Speaker 1: Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I am your host, senior writer Jonathan Strickland right for
Speaker 1: house stuff, What's dot Com? And today we're going to
Speaker 1: have part to the exciting conclusion on our episodes about
Speaker 1: transmitter hunting. Our our friend, my coworker, Joe McCormick joins
Speaker 1: us to talk about this interesting use of technology and
Speaker 1: how it's been turned into a sporting event, something that
Speaker 1: you can participate in if you have the desire, So
Speaker 1: let us rejoin the show. We need to move into
Speaker 1: more of a discussion about radio specifically, because even though
Speaker 1: radio is a subset of electromagnetic radiation, it covers an
Speaker 1: enormous range of frequencies and therefore wavelength and not all
Speaker 1: frequencies behave the same on Earth. True. Yeah, so you've
Speaker 1: got different bands you might have You've seen terms like
Speaker 1: HF for VHF you HF. These are specific sub bands
Speaker 1: of frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum, all what we would
Speaker 1: call radio frequencies. But um, so yeah, you've got like
Speaker 1: high frequency, very high frequency, and a lot of what
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about today is going to be
Speaker 1: in the VHF part of the spectrum, that very high frequency.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this radio spectrum is pretty broad, and it
Speaker 1: goes well beyond the types of radio that that the
Speaker 1: typical person can listen into, unless you happen to be
Speaker 1: one of those folks who you know, maybe you operate
Speaker 1: a maritime radio to help with navigation, in which case
Speaker 1: you are using frequencies most of us don't touch. But
Speaker 1: or maybe you're are a doctor working with experimental medical
Speaker 1: imaging equipment, in which case you're using radio frequencies on
Speaker 1: the opposite end of the spectrum, because maritime radio uses
Speaker 1: very low frequency UH radio waves, whereas medical imaging uses
Speaker 1: extremely high frequency radio waves. So the range goes from
Speaker 1: the bottom is at like three hurts, which means you
Speaker 1: get three waves passing a given point in a second,
Speaker 1: all the way up to tremendously high frequency, which is
Speaker 1: three thousand giga hurts or three trillion hurts, meaning three
Speaker 1: trillion waves pass a given point within a second. Actually
Speaker 1: like extremely low frequency. More because the acronym is elf
Speaker 1: so elves, elves communicate kind of like nts, very long
Speaker 1: wave forms. The elves at the bottom of the ocean yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where we've stuck them. So again, you know, we
Speaker 1: talked about how all these waves are traveling at the
Speaker 1: speed of light, so it's really just the number of
Speaker 1: waves that pass a given point in a second that
Speaker 1: tells you a frequency, not speed of transmission, because that's
Speaker 1: going to remain the same no matter what. So, um,
Speaker 1: a three hurts frequency wave, we'll tell you that the
Speaker 1: wave length or that particular wave has to be a
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand kilometers in length. That's a long radio
Speaker 1: wave hundred thousand kilometers. Meanwhile, in the opposite ind of
Speaker 1: the spectrum, if you go all the way to that
Speaker 1: three thousand giga Hurts wave, you're talking about a hundred
Speaker 1: micrometers in length. So teeny tiny micrometers are very tiny,
Speaker 1: huge difference obviously in the length of these waves. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's why you know, the whole frequency wavelength relationship
Speaker 1: is important. So we use the different frequencies for very
Speaker 1: specific purposes. It's also important to point out that this
Speaker 1: is not universal. The There are usually some sort of
Speaker 1: governing body within a country that designates what frequencies can
Speaker 1: be used for what purposes. In the US, we have
Speaker 1: the FCC, uh, so if you're looking at the terror
Speaker 1: hurt side of things, that's that ultra ultra high or
Speaker 1: terribly high frequency as is some sometimes referred to. It's
Speaker 1: for medical imaging, that that kind of stuff also molecular
Speaker 1: dynamics measurements and other high tech information. Uh. The extremely
Speaker 1: low frequency would be like radio communication with submarines. You
Speaker 1: can't you can't use very high frequency when communicating with
Speaker 1: stuff that's underwater. The waves attenue are the radio waves
Speaker 1: get attenuated by the ocean water, and that creates problems
Speaker 1: with communication. But it's less of a problem with with
Speaker 1: extremely low frequency and very long wavelength radio transmissions. What
Speaker 1: about the kind of radio we think of as standard radio,
Speaker 1: as in radio accessible to the average consumer AM FM,
Speaker 1: That kind of stuff, so AM would be in the
Speaker 1: medium frequency. Medium frequency ranges from three killer hurts to
Speaker 1: three thousand kill hurts or three mega hurts. If you
Speaker 1: prefer AM radio specifically in the United States is in
Speaker 1: a even more narrow range than that, right, that's all
Speaker 1: of medium frequency AM radio in the US goes from
Speaker 1: five killer hurts to one thousand, seven hundred kill hurts
Speaker 1: or one point seven mega hurts. UM if you wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about shortwave radio. That's from five point nine
Speaker 1: mega hurts to twenty six point one Mega hurts. CB
Speaker 1: goes to twenty six point nine six mega hurts to
Speaker 1: twenty seven point for one mega hurts, and so on
Speaker 1: and so far. So so FM radio is gonna be
Speaker 1: that's mega hurts, right, So it's going to be around
Speaker 1: around MEA hurts exactly. So yeah, because power nine and
Speaker 1: nine that would be at ninety nine mega hurts right
Speaker 1: one I think originally maybe high thing, yeah, and goes
Speaker 1: up to like one oh seven I think somewhere around there. So, uh,
Speaker 1: Different countries of allocad their broad broadcast spectrum in different ways,
Speaker 1: so not everyone follows those exact same rules. There's usually
Speaker 1: some overlap. Um. Now, when you know something about the
Speaker 1: wavelength of the radio frequency, that tells you what you
Speaker 1: need how you need to build your antenna right, Because
Speaker 1: the length of your antenna is dependent upon the frequencies
Speaker 1: you're looking for. You want your antenna to be the
Speaker 1: right length to resonate properly with the radio frequencies you're
Speaker 1: searching for. And there's no such thing as really a
Speaker 1: perfect universal antenna that can equally pick up all frequencies
Speaker 1: across the radio range. Now you might wonder, how can
Speaker 1: you have like a pocket AM radio, because if AM
Speaker 1: radio is broadcasting in the medium frequency and has pretty
Speaker 1: long radio waves, and you need to have an antenna
Speaker 1: that is the right length to pick that up. Typically
Speaker 1: we're talking about half the length of the wavelength of
Speaker 1: the radio frequency you're looking at right, So if you're
Speaker 1: talking about like a a wavelength that's a hundred meters long,
Speaker 1: then you're looking at our radio antenna that's between forty
Speaker 1: and fifty meters. How the heck do you fit that
Speaker 1: on like that? That seems ridiculous. Well, the antenna for
Speaker 1: a M radios are typically wire that are UH and
Speaker 1: that wire is wrapped around the core. Because it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if the wires straight or not straight or whatever.
