Thanks for tuning in. HamTalk Live will be on
the air shortly. Please stand by. Thanks for
tuning in. HamTalk Live will be on the air shortly.
Please stand by. This episode of HamTalk Live
is brought to you by Tower Electronics. For connectors,
cables and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit
PL -259 .com and by ICOM. Heard it? Worked it?
Logged it. Visit www .icomamerica .com slash
amateur for more information about ICOM radios.
Hey, good evening everyone. Welcome to HamTalk
Live. It's episode number 168. Getting started
with transmitter hunting recorded live on Thursday,
June 6th, 2019. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight, we're joined by Joe Mel, KZeroOV.
and we'll take your calls in just a few minutes.
Last week, Denny Johnson, KD5DLJ was here to
talk about the Digicom Cafe. And if you missed
the show, you can listen anytime at hamptalklive
.com or on your favorite podcast app or YouTube.
And you can also catch the rebroadcast on WTWW
shortwave 5085 -5085 AM. Saturday evenings at
about 6 30 p .m. Eastern Time. I do have some
announcements here at the beginning so forgive
me for a couple of minutes here but I want to
let you know about some important things. First
of all our annual field day question and answer
session is coming up on June 20th with Bart Yonkey,
W9JJ. He's the radio sport manager now at ARRL.
And so if you have last minute field day questions,
whether it be rule scoring or your setup, be
sure to call in and ask those. I know it seems
like we plan everything and then all of a sudden,
you know, the night before it's like, oh. What
about this? So this is your chance to call in
and find out the answer. So again, that's June
20th and Bart will do his best to answer those.
So be sure to call in and send in those questions
and to help check your antennas for field day.
The 100 watts at a wire tune up event actually
started just a couple of hours ago or an hour
ago. I guess it was, but that'll be going all
this weekend. until 2359 on Sunday so get on
the air check out your antennas portable or otherwise
the exchange is a true RST a QTH type of antenna
power height and your 100 watts and a wire ID
number if you have one if you don't don't worry
about it and you can even go get one over at
100 watts and wire .com and you can even win
some prizes so Christian wanted us to remind
everybody about that Also, June is a busy month
of the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting
over in Westchester, Ohio. Yesterday was an event
at the Midpoint Library for kids about riding
the radio waves. And yes, there really is a radio
inside of that cell phone. And today was the
75th anniversary commemoration of D -Day out
on the front lawn and a special event station.
And then on Saturday, they're going to roll out
the Cincinnati Liars Lager beer in celebration
of the 75th anniversary of the VOA Bethany station.
There's a short program. Then they're going to
tap the keg and offer Cincinnati Liars t -shirts
for sale during the all -day event and a portion
of the proceeds will go to the museum. And the
Cincinnati Liars logger sales will be through
September 21st at Grainworks, which is just down
the street from them. And that'll benefit the
museum too. And they'll have 400 numbered and
bottled. bottles available at the museum fundraiser
on September 21st. So they'll be on the air from
WC 8 VOA for field day as well. So if you're
in town, be sure to stop by. And one last thing.
A few months ago, Sterling coffee in zero SSC
was on the show talking about the youth contesting
program. Well, round two is now in play for the
IARU HF championships coming up in mid July.
So if you can host a state for young people,
or you're a young person who would like to go
operate in that contest, head on over to yark
.world, that's Y -A -R -C, Young Amateurs Radio
Club, Y -A -R -C dot world and sign up. And also,
you can check out the new Youth on the Air Region
2 social media. They're on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. And there'll be more opportunities
for young people and ham radio. And their website
is also online, but it's under development right
now. But it's yodaregion2 .org. It's Y -O -T
-A Region 2, the number 2 .org. So make sure
you check out Yoda Region 2. online for all the
different youth operating activities out there.
