New Foxpro Hellfire's First Hunt Review

T

Tick

New member
First sit didn't go so well with the new Hellfire! Charged the batteries (10 Foxpro NIMH AA with Foxpro charger) overnight last week and again this afternoon for a couple hours to make sure they were fully charged. Practiced using the remote and caller yesterday in living room (temp 72 degrees) and noticed a slight crackling noise during the sounds playing. Everything seemed to work fine except the crackle so figured it may be batteries so charged them again.

Took the brand new Hellfire out for its maiden voyage, turned it on and the power light brightly illuminated. Walked back to my stand 75 yards away, clear line of sight, and turned on remote. Started set off with coyote locator followed by snowshoe distress. Worked great for maybe 5 minutes. Outside temp around 16 degrees. As soon as it got cold it no longer Played!! I tried to get it to respond again and nothing! Frustrated, I walked back to the unit and tried the remote. Nothing, unless I turned the volume to 20 where all you could hear a tick tick tick tick noise, no sounds though. I went home after that.

Guess what happened when the call warmed up in the house? Everything worked as should be except it still has a slight crackle in the calls.

Anybody have similar experience or more importantly suggestions that would correct whatever is wrong, I sure would appreciate the input.
Thanks in advance.

On a side note, sighted the new Leupold scope in on my Savage 22.250 and produced 1" group at 100 yard off a backpack rest with 55 gr Remington factory loads. Good enough for me. Glad to be rid of that Tasco!
 
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Contact Foxpro ASAP. I bet they will know what's up and make it right. Their customer support is known to be top notch.
 
What you are describing.... classic symptoms of a bad or weak battery in the batch. Did you try the caller with a set of plain alkaline batteries? Call Foxpro, get a battery tester or voltmeter to check your current batteries.
 
You wouldn't have to do all that battery charging if they were fully charged to begin with. Give FoxPro a call right away.
 
I think yoy wrecked the batteries charging all night. Mine get hot after a few hours amd last me all day
 
I never tested them out of the pack to see if they were charged or not? The package directions said approximate 10 hrs for full charge. Overnight was t more than 8 hrs or so. They weren't hot when I unplugged them but they were warm. Will the Foxpro charger for the hellfire charge other makes of NIMH batteries like enloop?
 
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Do you know if their batteries come fully charged in the package? I always charge my NIMH batteries for my trail cameras over night and they last quite a while. Didn't know I could harm them. Never have had any get hot.
Thanks for your replies too!
 
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A lot of people assume that new batteries come in fully charged. That is not the case. The newer batteries are not supposed to have memory, but I think it is still a good idea to run them down and fully charge them back up. That approach has worked for me over the years with no problems.
 
mine doesn't like our Canadian cold weather. It eats batteries like a fat boy at a chinese buffet. works great and sound great just chews through batteries.
 
I talked to FoxPro on the phone on Friday and explained what was happening. I don't remember the reps name but he said by the sounds of it, the call has a corrupted file or something like that and asked that I call back on Monday because I didn't have time to hook it up to the internet for a fix. He said what they would do is erase the hard drive or something and then reload all the sounds and fix the file. Way over my head but he seemed confident that with the symptoms, he would not think it was a battery issue at this time. If the reload doesn't work, then he said we could explore the batteries. He indicated that from time to time, similar problems have occurred to what I experienced and this was the normal fix and all would be fine. He seemed really knowledgeable about it and assured me they would make it right. Pretty good in my book. We will see how it goes tomorrow but I like the commitment to making it right. Ill let you know how it goes after the procedure.
 
Ran mine all day,sun up to sun down, with an external speaker in 30 mph winds, so the volume was at 20 most of the time, foxpro batteries, never skipped a beat.
 
That's the same result I get with the Shockwave and the CS24C.Originally Posted By: BailRan mine all day,sun up to sun down, with an external speaker in 30 mph winds, so the volume was at 20 most of the time, foxpro batteries, never skipped a beat.
 
Originally Posted By: Bob after BobHow long is the battery life, thinking of selling my older Fury and going with the Hellfire?

I'd think twice about doing that if I were you. The FHSS technology used on the TX500 remote with your Fury is far superior to the remote that comes with the Hellfire. Also, you have a stereo amplifier with your Fury, and when you couple an external speaker with it, you increase volume and width of your sound cone. I'm not putting the Hellfire down as it is a nice ecaller, but I don't think it compares with the Fury.
 
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