Speaker 1: You can you can coil it inside a device and
Speaker 1: have it completely housed within the radio. So if you
Speaker 1: were to open up an AM radio, chances are you'd
Speaker 1: find a wire where one end is not attached to
Speaker 1: anything and it's just wrapped around around around around around
Speaker 1: a core of some sort. That's the antenna. It's it's
Speaker 1: not like it's providing any sort of electrical uh. Stimulation
Speaker 1: apart from conver you know, pulling in radio waves and
Speaker 1: having that induce an electric current. So, uh, that's why
Speaker 1: AM radios don't necessarily have a visible, incredibly long antenna um.
Speaker 1: And this is important when it comes to things like
Speaker 1: transmitter hunting. Yeah, because if you look at transmitter hunting
Speaker 1: sites and we'll get into the specifics of the sport
Speaker 1: here in a minute, you see a lot of jargon
Speaker 1: that obviously has to do with stuff about like antenna
Speaker 1: length and frequencies and stuff like that. One of the
Speaker 1: common things you'll see is like the idea of a
Speaker 1: two M hunt. The the the two M arena is
Speaker 1: often considered the sweet spot for for transmitter hunting. Now,
Speaker 1: what does that mean When a HAM radio enthusiast talks
Speaker 1: about two meters and they're telling you specifically about the
Speaker 1: size of the antenna that they are using. The two
Speaker 1: meters is a pretty decent sized antenna, right, like you know,
Speaker 1: a meters. Like here in the United States, we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think in terms of meters that frequently because we're
Speaker 1: not on the metric system. But yeah, that's the reason
Speaker 1: is because the frequencies that are being used by HAM
Speaker 1: radio enthusiasts are falling in the VHF radio frequency band,
Speaker 1: that very high frequency. Now, that frequency band goes from
Speaker 1: thirty mega hurts to three hundred mega hurts, and the
Speaker 1: radio wavelengths go from ten meters down to one meter.
Speaker 1: And we're using descending sizes because remember as frequency increases,
Speaker 1: the wavelength decreases. Right, So if you if you're hunting
Speaker 1: for a radio signal that's somewhere and that uh, that
Speaker 1: four to five meter range, you need a two meter
Speaker 1: antenna in order to pick them up effectively to to
Speaker 1: have it be particularly sensitive to those transmissions. Now, the
Speaker 1: specific range within VHF designated for amateur radio use is
Speaker 1: in the United States a hundred forty four mega hurts
Speaker 1: two hundred forty eight mega hurts. It's a little different
Speaker 1: than Europe where it's one forty four to one forty
Speaker 1: six and not quite as wide a range. Give us
Speaker 1: our two mega hurts. Come on, yeah, and well, to
Speaker 1: be fair though, it's not the only band for amateur radio.
Speaker 1: Amateur radio actually has bands and several different frequency ranges.
Speaker 1: It's just for the VHF frequency range. It's this specific
Speaker 1: range of frequencies from in the US six in Europe um.
Speaker 1: But you can also find amateur radio frequency bands in low, medium,
Speaker 1: and high frequency as well as all the way up
Speaker 1: to like terribly fast terribly high frequency. You can find
Speaker 1: them up there too. Now because of the wavelengths involved,
Speaker 1: that two meter antenna is best able to pick up
Speaker 1: those transmissions because it resonates more readily with transmissions in
Speaker 1: that frequency, Like it can pick up stuff outside of it,
Speaker 1: but not as effectively as the stuff it was designed for.
Speaker 1: It's that's the sweet spot. So you can build your
Speaker 1: own if you want to do. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of different resources, both online and in libraries that will
Speaker 1: teach you how to build an antenna. I watched one
Speaker 1: that actually was so cool that I think I might
Speaker 1: do it as a project here and how stuff works
Speaker 1: and do a video about it. What kind of antenna
Speaker 1: was it would be? It would be a quad antenna,
Speaker 1: but I'll talk about a little bit a little bit later.
Speaker 1: Mostly because I've been thinking about trying to build a
Speaker 1: Yachi antenna. Yeah, well that would be great, some of them,
Speaker 1: as some of the Hams pronounced it, yagg Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think that that project would be really kind of fun,
Speaker 1: and also I like the way a quad antenna can look.
Speaker 1: I'll talk more about that in a little bit. Anyway, well,
Speaker 1: I will I challenge you to an antenna build off.
Speaker 1: That sounds great, Yeah, let's do it solely. Do it
Speaker 1: to be fair, It's way easier to do it now
Speaker 1: than it was in the old hobbyist days where you
Speaker 1: had to do all the calculations by hand. Now there
Speaker 1: are so many online tools that will allow you to
Speaker 1: just plug in what you're what you're attempting to do,
Speaker 1: and he'll tell you exactly how long each element. I've
Speaker 1: been to exactly one of these calculators. I found one
Speaker 1: online that says like, Okay, here's the frequency I want
Speaker 1: to look for, here's the decibel gain I want um,
Speaker 1: and then it will tell you the relative size of
Speaker 1: your of your elements for your antenna. Yeah. So, if
Speaker 1: you are a transmitter hunter, chances are you have multiple
Speaker 1: antenna or as I put, a veritable array of antenna
Speaker 1: perhaps a literal array of antenna's, depending upon what you're
Speaker 1: you're depending upon how much in time you have to
Speaker 1: put into the hobby. But then we also have another
Speaker 1: element that that you put in our notes a question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so sometimes you'll hear or you'll read about people in
Speaker 1: the transmitter hunting community talking about harmonics, you know, so
Speaker 1: they'll say, maybe, oh, I got very close to the
Speaker 1: transmitter and I was I was overwhelmed. What could I do?
Speaker 1: You know, I I suddenly I couldn't isolate the direction
Speaker 1: of the signal anymore. And somebody else might say, well,
Speaker 1: try looking for the third harmonic. I love that because
Speaker 1: it sounds very cryptic, and in the know it sounds
Speaker 1: a little Star Trek esque in a way. So harmonics
Speaker 1: are into drum multiples of the fundamental frequency, which is
Speaker 1: a fancy way of saying you start with whatever frequency
Speaker 1: you're looking for, because generally speaking, transmitter hunters there's a
Speaker 1: specific frequency that they know they are searching for, otherwise
Speaker 1: it would be needle in a haystack, right. Plus they're
Speaker 1: limited anyway by the range that amateur operators are allowed
Speaker 1: to use. So you start with whatever the target frequency
Speaker 1: is and you multiply it by integers in order to
Speaker 1: get the harmonic. So the first harmonic is the fundamental
Speaker 1: frequency because you just multiplied by one, got it. So
Speaker 1: third harmonic you multiply by three, fifth harmonic you multiply
Speaker 1: by five. Both of those are particularly useful in transmitter hunting.