Okay, well tonight we're going to talk about
another opportunity that young people and old
people and everybody in between enjoy and that's
direction finding. So get your questions ready
to go for Joe. If you're listening to us live
on Thursday night you can call us after the interview
by calling 812 -650 -9556. I'll give that number
again here in a minute. And again later in the
show when it's time to call in, but I'll give
that to you so you can write that down or type
that in. It's 812 -650 -9556. You can also tweet
us. It's at HamTalk Live on Twitter. So I'll
be back with Joe right after this word from ICOM
right here on HamTalk Live. Contest from home
or remotely. ICOM's IC9700 is now available and
shipping. Create your own band opening with ICOM's
newest SDR transceiver, the IC9700. This new
radio is bringing direct sampling to the UHF
and VHF week signal world. The IC9700 all -mode
transceiver is loaded with innovative features
like dedicated amateur satellite operation, color
touchscreen, D -star built -in, RF direct sampling
on two meters and 70 centimeters, dual independent
receivers capable of full du... Plex, as well
as dual watch and 100 watts maximum output powers
on 2 meters, 75 watts on 70 centimeters, and
10 watts max on 1 .2 gigahertz. For HF, it's
the SDR every ham once. It's the IC7610. This
high -performance SDR has the ability to pick
out the faintest of signals even in the presence
of stronger adjacent ones. The ICOM IC7610 is
a direct sampling software -defined radio that
will change the world's definition of an SDR
transceiver. It has RF direct sampling, 110 dB
RMDR. independent dual receiver, and dual digicel,
and the IC7300 is changing the way entry -level
HF is designed, this high -performance innovative
HF transceiver with a compact design will far
exceed your expectations with RF direct sampling,
15 discrete bandpass filters, a large 4 .3 -inch
color touchscreen, real -time spectrum scope,
SD memory card slot, and more. Visit icomamerica
.com slash amateur for more information on ICOM
Radio. and don't forget to be ham active in June.
Participate in both the June VHF contest as well
as field day. Submit your logs and see how you
did in the pile -up. At HamTalk Live we have
a million dollar request guarantee. You give
us a million dollars and we'll do a show about
whatever ham topic you request, guaranteed. Thanks
again to ICOM America for helping bring HamTalk
Live to you each and every week. Be sure to check
us out at HamTalkLive .com and on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. Our guest tonight is Joe Mell,
KZeroOV. Joe's a registered professional electronic
engineer and has an active amateur radio enthusiast.
Since age 11, Joe has 50 years of experience
designing radio frequency circuits and systems
for broadcast, communications, and radar ranging
from near DC to microwave. He's designed new
devices for radio direction finding and has written
about RDF and other topics for almost every ham
radio publication in the US. In February 1998
he was appointed by ARRL as the USA's first ARDF
coordinator to promote international style fox
hunting and to organize Team USA for international
ARDF competitions. He also conducts the annual
CQ Worldwide Fox Hunting Weekend, and Joe collaborated
with Tom WB6UZZ to write Transmitter Hunting,
Radio Direction Finding Simplified, which is
a comprehensive text on radio direction finding
and has written over 270 published articles on
the subject, including his monthly homing in
columns that ran for 15 years in 73 amateur radio
today magazine. also in CQVHF, CQ Plus Digital
Magazine, and now four times a year in CQ Magazine.
And as a technical advisor to ARRL, he authored
a new chapter on radio direction finding for
the ARRL Handbook and has made over a hundred
presentations on transmitter hunting to clubs,
conventions, classes, and seminars on Joe's website.
homingin .com is one of the leading resources
of direction -finding information in the world.
And I remember him from hearing all about this
stuff on Newsline over the years. So Joe, welcome
to HamTalk Live. Well, thanks for inviting me.
This is going to be fun. Yeah, this is going
to be fun. We're going to start back at the very
beginning for some people who haven't got into
this tonight. and maybe we'll get further into
this as time marches on. But let's start at the
beginning tonight and talk a little bit about
how this all got started and the different types
of transmitter hunts you can do and all these
different names, Fox Hunt, Transmitter Hunt,
Direction Find, are they all the same? Well,
if they've had different names over the years
and different names mean different things to
different people it all started You know I did
some research on on this in terms of the history
and discovered that the very first hidden transmitter
hunts were at a double oral conventions in the
1930s where they would go around and you know,
these were Big transmitters, but they would put
in a room of the convention and invite people
to go find them and they would use an earphone
and put a crystal diode across it and use that
for the receiver because these were AM transmitters
and Go find them that way. So it's really progressed
a lot since then when I was Just a teenager.
