Lost Brews 0 Posted October 19, 2006 Does anyone have a simple design for Fox Hunting Equipment that can be built very inexpensivley? Quote Share this post Link to post
+phask 0 Posted October 19, 2006 Does anyone have a simple design for Fox Hunting Equipment that can be built very inexpensivley? I made a simple 3 element 2 meter beam. I had some aluminum rod 1/8" or so laying around. Your center element is a dipole - fed it to a pl-259 base mounted on a piece of Plexiglas. The mast or center was 1/2 plastic pipe or conduit. The other are shorter and longer appropriately. There are dimensions on the web I'm sure. I did mine when the web was not NEAR as poular as now. I was going to build one with some old collapsing antennas I got at a hamfest, but never did. You could also buy a beam - but making one takes less than a 1/2 hour if you have the parts. If you don't xmit dimensions are not to critical. Add more elements to be more directional. http://home.att.net/~jleggio/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm has one made from a tape measure. de N8PFF Quote Share this post Link to post
+Nero 0 Posted October 20, 2006 Does anyone have a simple design for Fox Hunting Equipment that can be built very inexpensivley? When I used to T-Hunt with friends we had a 3 element yagi that we mounted on PVC pipe, it was at a slight angle as well. il see if i can find some pics... Quote Share this post Link to post
+N8OFP - Del 3 Posted October 21, 2006 This yagi works very well and is easy to make Tape Measure Beam Couple other T Hunting links RDF Projects Homing In Quote Share this post Link to post
+geoSquid 0 Posted October 23, 2006 (edited) I've had plenty of success with a simple 2m dipole mounted horizontally on a stick at the end of a pole (sort of a T-shaped apparatus with the dipole on the cross-bar). To DF, I spin the dipole around and look for the null/lowest signal - that's where one end of the dipole is pointing at the transmitter. Do it from 2-4 points and plot the lines on a map (in both directions from my location) and you get a pretty accurate position on the transmitter. In events we've had around here I was always an early finder. Total cost - about $5 worth of coax, about $0.25 worth of wire, about $5 worth of dowels and glue, and a $10 1:50000 scale topo map with UTM grid. My original one was built on some prop spear from a cowboys and indians costume set, and was nicknamed "The Tomahawk Special" by local hams. And despite its low-tech origins, I could still beat most of those doppler and phased array boys to the transmitter. In fact, you can get 3 people with this setup to deploy in a triangle sort of arrangement within your search area, each one taking a bearing, one guy plots the lines and all drive to the resulting intersection (probably ~50-100m circle), then the three spread out with 20dB attenuators on and zero-in on the thing. You'll actually spend more time driving than tracking down the transmitter. Edited October 23, 2006 by geoSquid Quote Share this post Link to post