Speaker 1: So the typical frequency you'd be hunting for is one
Speaker 1: forty six point five six five mega hurts. Now, if
Speaker 1: you want to find the third harmonic, you multiply that
Speaker 1: number by three. That gives you four d thirty nine
Speaker 1: point six nine five mega hurts. The fifth harmonic you
Speaker 1: multiplied by five. That gets you seven two point eight
Speaker 1: to five mega hurts. Now, each of those harmonics has
Speaker 1: a weaker signal than the fundamental frequency, but it would
Speaker 1: be related to the fundamental It is related to it,
Speaker 1: but it is a weaker signal. Now, if you're when
Speaker 1: you get close to one of these transmitters, chances are
Speaker 1: the signal strength as such that you are it's hard
Speaker 1: for you to get any useful information right, Like you
Speaker 1: might if you have a directional antenna, which we'll talk
Speaker 1: about in a minute, you might be sweeping it all
Speaker 1: around and you're just maxing out your receiver no matter
Speaker 1: what direction you pointed in right because the signal it's
Speaker 1: not like you're right on top of the transmitter, but
Speaker 1: you're close enough where the directionality is no longer useful.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like you can hear someone yelling off
Speaker 1: in the distance and you're blindfolded, so you know generally
Speaker 1: what direction they're in, But as you get really close
Speaker 1: and they're yelling and it's an echoe area, you can't
Speaker 1: really tell where the noise is coming from necessarily. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like that as an analogy. So if you're
Speaker 1: able to switch to one of these harmonics because it's
Speaker 1: a weaker signal, you can get a little more precise
Speaker 1: with that directionality you can use if you have an
Speaker 1: antenna that can switch to one of these signals, or
Speaker 1: you have an antenna specifically made to detect those harmon necks,
Speaker 1: then you are able to switch to a weaker signal
Speaker 1: which is not going to overwhelm your antenna so quickly,
Speaker 1: and you can hone in on the direction a little
Speaker 1: more precisely than you would if you had to rely
Speaker 1: on your your chief two meter antenna. Right. So that's
Speaker 1: why harmonics are important. Uh, and we well, we'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the Yaggy antenna's in a second.
Speaker 1: Yaggy antenna more formally is the Yogi Uda antenna, which
Speaker 1: sounds like it should be a Star Wars character. Right, Oh,
Speaker 1: you seek yagi Uda. It's a directional antenna that looks
Speaker 1: kind of like one of those old TV antenna's, like
Speaker 1: the old arials that you would see on top of houses,
Speaker 1: typically in the movie like Uh Willy Wonka and the
Speaker 1: Chocolate Factory. Yeah, it has It has one long boom
Speaker 1: in the middle as well for two a central poll
Speaker 1: on which are mounted parallel elements. These elements are does
Speaker 1: the shaping and receiving of the signal or transmitting. You
Speaker 1: can have a transmitter or receiver. Sure, yeah, antenna they're
Speaker 1: meant to be both transmitters and receivers, right. Typically the
Speaker 1: antenna that that I use and most people use, I
Speaker 1: would imagine are simply used as receivers, except when you
Speaker 1: get into things like phones and stuff. Obviously, any any
Speaker 1: phone type device has both a transmitter and a receiver.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's just a radio, so not terribly useful if
Speaker 1: you want to make a call. Anyone does anymore, But
Speaker 1: I digress. Well, anyway, we'll talk about the specific sent
Speaker 1: a minute, but the the point of these parallel elements
Speaker 1: on the Augie antenna is to create this directional effect
Speaker 1: where a signal is detected if you are pointing right
Speaker 1: at it, but it is killed if you are pointing
Speaker 1: perpendicular to it right right. So the idea being that
Speaker 1: if you turn to your right and the signal suddenly
Speaker 1: drops out, you know that the direction to the right
Speaker 1: is not the way to go used to turning to
Speaker 1: the left. And you find where the signal drops out,
Speaker 1: you can eliminate that. It narrows down the range where
Speaker 1: the transmission can actually originate. And since transmitter hunting is
Speaker 1: all about finding that transmitter, that's important. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk more about transmitter hunting and really dive into the
Speaker 1: hobby and the sport in just a moment. But first
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back, and Joe, I want you to tell me
Speaker 1: more about this sport of transmitter hunting, a sport I
Speaker 1: did not know existed until you brought this topic to
Speaker 1: my attention. Uh. Yeah, so I at some point I
Speaker 1: want to try this. I've never done it myself, but
Speaker 1: I've been reading about it over the past couple of months,
Speaker 1: and I've watched a few videos of people trying it
Speaker 1: out on you tube, um, and it looks very interesting.
Speaker 1: So the sport is known as transmitter hunting also t
Speaker 1: hunting or fox hunting. UH, And a standard game goes
Speaker 1: like this. You've got one participant who is the hider.
Speaker 1: This is sort of the dungeon master of the fox hunt,
Speaker 1: and the hider puts together a radio transmitter appropriate for
Speaker 1: the scale of the hunt. So you might use a
Speaker 1: small handheld transmitter stashed inside an old ammunition can for
Speaker 1: a small scale hunt on foot or in a you know,
Speaker 1: small several mile mile area with cars. And in this scenario,
Speaker 1: you would set the transmitter to repeat a signal at
Speaker 1: steady intervals, so it might be like BP beep, bpit beep, beep,
Speaker 1: and then you hide it somewhere, maybe in a public
Speaker 1: park or another reasonably small search area. For large scale hunts,
Speaker 1: you can actually build a powerful antenna capable of insmitting
Speaker 1: miles and miles across state lines. There are people who
Speaker 1: do this in you know, these long all day car
Speaker 1: hunts where they're going a really long way to try
Speaker 1: to find a transmitter somewhere out in the desert or something.
Speaker 1: It looks like a lot of fun, and you use it.
Speaker 1: You hunt it using cars or maybe fan boats, you know,
Speaker 1: so you can you can do this in the Everglades.
Speaker 1: I would that's just the way I would like to
Speaker 1: do it. I just all I can imagine is now
Speaker 1: we we talked earlier about possibly making a movie that
Speaker 1: this movie would now have to star Bert Reynolds. But
Speaker 1: if you are hiding a transmitter, there are some social
Speaker 1: and safety concerns you probably want to keep in mind.