I went on hidden transmitter hunts in the car
on 75 meters and they were also popular on 10
meters Those are the two bands in the 50s that
were used for transmitter hunting And as the
days have gone by or as the years have gone by
it's gone to mostly two meters for the mobile
transmitter Almost all of them now are on two
meters. Occasionally we have six meter hunts
here in Southern California. We have had 10 meter
hunts from time to time. But in terms of the
on foot transmitter hunts, which are kind of
a completely separate animal, they're usually
on two meters or 80 meters. And it became a worldwide
sport in the early 1980s was the very first.
world championships of direction finding and
that was all on foot and it was really, and you
will hear this term, radio -orienteering and
that's really the term they use over in Europe
and a lot of other places where you have a map
and compass and the transmitters are out there
and your job is to find them and it can be a
pretty big area and that's the... international
rules that are used nowadays for national and
international championships. Most hams, though,
are involved in the mobile transmitter hunts.
Everybody gets together either at the same start
place or start where you want to, and there's
a transmitter out there, and you just drive until
you find it. And that's scored either by mileage,
if you all start from the same place, which encourages
you to not drive too fast, or time. Whoever gets
them first wins. That's a real brief summary
of the kinds of hunts that there are. Uh, we
can go into more detail as you wish. Okay. Well,
let's, uh, let's gotta give the overview here
and then hopefully we'll get into the detail.
Um, when the questions roll in hopefully here.
Uh, but let's talk about, if you want to organize
and I, and I know I've got a group of people
down in Florida at N1 KSC listening to this.
If you want to organize, transmitter hunt you've
never done this before because this is the boat
they're in right now what would you do for the
transmitters and let's talk about both cases
you know on foot or the mobile so that way we
cover all the territory but what would you do
to get a a hidden transmitter out there for people
to go find Yeah, you know the transmitter is
the easiest part of it for the most part I mean
It can be something as simple if you want to
get a group started in transmitter hunting Have
somebody come on after the weekly net on the
local repeater and say I'm out here in my car
somewhere And I want you to come and find me
and you can be you know just on a transmitter
talking occasionally you know not maybe not continuously
but Just just every you know minute or so and
that's all it really takes to get started Now
automatic transmitters are a lot better in terms
of being Something you can conceal something
that's a little bit harder to find But we always
recommend that the first time that your group
does make it really really simple because you
want everybody to succeed and you want everybody
to get together at a restaurant afterwards and
Talk about it and see how much fun you had and
then come up with ideas for for the next time
So for instance when I do this with my school
group I get them all situated and everything
and then I take off and I remember to turn off
my APRS so they can't find where I'm going. And
I transmit for one minute every five minutes.
And so they get their bearing and then they move
and then they get another bearing and they move
and they keep doing that. I don't have to get
one of these automatic transmitters to do that.
I just look at my watch and say, okay, it's time
to transmit again. And so that may be an easy
way to start, but what about if you wanted to
do one on foot? Then you wanted one of those
automatic transmitters that you can just hide
in a park or something that's a little more contained
and you don't have to spend the money on the
gas. Okay, well... Generally speaking, you're
going to want a small box or something like that
that you can conceal if you're in a park so that
you're not right out in the open. There are commercial
units you can buy. There's so -called Squawk
Box by the fellow in Santa Barbara. There is
Bionics, makes a couple of little transmitters
that you can buy. If you don't want to buy something,
get an ammo can or a big plastic box, put a Baofeng
or other inexpensive... Oh, wait a minute. You
said the Balfam word. I'm sorry. Okay, we got
it. Okay. Or a Wushan, how's that? Yeah, there
you go. We don't have a Wushan. All right. Anyway,
there are devices that you can hook to a radio
like that called, such as the pick -on. A lot
of people are making these. They're fairly easy
to make with an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi or
something like that, that just sends little deedle
-deedle tones, we call them, that maybe transmit
for 15 seconds and then go off for 15 seconds.
