checked them since we got it, so we figure they were low when we purchased the golf cart.

We had wanted to get a back seat and safety bar to install over the area where golf club bags would be stored (in its "normal" use on a golf course).

Carl had ordered it and had it sent to our friends, Mory and Peggy's house. We had picked it up a few days before, and finally found a day that we thought we could work on it.

Carl pulled the golf cart up onto the patio so it was near his tools...

... we followed the directions -- one of the early instructions was to remove the top of the golf cart, which Carl is doing here.

I didn't get pictures during the process as we were both working on it... it went pretty well except there was a point where suddenly the instructions showed a picture with a new component installed, with no instructions on how to install it and, which was worse, none of the bolts which we needed to attach it. In addition, the directions told us to remove bolts and keep them for re-installation, and one of the bolts that we were to remove and then reuse was missing. So a trip to the hardware store to get missing bolts was required (actually two trips, as we had not figured out that we were missing the second set until we'd already made the trip to get the first set).

At any rate, the back seat and safety bar are now installed -- here it is in the "utility" configuration (we used this to take the trash and recycling after the installation was completed).

And here it is with the additional passenger configuration -- we are looking forward to using it when we have company visiting!

Carl has a long list of "to-do's" and it is always great when a big one gets completed!

Carl playing with his new drone

Carl became very interested in a new drone like one of our friends (Mory) had on our Alaska caravan trip. Recently, he ordered and received a DJI FLIP. He is particularly interested in getting overhead pictures from our campsites. He was trying it out on our lot in Mesa a few weeks ago -- these are some of the pictures from it...

Initially, he tried just taking off from the table on our patio and taking a picture across the street...

... then he turned the unit around and took a picture of himself!

A wider view of our lot

Now, we aren't allowed to fly a drone in our community, so he just flew it up over our lot, and for a very short time. He is hoping to take it out with our friend, Mory, to try using it in a location where it is allowed to be flown.

A couple of colorful sky pictures

We often have very colorful skies in Arizona -- here are a couple of pictures I've taken over the past few weeks:

Sunrise from our front door

Sunset over the "center" (the main building in the middle of Venture Out) one Friday evening as we were walking to the Friday night dance

It isn't colorful every day, but we enjoy pretty sun views frequently -- more sunsets than sunrises, just because we are more often awake then!

Dinner with some of our Alaska caravan folks

We had dinner a couple of weeks ago with the tail gunners, Jeff and Julie, from our Fantasy Alaska caravan, along with others of our travelers from the Mesa area...

Carl, Patti, Julie, Jeff, Mory, Peggy and Peggy.

Carl had Chicken Parmesan

I had Pollo alla Pizzaiola (Chicken breast with fresh tomato, oregano, capers and olives)

Good food and great visit!