Speaker 1: Makes sense. Imagine, for example, you are out at a
Speaker 1: public park with your children and you see some creepy
Speaker 1: loaner with an antenna attached to their van pull up
Speaker 1: beside the park and then put a bunch of electronics
Speaker 1: inside an ammunition can and hide it in the bushes
Speaker 1: next to the sandbox. I would say that would raise
Speaker 1: at least one, possibly two red flags. Right, So you
Speaker 1: probably first of all, need to be careful where you
Speaker 1: hide your transmitters. You need to uh, if it's you know,
Speaker 1: in a place where you would need permission, get permission first.
Speaker 1: In any case, if you're doing transmitter hunting, I've I've
Speaker 1: heard that it is a good idea to notify the
Speaker 1: police ahead of time that they're going to be people
Speaker 1: running around with antenna's and that you're gonna be hiding
Speaker 1: a thing and let let the police know where you're
Speaker 1: hiding it so that it doesn't get mistaken for a
Speaker 1: bomb or some other nefarious device. Yeah, it also looks
Speaker 1: like it's a good idea to put some writing on
Speaker 1: the device warning people that it's not dangerous, although honestly
Speaker 1: you wouldn't believe it. Yeah. I mean like if I were,
Speaker 1: if I were the type to make a device that
Speaker 1: was intended to be harmful to people, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: that I would have the ethics to avoid writing this
Speaker 1: totally will not harm you. It's like, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: a box of hot pocket says this is not dangerous
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah, I mean it all but but but
Speaker 1: definitely go to that extra effort. Lah. We we were
Speaker 1: talking offline about this before we came in here to
Speaker 1: record the episode, and the world is a very different
Speaker 1: place than what it was when. Uh. Transmitter hunting was
Speaker 1: really one of those hobbies that that that people could
Speaker 1: essentially go anywhere and play. No one really noticed because
Speaker 1: they didn't even It was just beneath the public consciousness.
Speaker 1: Joe found a book and lent it to me that
Speaker 1: I got to read, and in it they describe a
Speaker 1: situation where one person who was hiding a transmitter didn't
Speaker 1: have the time to actually do it himself, and so
Speaker 1: entrusted the transmitter to two other people who said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll totally hide it where you told us, and instead
Speaker 1: they went and hit it under an overpass. And I
Speaker 1: thought those days are over. You would get into so
Speaker 1: much trouble now because you were hilarious prank back then.
Speaker 1: Now freaks people out. Yeah, you remember the Moon and Knights.
Speaker 1: Those are characters from Aquitine Hunger Force, where they they
Speaker 1: Cartoon Network had done this promotional stunt where they put
Speaker 1: very simple led displays of the moonaites over certain bridges,
Speaker 1: and it freaked people out. They thought perhaps it was
Speaker 1: like a weird warning about an explosive that had been
Speaker 1: attached to said overpasses. Turned out, of course, no, it
Speaker 1: was just a promotional stunt, but no one knew that
Speaker 1: at the time. And in the world that we live
Speaker 1: in today, it's probably better to take those extra precautions
Speaker 1: and to uh to let whatever authority oversees the area
Speaker 1: that you're planting the transmitter in to know about it
Speaker 1: ahead of time, get approval that kind of thing, and
Speaker 1: take these extra steps to make sure you don't inside
Speaker 1: a panic. By the way, you mentioned this book, and
Speaker 1: I just wanted to throughout the name of it because
Speaker 1: as I was looking at this too. It's a book
Speaker 1: I order called Transmitter Hunting Radio Direction Finding Simplified. It's
Speaker 1: from the late nineteen eighties and it is a radio
Speaker 1: hobbyest manual by Joseph Moel and Thomas in Curly. An
Speaker 1: exhaustive hobbyist manual. Well, they've got a lot of projects
Speaker 1: and stuff back then for building different antenna types, but
Speaker 1: also just sort of an overview of what the sport
Speaker 1: looks like, you know when people practice it. Uh So,
Speaker 1: when you when you get into a transmitter hunt, you've
Speaker 1: got the transmitter hidden somewhere and you've got some boundaries established,
Speaker 1: and then the players are set loose. They're like the
Speaker 1: dogs on a fox hunt, which I assume is where
Speaker 1: the name comes from and not some other counterintuitive naming scheme. Uh.
Speaker 1: But they know what to listen for, so they've got
Speaker 1: the frequency established, they know what the signal is, but
Speaker 1: they've got to somehow find the physical location of the transmitter. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: once you think you have isolated the direction from which
Speaker 1: the signal is coming, and in just a second, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about ways you could do that, some different equipment
Speaker 1: you could have, but typically you'll have some kind of
Speaker 1: antennae or device that gets you a bearing. So you've
Speaker 1: got a line to where you think that the signal
Speaker 1: is coming from, and then from there. There are a
Speaker 1: couple of primary ways you can hunt. One is the
Speaker 1: simple way, which is just chasing the bearing. Even this
Speaker 1: is not as simple as it sounds. It is that
Speaker 1: you found you found a direction and you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: well the transmission is coming from the southeast, so let's
Speaker 1: just get in the car and travel as close to
Speaker 1: southeast as we possibly can for a while, and then
Speaker 1: we'll jump out and check again. Yeah, so you just
Speaker 1: follow it and then keep checking the signal. The other
Speaker 1: way would be what's known as triangulation. And so there
Speaker 1: imagine you would need a map for this, an actual
Speaker 1: physical paper map would probably you can make marks on
Speaker 1: as accurate distances and measurements. Uh. So you get a
Speaker 1: bearing from one known location, You know where you are,
Speaker 1: You mark your location on the map, and then you
Speaker 1: get a bearing. So you draw a line on the
Speaker 1: map saying okay, it's coming from this direction. You go
Speaker 1: to another place on the map and you mark your
Speaker 1: location there, you get a bearing again, you say, okay,
Speaker 1: it's coming from this direction. Draw another line. Then you
Speaker 1: go to a third place, get a bearing again, and
Speaker 1: maybe do that another time. So, if everything is working correctly,
Speaker 1: those three or more lines should begin to intersect the
Speaker 1: location of the transmitter. There should be a convergence around
Speaker 1: the general area. Now, it may be because of geography
Speaker 1: and buildings and such that the signal you're picking up
Speaker 1: is a reflected signal and not not really indicative of
Speaker 1: the actual source of transmission. Right, Like, let's say that
Speaker 1: the source of the transmission is off by a few
Speaker 1: degrees from where you get your bearing because of this reflection. Well,
Speaker 1: as you do your triangulation, you might notice that that
Speaker 1: the this intersection is a little weird, like not all
Speaker 1: the it's not like all the lines are converging on
Speaker 1: a single point. It might be that they create a
Speaker 1: trapezoid of possibility. And then the idea is that, all right, well,
Speaker 1: now we're gonna need to get further closer to that
Speaker 1: trapezoid because we know that the transmitter is most likely
Speaker 1: within that area somewhere, but we have to narrow it
Speaker 1: down from there. Either way you go, if you're just
Speaker 1: homing in on a bearing or if you're trying to
Speaker 1: do triangulation. It's not as easy as it sounds, because,
Speaker 1: as you alluded to, the propagation of radio waves can
Speaker 1: be affected by all kinds of stuff, many variables like terrain,
Speaker 1: uh presence of water, reflective obstacles like fences, power lines,
Speaker 1: or even concrete buildings. So a hill can block your
Speaker 1: line of sight to a transmitter. Yes, so if the
Speaker 1: hill a hill can be in the way, you might
Speaker 1: jump out of your vehicle and you're trying to pick
Speaker 1: up the signal and you can't pick up anything or
Speaker 1: or whatever. You so weak that you can't really get
Speaker 1: a reading them where it's coming from. And instead of
Speaker 1: freaking out, it just may mean that you have to
Speaker 1: travel a little bit further to get the hill all
Speaker 1: the way. Also, apparently, sometimes water and shore lines can
Speaker 1: change the apparent direction from which the signal is coming.