I recommend that... the duty cycle be about 50
percent that saves your battery but it also makes
it a little easier to find it first. One minute
out of five gets a little trickier but it depends
on the skill level of the hunters certainly but
there are easily things that you can find to
hook to inexpensive radios to make a hidden transmitter.
So if you get one of these and you can get these
little kits even that you put together and it
like you know turns the transmitter on and plays
a recording and then turns off. And, and so you
can set these things up and just turn people
loose on them. I've known somebody that have
made them out of old cell phones But you know
all you really need is something like a little
mp3 player and you make a continuous recording
that repeats You know make a make a file that
repeats Continuously a file maybe a minute long
and if the radio has a vox on it as some of the
Chinese radios do all you have to do is feed
that into the microphone jack turn it on and
it will key up the transmitter when When it's
time to transmit I hadn't even thought of that.
That's a good hack there. Okay, very good. Well
let's talk about the receivers then. We've talked
about putting some transmitters out there. Let's
talk about the options for some of these receivers
and antennas are really important too. Well,
okay, let's make it simple because we'll and
talk about the on foot hunts first because almost
everybody uses the same technology for that and
of course We're going to talk about two meters
at this point. Although you could probably do
the same thing for 440 just different antenna
size. But generally speaking, it's a directional
antenna such as a Yagi. And for on -foot use,
the by far most popular option is the measuring
tape beam. Designs are easy to find on the web.
Typically, a three -element beam for two meters
is fairly compact and easy to make. All you need
is the measuring tape, some PVC pipe, and the
coax fittings, and a little soldering, and you're
done. There are even kits available if you want
to do that and you just hook that up to the two
meter receiver and you can hunt except that as
you get close you will you won't be able to get
bearings anymore the receiver will be overloaded
so somebody came up some years ago with a very
clever idea and that's called the offset attenuator
which is basically a little box that has a crystal
oscillator of maybe two megahertz four megahertz
and a mixer and with that box you actually move
the frequency of the signal you're listening
to two or four megahertz and you listen on the
offset frequency and with the control that you
controls the oscillator level into the mixer
you can actually Dial down the input signal by
maybe a hundred DB so you can walk right up to
a hidden transmitter And that works very very
well and those that's the most popular way that
people get started in on foot transmitter hunting
there are receiver boxes you can buy There's
even a very sophisticated one that is used by
people in the in the you know, on the world stage
that is made by Rig Expert. It's a new one that
just came out. But the other one we call the
Blue Box, which is made in Australia, is very,
very popular also. Those boxes will cost you
a couple hundred dollars, and the Rig Expert
one will cost you even more. But that's why most
people get started with the simple measuring
tape beam and the offset attenuator for the two
-meter band. Okay, and then what about mobile?
Okay for mobile again tastes differ Here in Southern
California almost everybody also uses some sort
of a beam antenna typically a Yagi or a quad
and we actually mount them on the vehicle so
that you can turn them either through a hole
in the roof or maybe through the window on the
passenger side or something like that. The reason
we do that is oftentimes at the start of our
hunts the signals are fairly weak and you wouldn't
even be able to hear them if you didn't have
a beam antenna and as you drive along you turn
that. Clearly if you don't have a way to mount
it, yes you can do the technique you may where
you stop the car, get out, take a bearing, get
back in the car and drive. That's an option,
but it's a little hard to do in Southern California
traffic, so most people actually mount the antennas.
Now there are other ways to get bearings, such
as the Doppler systems, which you can buy. They
work well... When the signal is really strong
when the signal is vertically polarized They
can work well, but you know you may or may not
have any control over what the hider is using
if he's horizontally polarized or if he's Very
very weak you really need that beam antenna Okay,
so there's some options and and and the trick
I always do is when I get really really close
Is just get rid of the antenna altogether? You
can do that certainly and And you're right. I
didn't mention that you also need an antenna
for mobile hunting if you're using a beam antenna.
