During these pandemic days we anted to have another activity for children who are at home and away from their friends. Also wanted to support the eTwinning Learning Project our community volunteer and education coordinator/teacher Aysegul Dundar, Mars On Earth Project Team. Not only to support their education and have an awareness about hamradio and/or space communications also to play an old hamradio game altogether on a satellite transponder.
Foxhunting (also known as radio direction finding) is a field game under normal circumstances, where there are hidden and randomly transmitting tiny transmitters in a big field which I trying to be found by the attendee gamers. When you find a transmitter location (called fox) you get points which means you hunt a fox. We don’t harm any animal during this activity. Please visit http://ardf.fi/ en for a sample activity held in Finland.
This time, because of pandemic situation, we will not have a chance to be outdoors. Like our previous QO-100 KGSTV activity we wanted to hunt the foxes on our geostationary satellite transponder QO-100. This time we will be at home, monitoring the QO-100 downlink frequencies. Here is the story and procedure to be part of this activity:
- Random SSB voice transmissions will be conducted on QO-100 SSB transponder portion,
- Transmission times will be randomized withing the given activity hours,
- Transmission frequencies will be random within a few frequency range,
- You will try to capture and record the transmissions as good and long as possible (hunt the fox),
- This transmission will include a chiled’s voice recording with his/her message to space and a secret letter for this challenge,
- Sending these recordings and the secret word (refer to rules) to us will reward you with an award for the activity.
Activity Date & Time
- 15 May 2021 15:00 UTC to 17:00 UTC
- 16 May 2021 15:00 UTC to 17:00 UTC
Rules

Secret message characters.

Frequency ranges.
- Participants can use any reception technology (e.g. direct reception with dish + legacy radio and/or SDR radio, any web SDR, any remote station),
- There is no age restriction,
- The following frequency ranges will be used (randomly);
- 10489670 – 10489680 kHz
- 10489700 – 10489710 kHz
- 10489770 – 10489780 kHz
- 10489810 – 10489820 kHz
- The Mars On Earth Project will do transmission for 1 (one) minute on any of the spot frequencies at a random schedule/time,
- Transmission will be in USB modulation,
- Transmission will include the following information (voice),
- Transmission will start with alternating tones for 3 seconds (to be spotted easily),
- Transmitting radio identification (OH2UDS or OH2CAV),
- Message from a child to SPACE, who is part of “eTwinning Education Project”,
- The message will end with a hint for the secret word, e.g : “and the secret letter is ……..”,
- End of transmission with alternating tones transmission,
- You need to record the message as long as possible,
- You need to capture the secret letters as well. Combining secret letters will give you the secret word.
Message Start and End Message Tone

Message start tone screen example.
Scoring
Scoring is as follows;
- You need to record the transmission on an electronic device (e.g. phone, computer) and send the recorded file to MarsOnEarthProject Team
- The format of the recording should be one of the following;
- wav
- mp3/mp4
- au/aac
- ogg
- 3gpp
- You need to record (write) date, time and frequency of the transmission in a log file (e.g.: text file on a computer),
- Each message file can be reported only once,
- Same recording can be send only by one participant,
- Recording time in seconds will be your base points (e.g. 50 seconds of recorded transmission is 50 points),
- Recording and reporting the secret letter for the transmission adds “10” extra points,
- You can use as many stations/devices as you want (e.g. multiple SDR web pages, multiple satellite dishes),
- Using a standalone reception (dish and sdr/ legacy radio) adds 10 extra point for that reception,
- Secret word is 500 points extra for the attendee.
Sending Logs and Recordings
You need to send the following information to Mars On Earth Project Team via email ” marsonearthproject@gmail.com “;
- Your name and age,
- Your station details (e.g. explain what you used to work in this activity, in free text format, web SDR URL, equipment details),
- A text file containing all the reception dates, times and frequencies. This log file may include the secret letter for extra points,
- Please note the length of captured transmission into log file for each reception,
- Please note the name of the recording file for each log entry into your log file,
- Upload all your recordings to a web drive or sharable environment online and send the link to the recording files to us,
- All information should be send in a single email,
- A sample log line can be as follows;
- Callsign (optional) : TA7W
- Name : Baris Dinc
- Age : 47
- Location : Trabzon – Turkey
- Station : WebSDR on http://websdr.is0grb.it:8901/
SECRET WORD : MARS
Hope to catch you in the activity.. Lets have the challenge…. Waitfor our surprises…
I hope the hidden message is in English 🙂 Regards
First of all, you should follow the secret messages in order. It’s that easy to get the message! 🙂