Speaker 1: So if the signals coming at over water and then
Speaker 1: there's a shoreline, it can sort of shear the direction
Speaker 1: of it. Um there are some thing obviously, things like
Speaker 1: metal fences, power lines, buildings can create these reflective surfaces.
Speaker 1: That will bounce the signal around. Some environments, like cities,
Speaker 1: are absolutely jammed with radio reflective objects. So if you're
Speaker 1: in a city, the very buildings around you are just
Speaker 1: like bouncing the signal back and forth like a pinball,
Speaker 1: and this can create what's known as a multi path environment.
Speaker 1: So multipath is going to be one of the biggest
Speaker 1: problems to overcome if you are looking for a hidden transmitter,
Speaker 1: especially in a city or other you know, area crowded
Speaker 1: with reflective obstacles, and it just means that you're getting
Speaker 1: the signal, you're tracking from multiple different directions, and you've
Speaker 1: got to have some experience and knowledge of of how
Speaker 1: exactly to work around problems like that. So a good
Speaker 1: hunter needs to have experience and skill, but they also
Speaker 1: are going to need, uh not necessarily need, but it
Speaker 1: really helps to have some specialized equipment, including special antennas
Speaker 1: and receivers. Now, as the the authors of that book
Speaker 1: Joe mentioned point out multiple times, and experienced and skillful
Speaker 1: hunter can use seemingly inferior equipment and still produce a
Speaker 1: better result than someone who has lots of money and
Speaker 1: has dropped it on a bunch of high tech equipment
Speaker 1: but has little to no experience actually using set equipment.
Speaker 1: So there is a lot of art to this. It's
Speaker 1: not just science. There's a bit where, you know, knowing
Speaker 1: kind of having an intuition about how radio waves work
Speaker 1: and the geography that you are in and kind of
Speaker 1: getting an idea of how that could be affecting what
Speaker 1: you are are receiving might be way more helpful than
Speaker 1: just a high tech antenna that is the cost a
Speaker 1: lot of money. Yeah, um, I I have read all
Speaker 1: the authors of this book say, and it does seem
Speaker 1: true to me based also on other things I've read
Speaker 1: that one of the most important pieces of equipment in
Speaker 1: a transmitter hunt is a map. It's having a good map,
Speaker 1: especially like a topographical map that includes surface features and buildings.
Speaker 1: And they also say that, you know, it can become
Speaker 1: incredibly challenging because the the game doesn't necessarily confine itself
Speaker 1: to the area of any given map, so you might
Speaker 1: need multiple maps, and that also becomes a bit of
Speaker 1: a challenge because unless the maps are both produced at
Speaker 1: the same scale, you can't just overlay them, you know,
Speaker 1: and and tape them together or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: That it requires a lot of math on your part,
Speaker 1: So that's strike against it for me. Well, let's do
Speaker 1: a real brief overview of some of the main types
Speaker 1: of antennas you might encounter absolutely transmit on. So we've
Speaker 1: we've mentioned by names several times the yaggi or yaggy antenna. Um,
Speaker 1: So this is a directional antenna. There are a couple
Speaker 1: of major kinds of directional antennas, but a directional antenna,
Speaker 1: as we've said, it is designed to isolate the directionality
Speaker 1: of the signals. So if you point it at a
Speaker 1: right angle to the signal, you shouldn't be getting much
Speaker 1: of anything. If you pointed in the opposite direction, most
Speaker 1: of them should say you know nothing or not much.
Speaker 1: But if you finally find the direction of the signal,
Speaker 1: the strength of the signal that comes through the antenna
Speaker 1: to your receiver should spike yes. And so a yaggy
Speaker 1: antenna is made of a series of metal elements arranged
Speaker 1: in parallel. So if you're trying to picture this, think
Speaker 1: of one long pole could be like a broom handle
Speaker 1: or PBC pipe or whatever, and then there are metal
Speaker 1: rods or wires of varying lengths, and the lengths are
Speaker 1: very specific and very important. Yes, and they are determined
Speaker 1: by the frequency of the signal that you're looking for.
Speaker 1: The relationship of the links of the various elements are
Speaker 1: very important depending upon what the what their job is. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: So there is the most important elements. The main one
Speaker 1: is the driven element, and this is the electrically active part. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is the one that connects to the wires that
Speaker 1: go down to your receiver handheld radio receiver. This is
Speaker 1: this is what is resonating with that frequency. But then
Speaker 1: there are these other elements that are known as the
Speaker 1: parasitic elements, and they're not connected to the receiver, but
Speaker 1: they're there to manipulate the types of waves that the
Speaker 1: driven element receives. This is this is what gives these
Speaker 1: directional antenna their directionality. Yeah. So the the there's a
Speaker 1: reflector element that goes behind the driven element. So if
Speaker 1: you're pointing at the signal source, the reflector elements should
Speaker 1: be closer to you and behind the driven one. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it reflects the signal back and focuses is the
Speaker 1: reception field to the direction that the antenna is pointing.
Speaker 1: And then there may be multiple director elements, which are
Speaker 1: more elements in parallel ahead of the active element to
Speaker 1: help manipulate the shape of the wave forms and enforced directionality.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking at these different elements, um, first
Speaker 1: of all, if you're trying to envision this in your head,
Speaker 1: imagine that broomstick, all right, the broomstick you are you
Speaker 1: are holding out from yourself. These elements are perpendicular to
Speaker 1: the broomstack stick, but parallel with each other. Right, So
Speaker 1: at at the closest endto you, you you have this
Speaker 1: reflector element. It's going to be the largest of those elements.