That can be a resistive antenna. Generally speaking,
you have to be really, really close before the
signal starts going directly into the receiver.
So that's not usually a problem. So you will
also want a resistive antenna. Or as you say,
there's other ways to knock down the signal,
whether you're mobile or on foot, which might
even include taking off the antenna, tuning 5
or 10 KC off the frequency of the transmitter.
Some people put the paper clip into the antenna
just to give them a tiny little antenna to listen
with. Those are all techniques that people use.
Alright, well hopefully we've got everybody kind
of with an appetite now and we're going to take
a break and we're going to come back and start
taking questions on Twitter and at 812 -650 -9556.
and get into this a little bit more with Joe
Mel, KZeroOV, when we come back after this word
from Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk
Live. I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm having
an antenna party and I ran out of PL259s. Oh,
come in. Thank you. Would silver plated PL259s
from Tower Electronics be too good for your guests?
Those will be fine. Thank you. You saved my life
the other night. Oh, the PL -259s from Tower
Electronics? Yes, they were very successful at
the antenna party. My antenna works like a charm.
Then how can you ever thank me? I'll try to think
of something. Don't be caught without PL -259s.
Visit Tower Electronics at a ham fest near you.
Or visit them online anytime at PL -259 .com.
or call 920 -435 -2973. They have adapters, cables,
antennas, soldering supplies, and meters too.
If a man says something in the woods and there
are no women there, is he still wrong? You're
listening to HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. Thanks
to Tower Electronics for sponsoring the show
again. The HamFest schedule, June 16th, they're
in Monroe, Michigan for the Father's Day Fest
there. And July 6th in Oak Creek, Wisconsin,
or you can visit them anytime at pl -259 .com.
And it's a great place to get all your connectors
and adapters for all your radios for direction
finding. So ties right in with what we're talking
about tonight. HamTalk Live's on the air every
Thursday night, 9 p .m. Eastern Time right here
at HamTalkLive .com. Be sure to check us out.
On Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and it's
time now for your call. So if you have a question
for Joe, give us a call at 812 -650 -9556. Again,
it's 812 -650 -9556. Or you can tweet us, it's
at HamTalk Live on Twitter. And if you're on
Spreaker, you can type in the comments there
too. But if you're listening to us on the podcast
edition or on WTWW. We're not live on there,
so you won't be able to reach us tonight. But
give us a call at 812 -650 -9556 and ask your
questions for Joe Mel, KZeroOV. And Joe, we didn't
talk about... some of the rules that you might
want to say okay well you're only within you
know five miles or ten miles or and for some
of these competitions you've got all kinds of
rules that are out there why don't we talk a
little bit about setting up some rules for your
hunt Okay, well it's and that's one of the things
I like when I write up the CQ worldwide fox hunting
weekend Results and that is in the mobile hunts.
There's no two alike Every place is different
and every group is different in what in terms
of what they want out here in Southern, California
There's a lot of hunters that would prefer just
a signal to hunt no rules of any kind But that's
a little unusual particularly for beginners.
So generally speaking there needs to be a boundary
You need to know, and sometimes that's just like
15 mile radius of the start point or whatever,
or something even more geographical in terms
of roads or something like that. So you need
a boundary. There should be some understanding
as to whether or not the signal is going to be
continuous or intermittent. There may be a rule
in terms of the polarization of the antenna or
there may not. It's just really up to the group.
There may be a rule in terms of how close it
needs to be to a pin. paved road. The typical
rule we have in our Fullerton hunts is within
100 feet of access by standard passenger car,
and that could mean that it's up on the international
world. There's a very strict set of rules for
international competitions. Of course, we have
the USA Direction Finding Championships every
year someplace. This year it's in North Carolina,
and we follow a very strict set of rules that's
set up by an international committee because
the people that win those hunts are going to
be going on to competitions around the world.
to expect in terms of the transmissions. I won't
go into a lot of detail on those rules because
they're very easy to find on the web at homingin
.com and elsewhere and you can kind of read up
about what to expect but that's what happens
when you get into the strict world of on -foot
hunting but of course if you're having a hunt
in the park in your hamfest you can make the
rules anything you want. All right, very good.
