Mobile Fox Hunting in Northern Germany by Peter, DK5BD Using advanced motor driven direction finder and sophisticated software. Just for information, not intended to scare hams as simple homebrew equipment can do the job as well

Mobile Fox Hunting Basically quite simple equipment is needed Directional Antenna with acceptable back to front ratio (we use 4 to 7 element yagis) Mast (pipe etc.) with some sort of bracket 360° scale with pointer fitted to the mast A topographical map of the area A compass or/and a small transmitter (mW) for finding „North“ 145 MHz Receiver with analog S-Meter

Mobile Fox Hunting Procedure/Rules (just an example) A: Taking Bearings 5 foxes (VHF 10 to 20W, horizontal halo antennas) are hidden within an area of 6 x 10 Miles They transmit a carrier for 2 Min one after the other on the same frequency. A second round transmission will follow for 1 Min each totalling 15 Min transmission time A 45 to 60 Min time will be given to the hunters to search for a second position Again the foxes will transmit as mentioned under 2. and 3. The bearings should now cross within the area. The positions of the foxes will be marked on a 1:50,000 topographical map

Mobile Fox Hunting Procedure/Rules (just an example) B: Visiting Foxes After the maps have been marked with the position of the 5 foxes, the maps have to be delivered to a check point Three of the foxes will now start continuous transmission on the same freqency. The hunters have now to visit all three foxes

Mobile Fox Hunting Evaluation If the foxes are marked in their exact position, the hunter will get 50 points for each fox. In this case 250 points are the maximum. As the above normally cannot happen, the hunter will get minus points for each mm offset. (1/16“?) For foxes being visited, the hunter will get additional points: 50 for the first, 30 for the second, and 20 for the third fox. A maximum of 350 points are theoretically possible

Mobile Fox Hunting Potential We do fox hunting in northern German for more than 40 years We continuously tried to improve the equipment in order to achieve Higher precision Easier assembly /disassambly of antennas Motor driven antennas Computer control Also the rules have been adjusted in order to avoid racing and accidents Allow sufficient time Give beginners a chance

Mobile Fox Hunting Sophisticated Radio Direction Finder Roof rack mounted motor unit with Car wiper motor including contol electronics Angle sensor either by potentiometer or industrial angle sensor Processor controlling RS232 and combining S-Meter reading and angle Software running under Microsoft Windows Controlling antenna turning Listing bearings including statistics Showing antenna patterns Controlling digital topographical map Drawing bearings and positions on map Showing position from GPS mouse

Mobile Fox Hunting Configuration yagi USB Data Motor commands Angle & S-Meter as digital text string Motor unit Arduino control Receiver Notebook Computer 145 S-Meter (analog)

Hunter Software Position 1 Mobile Fox Hunting Hunter Software Position 1

Hunter Software Position 2 Mobile Fox Hunting Hunter Software Position 2

Hunter Software, Hunt-Window for visiting foxes incl. map Mobile Fox Hunting Hunter Software, Hunt-Window for visiting foxes incl. map

Hunter Software Manual Control Needed for service Mobile Fox Hunting Hunter Software Manual Control Needed for service

Hunter Software Configu- ration of COM Ports and algurithm Mobile Fox Hunting Hunter Software Configu- ration of COM Ports and algurithm

Hunter Software Information Initialisation & Evalution Mobile Fox Hunting Hunter Software Information Initialisation & Evalution

DK5BD at Position 1 ready for taking bearings Mobile Fox Hunting DK5BD at Position 1 ready for taking bearings

Mobile Fox Hunting Fox Hunting is great fun and also a social event involving quite a number of hams either as hunters or as foxes. The mechanical motor unit including 2 microprograms have been developped by Horst, DJ4TA. The first control software has been programmed in VB also by him. (www.dj4ta.de) The new control software „Hunter“ based on Horst‘s VB software has been programmed by Jan, the son of DK5BD in C#. Jan studies IT at Bremen Universty in Northern Germany. There are comprehensive details about our Mobile Fox Hunting competitions here: www.mobilfuchsjagd.de (unfortunately in German)