Speaker 1: Then you have the just slightly not just slightly and
Speaker 1: not by a whole lot, and it sort of is
Speaker 1: acting kind of like the dish in a satellite dish antenna,
Speaker 1: sort of in that same style. So it's it's slightly
Speaker 1: larger than the driven element. That's the one that you
Speaker 1: were you know, is actually hooked up to the sir
Speaker 1: so that it's it's pulling in the signal. And then
Speaker 1: at the far end you have the director elements. These
Speaker 1: are the shortest of the elements, and again it's not
Speaker 1: dramatically shorter, it's just a little shorter. All of the
Speaker 1: size sizes of these depend upon the frequency you're searching for.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to build a YAGGI for
Speaker 1: a very specific purpose, you would look at the frequency
Speaker 1: you're looking for, and there's a mathematical formula you use
Speaker 1: that gives you the ideal uh driven element size, reflector
Speaker 1: element size, and director element sizes, and you just it's
Speaker 1: it's essentially you take a number and you also also
Speaker 1: their distance from each other. That is also. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: spacing is also important. The spacing between these elements is
Speaker 1: very important. You can't just put them anywhere along that broomstick.
Speaker 1: You need to have them spaced out properly. So both
Speaker 1: of those things are very important in order for you
Speaker 1: to get an antenna that is going to resonate proper
Speaker 1: with the frequency you want and therefore help you narrow
Speaker 1: down its direction. Yeah. Uh So then there's another very
Speaker 1: popular form of directional antenna that is accomplishes the same
Speaker 1: goal but with a different type of construction, and that's
Speaker 1: the quad antenna. Yeah. They they're also typically used to
Speaker 1: detect frequencies and the high frequency are very high frequency ranges.
Speaker 1: Uh So they consist of the driven element just and
Speaker 1: the the direction and reflective element or a directive elements,
Speaker 1: I should say, uh, just like the yaggi is, but
Speaker 1: they're arranged in a slightly different way. They use loops
Speaker 1: of wire. Uh, these loops that are not necessarily in
Speaker 1: a circle, they just need to be closed off. So
Speaker 1: the the example I saw was a cubicle two element
Speaker 1: quad antenna, and actually it's technically a three element, but
Speaker 1: because you've got the driven, you've got the reflector, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the direction one, the directive element. I liked
Speaker 1: it because it kind of looks like a tie fighter.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they look like tie fighter wings loops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now that's just the cubicle version. There are other variants
Speaker 1: of the quada antenna. Uh. These are these are slightly
Speaker 1: different look, I mean a very different look from the yogis. Uh.
Speaker 1: They have a very sensitive directionality to them, and they
Speaker 1: also tend to have a slightly higher gain than yogis
Speaker 1: by about two decibels decibel as a sliding scale. By
Speaker 1: the way, it's logarithmic scale, not so two decibels on
Speaker 1: its own means nothing. You need to have another point
Speaker 1: of reference for you to understand what two deciples. But
Speaker 1: if you've got a weak signal and you need to
Speaker 1: amplify it that that could be important. Yeah. So, so
Speaker 1: quad antennas are a popular way of trying to track
Speaker 1: down um A signal, especially if you need a little
Speaker 1: bit more sensitivity than you would with a yogi. Uh So,
Speaker 1: both of these are popular. They also come in different sizes.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it depends upon what frequencies you're looking for.
Speaker 1: Uh The quad antenna is interesting because the length of
Speaker 1: the loop is dependent upon the frequency you're you're searching for.
Speaker 1: So the squares in the tie Fighter, like the wing
Speaker 1: size of the Thaie Fighter, are dependent upon that frequency.
Speaker 1: And the reflector is actually gonna be slightly larger than
Speaker 1: the other ones. Uh so. Uh. I was watching a
Speaker 1: video on how to make this, and that's when I said,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to make one of these. Um
Speaker 1: And you know, the mobile ones are slightly smaller than
Speaker 1: the ones you might mount at your house if you
Speaker 1: happen to live out in the country and you can
Speaker 1: have a forty meter tall antenna in your backyard. Um
Speaker 1: but they are and it definitely doesn't look like something
Speaker 1: that's easy to carry around. I mean, they're not they're
Speaker 1: not small. A lot of people who are serious about
Speaker 1: this hobby. They have, uh, they have mounts. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you'll see vans with these things attached or jeeps that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, with these things attached to the vehicles
Speaker 1: themselves mounted on them and they're not meant to be
Speaker 1: taken off. So uh, that's another popular one. Another one
Speaker 1: is the Doppler direction finder. Now this is going to
Speaker 1: be somewhat different than the directional antenna's. It's still ultimately
Speaker 1: establishes directionality, but it makes use of the eponymous Doppler effect,
Speaker 1: named after a Christian Doppler who was known for running
Speaker 1: down the hallways going E got Dylan laughing on that one.
Speaker 1: It's just so absurd that Dylan Stern laughing. It's rare
Speaker 1: that I get our producer to laugh at something, but
Speaker 1: that was one of them. Uh No. So Doppler was
Speaker 1: a nineteenth century uh physicist apparently in my world, slightly
Speaker 1: absurd one, and he came up with the equations to
Speaker 1: describe the apparent frequency shifts we perceive that happened from
Speaker 1: the relative motion of a cinder of a of a
Speaker 1: signal and the receiver of a signal or a wave.