What are some of the crazy things you've seen
people do on these mobile hunts? Well, when I
give a talk, one of the things I show is some
pictures of the hunk, for example, that was on
a Sunday afternoon and everybody ended up in
a park and there was a young lady sunning in
the park and she was on a blanket and she was
barely the only thing around and the signal really
seemed to be coming from her. And so I have a
picture of the two of the hunters pointing their
beams at her and saying would you mind getting
up off the blanket and And she did and it wasn't
under the blanket in fact the signal moved with
her as It turned out the hider had done used
a very very small transmitter that was sewn in
to the top of her bikini. Oh my goodness Now
that's probably the most outrageous hunt that
story that else very out That's almost unbelievable.
Oh my goodness some of the things you can't do
anymore I've heard of some of the crazy things
that they did back in the 50s. For example putting
a transmitter Under the seat in the departure
lounge at Los Angeles Airport. Now you can't
do that anymore so they were somewhat limited
but these are the sort of crazy things that you
will sometimes find now see I was expecting a
story like well they pointed a beam at a water
tower and bounced it off of the water tower or
you know I wasn't quite expecting That's just
too common nowadays in Southern California. I
don't know what it's like, you know, where you
are, but in Southern California, almost everybody
bounces a signal off a beam because if you're
down low, you know, and you have to get a signal
to the starting point and there's a lot of hills
between you, you try to bounce it off a mountain
and we have the mountains to do that here in
Southern California and that's what a lot of
the hunters do. So that's just kind of standard
operating procedure. And you'll experience it.
And you can bounce it off buildings, too. In
the urban jungles, there are stories about people
that have put transmitters in high -rise buildings,
which, again, is a little bit difficult to do
nowadays. But it really, in downtown Los Angeles,
that makes it particularly difficult to find,
too. Let's invite people again to write in here
at HamTalk Live on Twitter or call 812 -650 -9556.
We'll keep going, but if you have a question,
please chime in. What do you do when you find
the transmitter? Is there a way that you can...
Actually prove that you found the transmitter,
you know now in a mobile hunt You know, it's
obvious because there's you know an operator
sitting there with with everything But if you
do the automatic ones, what do you do to make
sure that people actually found the transmitter?
Well, typically there is a sign -in sheet where
the transmitter is and you'll sign in and if
it's a mileage hunt You'll put down your mileage.
That's an interesting Kind of fine point of the
rules because it is a transmitter out and your
job is to find the transmitter but sometimes
finding the transmitter is not is is is not what's
going to happen because on one of our hunts again,
we have the transmitter has to be within a hundred
feet of a standard passenger car, but sometimes
The hider will use 500 feet of coax and put the
antenna on the other side of a hill and even
though the transmitter is right next to the road
The signal is really not coming from the transmitter,
it's coming from over the hill, which can really,
shall we say, mess up the hunters. So you obviously
sometimes have to look with your eyes. There
are times when hiders will put out decoy transmitters
or decoy something that looks like a transmitter.
And we've had instances where people have signed
in on a mobile hunt and they weren't signing
in at the real transmitter and so their score
didn't count. So one of the things you'll...
One of the things you'll want to do is use your
sniffing gear, your close -in direction finding
gear, to make absolutely sure that what you found
is the hidden transmitter. Again, this is on
the mobile hunts, on the on -foot hunts, and
in the international hunts. Usually, it's a lot
easier to distinguish. You're going to find a
little box the size of a chalkboard eraser. To
prove that you found it, there's a number of
ways to do it. There are orienteering punches
that are sometimes attached, and you punch a
card that you carry to prove that you found it.
One of the things I do often times is put a sticker
on the transmitter with a little three -digit
number, and you write down that number on your
card, and when you bring it back, we check, and
yes, you got the right number, so you proved
that you found it. So there's various ways to
do that. 812 -650 -9556 is the phone number.
