Re: [TSCM-L] {1864} Re: Low power devices - Fox Hunts

From: Preflatish <pre..._at_psci.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:39:32 -0600

We hold one fox hunt a month, the fox can be anywhere in the entire County,
lots of fun.
Doppler will work on the higher power settings, but once you get close/low
power, then the
good old handheld antenna comes into play. Like you say, a lot of fun.
Our fox is remotely controllable, so last month's winner can make it pretty
hard on
this month's crew!


----- Original Message -----
From: "kondrak" <kon..._at_phreaker.net>
To: <TSCM-..._at_googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 6:14 PM
Subject: [TSCM-L] {1864} Re: Low power devices - Fox Hunts


>
> We did one, where we initially beaconed for 15 minutes with 100 watts, a
> county away from the starting point.
> After 15 minutes, we dropped to 30 watts, for 20 minutes, then 5 watts,
> and finally down to 100 mw. We didn't go any further down in power,
> because the fox was located in a 1 gallon bleach bottle, under a dock on
> the riverside.
> The interesting thing is most hunters are not prepared for too much
> signal. Without attenuation, you cant make reliable fixes due to
> multi-path. I designed a signal detector, that gave an audio output
> based on signal strength, with 80db of attenuation, all switchable in 1
> db increments. Yes those were fun days....
> Yes its amazing how the fun things we did play into more practical
> skills now...
>
> James M. Atkinson wrote:
> > Since I grew up in a Coastal New England community I used to go on
> > Fox Hunts in the White Mountains, in the Osippee area, and around
> > Mount Desert Island. Didn't really care for hunting around the lakes
> > and marshes, and likes the mountains and coastline better.
> >
> > The ones I enjoyed the most involved an unknown frequency, unknown
> > locations, but a quasi unknown time transmitting where it chirped, so
> > the first thing you had to do is figure out the timing duration and
> > frequency before you could do anything else. Then it was
> > rush-like-hell to a second location to capture a second chirp to DF
> > to get a little closer, and then spiral in on the fox.
> >
> > I also liked the ones where we started 10 miles away from the fox,
> > but each time the fox transmitted the power levels dropped so you had
> > to move fast because you only had a 4 hour window or less before the
> > fox died as the power level dropped to the noise floor.
> >
> > The ones that started on an HF frequency where loads of fun where a
> > helium balloon was used to hold up a long wire antenna for the first
> > hour, then the balloon would get released, and the fox switched to a
> > different transmitter, on a different frequency, and then an hours
> > later another switch, and so on.
> >
> > The losers bought dinner and/or movies for the winners, and the
> > winners got to help the hunt masters (or game warden is you will)
> > plant the next fox.
> >
> > I never had any interest in the building and planting the fox, but
> > enjoyed the hunt more then anything else, especially when it you
> > could not use radios for communications and had to sneak up on the
> > fox from some distance away.
> >
> > I don't recall any of the foxes being more then a couple of Watts,
> > and recall that the best ones would drop below 100 mW by the time the
> > hunters got within a mile, and under 10 mW within a quarter mile.
> >
> > -jma
>
>
> >
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:19 CST