Speaker 1: Now you've heard me talk about this before, you probably
Speaker 1: experienced it. The easiest way to to give an example
Speaker 1: is with sound waves. So if you've ever noticed a
Speaker 1: siren on an approaching emergency vehicle being much higher pitched
Speaker 1: than it is when it passes you, so it's coming
Speaker 1: at you, it's a higher pitch noise, it passes you,
Speaker 1: it's a lower pitch noise. Or if you happen to
Speaker 1: be next to it and the two of you are
Speaker 1: either motionless or you're moving at the same speed in
Speaker 1: the same direction, it may sound like a pitch that's
Speaker 1: somewhere in between. That's because of the Doppler shift. When
Speaker 1: the vehicles moving towards you, it is effectively compressing those
Speaker 1: sound waves, So it's increasing the frequency, which we perceive
Speaker 1: as an increase in making the pitch go up. When
Speaker 1: it's moving away from you, it's elongating those sound waves,
Speaker 1: and so our perception of that is that it's a
Speaker 1: lower frequency and the pitch goes down. Same sort of
Speaker 1: thing is true with electromagnetic radiation. Actually it's also true
Speaker 1: with light I mean, which technically is part of electromagnetic radiation,
Speaker 1: but it's not rad you waves. The same thing is
Speaker 1: true for all of these things exactly. Yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: we measure how fast we're moving away from or toward
Speaker 1: other galaxies for example. Uh So, using a very special
Speaker 1: type of antenna, you can take advantage of this this
Speaker 1: property of physics. So Toppler direction finders typically have several
Speaker 1: rotating elements and it's usually between three and eight vertically
Speaker 1: oriented antenna. The antenna pick up the signals that then
Speaker 1: are sent to a processor that determines where is the
Speaker 1: signal really coming from? The incoming signal, where is that
Speaker 1: coming from? And typically there's like a circular display um
Speaker 1: that's just a circle of LED lights is the simplest version,
Speaker 1: and whatever direction the signal appears to be coming from
Speaker 1: with respect to the front of your vehicle, a little
Speaker 1: pop up. So it's not telling you that, oh, you
Speaker 1: need to go northeast. It will tell you, oh, the
Speaker 1: signals coming this many degrees to your right, or this
Speaker 1: many degrees to your left, or it's actually coming from
Speaker 1: behind you. That kind of thing. So if you were
Speaker 1: driving due west and the signal at the three o'clock
Speaker 1: position or the light at the three o'clock position on
Speaker 1: your little circular display lights up, that would tell you
Speaker 1: that the signals actually coming from the north, because to
Speaker 1: your right would be true north if you're going due west.
Speaker 1: So you look at this signal the circle of lights,
Speaker 1: and whichever one is lit up, that's telling you, all right, well,
Speaker 1: we need to start changing our bearing toward that direction
Speaker 1: if we want to head in the direction of the
Speaker 1: transmission itself. Now, another type of direction finder that you
Speaker 1: could use would be something that's known as time difference
Speaker 1: of arrival antennas. And this is another interesting thing. So
Speaker 1: it it has multiple receiving elements arranged in a pattern
Speaker 1: that passed the signal along to an electronic computational core
Speaker 1: that compares the time delay between when the different elements
Speaker 1: received the same signal pattern. Now this is crazy because
Speaker 1: remember these signals travel at the speed of light, so
Speaker 1: the differences are not detectable by humans, right, Like, there's
Speaker 1: no way that we humans would be able to tell
Speaker 1: the difference. And there's obviously easier if you have you know,
Speaker 1: something where they are multiple elements that are very far
Speaker 1: away from each other, like installations. Um, but yeah, so
Speaker 1: you can use time difference of arrival. Since we know
Speaker 1: the speed of radio transmission is constant, we know exactly
Speaker 1: what the speed is and we know the difference between
Speaker 1: the different elements, we can use the time delay between
Speaker 1: when they receive the signal to calculate the direction the
Speaker 1: signals coming from. All right, So we've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about antennas, and we've we've mentioned receivers quite a few times. Now.
Speaker 1: Some people listening maybe thinking that what you're doing is
Speaker 1: you've got a pair of cans on your ears and
Speaker 1: you're listening really carefully for the beat beat beats. But
Speaker 1: as it turns out, most of the time we're actually
Speaker 1: talking about a piece of equipment that indicates when it's
Speaker 1: receiving a signal and giving you an idea of how
Speaker 1: strong that signal is. Let's talk about that for a second. Well,
Speaker 1: so it is going to be a receiver radio receiving
Speaker 1: radio receiver you might be familiar with, but the most
Speaker 1: useful ones, obviously are going to be ones that are
Speaker 1: equipped with what's known as an S meter. So you've
Speaker 1: got your antenna and you've got a wire running from
Speaker 1: your antenna to the receiver or wires running from the
Speaker 1: antenna to the receiver, UH, and the receiver should be
Speaker 1: able to translate the signal into something you can make
Speaker 1: sense of. That might be sounds, or that might be
Speaker 1: a number, and in the case of an s meter,
Speaker 1: it would be a number. It's a gauge that gives
Speaker 1: you a direct reading in a numerical value of the
Speaker 1: strength of the signal. So you're not just relying on
Speaker 1: you know, subjective and sans from listening or some other method.
Speaker 1: So you just find the direction where the number on
Speaker 1: the estimeter is the highest. This makes it a lot easier,
Speaker 1: and the signal strength is going to increase the closer
Speaker 1: you get to the transmitter. There's actually a very specific
Speaker 1: amount where you can sit there and say, like, all right,
Speaker 1: I look to see when the the strength of the
Speaker 1: signal has doubled. That gives me an idea of how
Speaker 1: much closer I am to the transmitter. But using you know,
Speaker 1: describing that requires lots of calculations and variables that I
Speaker 1: don't really have the time to go into right now.
Speaker 1: But just general rule of thumb, you know, you're you
Speaker 1: look at that signal strength, and that gives you an
Speaker 1: idea of how much closer you are to the transmitter
Speaker 1: without actually giving you any sort of units, Like it
Speaker 1: doesn't tell you, oh, it's a mile away or it's
Speaker 1: a thousand yards away or anything like that. It just
Speaker 1: tells you, oh, you have had the distance between you
Speaker 1: and the transmitter. Whether that distance was ten miles or
Speaker 1: one mile, who's to say, It all depends upon the
Speaker 1: strength of the transmitter. So yeah, uh, so you mentioned
Speaker 1: when you get close. Another important factor is going to
Speaker 1: be that most of your equipment is going to be
Speaker 1: attuned to weak signals. You want to be able to
Speaker 1: detect a signal coming from a long distance. But when
Speaker 1: you get close to something that is uh you know,
Speaker 1: you you is no longer a weak signal, it can
Speaker 1: overpower your equipment, right, so you might suddenly you've got
Speaker 1: your receiver and you've got your directional antenna and you
Speaker 1: can point it around in a circle, and no matter
Speaker 1: what direction you pointed in, your smeter is maxed out
Speaker 1: because you're just you're just too close. It's it's it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, the water is completely around you, so detecting
Speaker 1: where the water is coming from is not easy to do, right,
Speaker 1: So in this case, another piece of equipment that some
Speaker 1: people might have that would make a big difference would
Speaker 1: be known as an attenuator. And so yeah, in in
Speaker 1: this case and attenuators an electronic element that can help
Speaker 1: you knock down the power of the signals, sort of
Speaker 1: the opposite of an amplifier. Uh, and so that your
Speaker 1: equipment can tell which direction the signals strongest and not
Speaker 1: just be maxing out at the top of the esimeter. Right.