Let's talk a little bit about safety because
it is kind of easy to get carried away when you're
doing this. You get competitive and you start
to, you know, have some dangerous moments. So
let's talk a little bit about safety while you're
doing a mobile hunt. Hopefully we don't have
to talk about safety on foot. Well, you actually
need to be a little safe when you're on foot.
Watch out for holes. Well, yes, that's exactly
right. And I was going to say, and that's one
of the reasons we use the measuring tape antennas,
is because they're a lot more eye safe in terms
of if you fall on your antenna. It's a lot better
to fall on a piece of measuring tape than it
is on an aluminum rod, for example. But in the
mobile haunts, certainly there's a number of
things to think about. First of all, make sure
your gear is mounted securely, your antenna particularly,
if you're driving around with an antenna sticking
out, so that no matter what happens, it's not
going to injure someone by either breaking off
or falling down or doing something like that,
have your equipment slide off. And I've even
seen instances where people were using... Batteries
and the batteries would short out because the
wires would short out or something like that
And that's not something you want to do when
you're driving down the road is have a fire in
your car Certainly you want to I recommend that
it's we it Two person or even more teams are
usually better on a mobile hunt. One person can
pay attention to driving. The other person tends
to, you know, can pay attention to the DF gear.
That's certainly a lot safer way to do it. We
have a name for the person that is the DF operator.
We call him the navigator, because they're usually
navigating and guessing as they go along. So
certainly that is just, and, Take your time,
even though if it's a time hunt, you want to
get there really, really badly, but take the
time to be safe. Certainly there's other things
to think about, but think safety first at all
times. 812 -650 -9556 is the phone number. We're
going to finish up here in just a few minutes.
This is kind of the last call here for questions.
If you have one for Joe Mel, KZeroOV from HomingIn
.com, call us at 812 -650 -9556 or type to us
on Twitter at HamTalkLive or if you're listening
on Spreaker and you have an account, you can
type in there on the comment section. Let's talk
a little bit. Two about the differences. Now
I grew up always doing two meters and everything
I've done is two meters. I've never done the
80 meter hunt. Next year I'm working on a project
that's going to have an 80 meter hunt. So let's
talk a little bit about the differences between
doing a hunt on 80 meters versus two meters.
As I told you the a lot of the mobile hunting
started on the 80 meter band or the 75 meter
phone band and That's also internationally where
the first Big area ARDF radio orienteering events
were held was on the 80 meter band this the nice
thing about the 80 meter band is one of the things
that makes Transmitter hunting on two meters
difficult is those reflections we talked about
from the hills and the buildings things like
that They don't exist on 80 meters generally
speaking if you get a bearing on 80 meters It's
a good bearing and it'll be a sharp bearing because
the DF gear usually you're you're hunting a you
know You're using a deep null in the pattern
of the antenna to find the direction that you
want to go. So if you have a good bearing and
you mark it on the map and follow it, chances
are pretty good you're going to be fairly close.
And that goes for whether it's mobile or on foot.
That's the advantage. The gear is actually for
on foot hunts, the gear is really pretty simple.
You can make just a receiver with a... ferrite
rod or an air core loop antenna. So a ferrite
rod is kind of like you have in an old -fashioned
AM transistor radio, which you probably have
noticed is directional. If you turn that transistor
radio, you can get dulls and peaks in the response.