Speaker 1: This is also when the harmonics can come into play,
Speaker 1: because if you can switch to the third harmonic or
Speaker 1: the fifth harmonic, then you're using weaker signals and it
Speaker 1: is less likely to overwhelm your equipment. Now we've been
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, antenna types and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: If if you are a HAM hobbyist and you want
Speaker 1: to build something, or you want to spend some money
Speaker 1: in order something on the internet, you can have these uh,
Speaker 1: these interesting setups that will give you a big advantage.
Speaker 1: But people, some of these hams will talk about how
Speaker 1: you don't actually have to have something like that to
Speaker 1: do ham hunting, ham hunting, transmitter hunting. You are the HAM.
Speaker 1: I've I've hunted ham before ham The most dangerous game
Speaker 1: it was there was, Uh, there was this time where
Speaker 1: I spent with a bunch of my school friends on
Speaker 1: an island hunted HAM. I don't like to talk about
Speaker 1: it though didn't turn out well to serve Ham. But
Speaker 1: one example of an interesting hack for crude tea hunting.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a directional antenna, but you've just
Speaker 1: got a standard receiver handy talkie. You know, uh, is
Speaker 1: this thing that I read about called body blocking or
Speaker 1: body fading, which doesn't involve tackling somebody, you know, But
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting idea. So let's say you've
Speaker 1: just got a little handy talkie. The antenna on this
Speaker 1: thing is omnidirectional, right, like a standard radio antenna. It directs,
Speaker 1: it listens to all directions equally, right, So if you're
Speaker 1: picking up a signal, you can't tell where it's coming from,
Speaker 1: just you just know that you are within range of
Speaker 1: that signal. But here's what you can do. You take
Speaker 1: your regular omnidirectional antenna and press it tied up against
Speaker 1: your chest, hug it to your body. Now stand in place,
Speaker 1: and rotate your body slowly. You should find, actually that
Speaker 1: your reception will be fine in most directions, but that
Speaker 1: it will deteriorate when your back is facing one direction.
Speaker 1: And that's because you're suddenly that's the direction where you're
Speaker 1: putting your body directly between the transmitter and your receiver.
Speaker 1: So it's called body blocking because you are physically blocking
Speaker 1: the signal from getting to the radio effectively. Yeah, sort
Speaker 1: of the opposite of a directional antenna here, because you
Speaker 1: instead of saying go to where the signal is strongest,
Speaker 1: you find the direction where you are most able to
Speaker 1: block the antenna from receiving the signal, and then you
Speaker 1: know that your butt is facing the transmitter, as is
Speaker 1: always the case with me. Yeah, I like this idea.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of actually holding a competition that
Speaker 1: only allows for that sort of transmitter hunting. I think
Speaker 1: it could be really interesting. It would also be really
Speaker 1: interesting to see it from afar, like being able to
Speaker 1: see at least three or four Like you're just seeing
Speaker 1: these people turn around very slowly, stop and then immediately
Speaker 1: do a one E D and start running in that direction,
Speaker 1: all passionately embracing their little handy talkies. Yeah. Yeah, and again,
Speaker 1: like before you brought this topic up to me, I
Speaker 1: had never I'm not a ham radio operator. I've never
Speaker 1: gotten into amateur radio. I think it's fascinating, but i've
Speaker 1: never it's just not that's never been a world that
Speaker 1: I've explored, so I didn't even know that this was
Speaker 1: a thing when you brought this up and learning about it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, this is it does appeal to
Speaker 1: me because just as geo cashing and letter boxing and
Speaker 1: those other forms of of kind of using technology to
Speaker 1: help hunt down something. It's kind of cool because that,
Speaker 1: you know, it does had that relationship between technology and skill,
Speaker 1: and that that desire for us to uncover secrets. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's something that's kind of innate in humans, right,
Speaker 1: This desire to to the scavenger hunt is very powerful
Speaker 1: thing because it's just it's fun to go through that
Speaker 1: experience and to uncover mysteries and stuff. And they're all
Speaker 1: sorts of different variations on these uh these these competitions,
Speaker 1: Like one of them I would read about everyone starts
Speaker 1: in the same location. Everybody starts there, and everyone gets
Speaker 1: their initial bearing and then it's up to them to
Speaker 1: figure out how to get to Usually a sequence of transmitters,
Speaker 1: with each transmitter sending out a slightly different variation of
Speaker 1: the signal, and typically they would do this over the
Speaker 1: course of several minutes, So like on minute one transmitter
Speaker 1: one is transmitting its signal, then it shuts off, and
Speaker 1: then transmitter two emits its signal and then it shuts off,
Speaker 1: which means that if there's like five transmitters that you
Speaker 1: have to find by the end of the day and
Speaker 1: you have just missed, like you hop out the car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you hop out of the car a minute too late,
Speaker 1: then you have to wait another five to ten minutes
Speaker 1: before your transmitter comes back online. So you could could
Speaker 1: It's it's you know, time management, it's it's orienteering, it's
Speaker 1: all this sort of stuff. And I'm like, wow, what
Speaker 1: a neat idea, And I would love to to participate
Speaker 1: in one of these, But I think we should do
Speaker 1: it as like a small group of us and shoot
Speaker 1: it on video and do it kind of like how
Speaker 1: some of our car stuff buddies did an interesting project
Speaker 1: not too long ago. Oh wow, yeah, be kind of neat.
Speaker 1: Of course they probably first tea hunt. It will mostly
Speaker 1: end up with all of us yelling at each other,
Speaker 1: but that could be entertaining to watch. Joe, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show and bringing this
Speaker 1: topic up. It was a lot of fun to look into. Um,
Speaker 1: why don't you let people know where they can find
Speaker 1: your work here at how stuff Works. Well, you can
Speaker 1: come and listen to the podcast that I do, Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, with my co host Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and Christian Seger. We are a science and weirdness podcast
Speaker 1: here in the How Stuff Works family, trying to pull
Speaker 1: back the curtain on the oddust corners of the universe.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, come check us out Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. We've got a website, stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. And of course I also write for
Speaker 1: video here at how Stuff Works. If you check out
Speaker 1: our channels like brain stuff, you'll see some of my
Speaker 1: intolerable work there. And Jonathan, I hope to come back
Speaker 1: on the show sometime again soon. Absolutely, it's always fun
Speaker 1: to have someone else in here. Uh. It breaks up
Speaker 1: the narrative versions of the tech Stuff podcast, which is
Speaker 1: nice for me and I'm sure my listeners agree. Guys,
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions, questions, anything like that, you
Speaker 1: want to send me a message, you can do so
Speaker 1: via email. The address to send it to is tech
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com, or you can
Speaker 1: drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: I use at both of those locations for this show
Speaker 1: is text stuff. H s W and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it, how stuff works? Dot Com
Speaker 1: Want