And that's exactly what you're using here. So
the ferrite rod antenna can be big or small,
but I've seen them as small as like two or three
inches, for example. And so that can make for
a very compact set. And when you're working with
scouts, sometimes the really young scouts it's
a lot easier for them to hold an 80 meter DF
set than it is some of those that it is to hold
that measuring tape beam actually so there's
something to be said for 80 meters and the response
is is a little different you hunt a little differently
as I said the the rod antenna or and you can
get the same results with maybe a four inch loop
on 80 meters, those antennas have a very sharp
null in the pattern. There's actually two nulls,
front and back. And you use those nulls rather
than the peak of the signal to get your bearing
because they are so very short. Now one of the
problems with a ferrite rod or a loop antenna
is those nulls are bi -directional. So if you
say, well, it appears to be from the north, well,
it could equally be from the south. So 80 meter
sets have what's called a sense antenna built
in and the sense antenna is like a whip antenna
or just a piece of wire and that the signal from
that antenna is combined with the signal from
the loop at the proper phase and it gives you
a way to check which of the two of the loop is
the right one to follow. It gives you sort of
a cardioid pattern, but the most important thing
of it is it makes one of the peaks louder than
the other, stronger than the other, so it gives
you, it tells you which of the ones to follow.
So that's kind of how an 80 meter set works in
principle. It can be a fairly simple set. It
can be a direct conversion receiver or really
a simple super head. It doesn't have to be anything
fancy. All by the way, most 80 meter hunts take
place during the day because at night the skip
comes in and it makes it a lot harder to do DF
on 80 meters at night. Then we could have a real
challenging hunt. When you get everything coming
in. Let's finish up here and I want you to take
a minute or two to talk about your website because
you've had homingin .com for quite a while. In
fact, I think you've had homingin .com as long
as since Al Gore invented the internet. So let's
talk a little bit about all your massive resources
there and what people can find there. Well, that's
the thing when you've had a website a long time
you add things to it and Just keep adding and
adding and it gets bigger and bigger. I started
it I kind of as a supplement to the column and
went back when it was in 73 magazine in terms
of having additional resources and a place for
people to find out information and as I said
It's grown from there, but you will find There's
information on beginner two meter hunts, 80 meter
hunts, there's information on mobile hunts, and
a lot of information on ARDF or the radio -orienteering
style of hunt. And that's because we've had now
a national competition every year since 2001.
And there's the stories and photos of each of
those is in on the website. And as a point of
privilege, I'd like to mention that we will have
the USA Championships in North Carolina. They're
being put on by the Backwoods Orienteering Club
is the sponsoring club this year. They're going
to be in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. And
they will start at the end of July with some
training sessions. And if you want to learn out
in the woods how to do this, these training sessions
are outstanding. And then around the 1st of August,
the actual competitions will start. We haven't
had a time to talk about all the various kinds
of competitions, such as sprint and fox oaring,
as well as the classic competitions. But you
can read about them on the website. and you can
experience them for yourself at the championships.
The nice thing about the championships is ours
are open to anyone, any skill level, any age
really, as long as you're not likely to get lost
out in the woods. We really don't want to send
out a search party if we don't have to. But other
than that, you're welcome to come out and try
it and learn. Everybody that's there is quite
eager and willing to help you get better. We
certainly encourage people to learn more about
that and that information is also at homingin
.com. Okay, so homingin .com, that's H -O -M
-I -N -G -I -N dot com and you can find all that
information. Well Joe, your wealth of information
and I'm so thankful that we got you on the show
here tonight to talk about this and we'll get
into this some more I suspect. This was a request
from from the N1KSC folks, more or less, and
I just happen to think, well, wow, I haven't
done a show about this yet. And it's been three
years now, so we needed to do that. But we may
dive into this some more in the future and would
welcome you coming back to do that. That would
be great. I there's still a lot more to say about
it And I certainly hope people will realize that
this is a fun aspect of ham radio. It has some
importance in terms of Enforcement it has in
terms of search and rescue and other important
things that are done with DF, but mostly It's
it's just a lot of fun. So I hope people will
give it a try All right. Well, thanks so much
and That is a wrap for this week's edition of
ham talk live. Thanks to my guest Joe Mel, KZeroOV
and everyone out there in cyberspace. for listening
in and invite you back next Thursday night at
9 p .m. Eastern Time. For a list of all of our
upcoming guests, just go to HamTalkLive .com.
And if you like HamTalk Live, please leave us
a review on iTunes or wherever you listen. That
helps others find us faster. So for now, this
is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying seven three, seven
five, and may the good DX be yours. Thanks for
watching!