Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? It's time for another tech Stuff classic. This
Speaker 1: time we are concluding a discussion that we started last
Speaker 1: Friday with tech Stuff Goes Transmitter Hunting Part two. Joe
Speaker 1: McCormick joined me for this episode Joe as a host
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow your Mind, and we had a
Speaker 1: discussion about transmitter hunting that I hope you will find enjoyable.
Speaker 1: Take it away past Jonathan and Joe. So we need
Speaker 1: to move into more of a discussion about radio specifically,
Speaker 1: because even though radio is a subset of electromagnetic radiation,
Speaker 1: it covers an enormous range of frequencies and therefore.
Speaker 2: And not all frequencies behave the same on Earth.
Speaker 1: True.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've got different bands you might have You've
Speaker 2: seen terms like HF or VHF, FEU HF. These are
Speaker 2: specific subbands of frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum, all what
Speaker 2: we would call radio frequencies. But so yeah, you've got
Speaker 2: like high frequency, very high frequency, and a lot of
Speaker 2: what we're going to be talking about today is going
Speaker 2: to be in the VHF part of the spectrum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that very high frequency. So yeah, this radio spectrum
Speaker 1: is pretty broad and it goes well beyond the types
Speaker 1: of radio that the typical person can listen into, unless
Speaker 1: you happen to be one of those folks who you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you operate a maritime radio to help with navigation,
Speaker 1: in which case you are using frequencies most of us
Speaker 1: don't touch. But or maybe you are a doctor working
Speaker 1: with experimental medical imaging equipment, in which case you're using
Speaker 1: radio frequencies on the opposite end of the spectrum, because
Speaker 1: maritime radio uses very low frequency radio waves, whereas medical
Speaker 1: imaging uses extremely high frequency radio waves. So the range
Speaker 1: goes from the bottom is that like three herts, which
Speaker 1: means you get three waves passing a given point in
Speaker 1: a second, all the way up to tremendously high frequency,
Speaker 1: which is three thousand gigaherts or three trillion hurts, meaning
Speaker 1: three trillion waves pass a given point within a second. Actually,
Speaker 1: I like extremely low frequency more because the acronym is
Speaker 1: elf so elves. Elves communicate kind of like ense very
Speaker 1: long 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 a
Speaker 1: three hurts frequent and see wave will tell you that
Speaker 1: the wavelength for that particular wave has to be a
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand kilometers in length. That's a long radio wave,
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand kilometers. Meanwhile, and the opposite end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum, if you go all the way to that
Speaker 1: three thousand gigahertz wave, you're talking about one hundred micrometers
Speaker 1: in length. So teeny tiny micrometers are very tiny, huge
Speaker 1: difference obviously in the length of these waves. So that's
Speaker 1: why you know, the whole frequency wavelength relationship is important.
Speaker 1: So we use the different frequencies for very specific purposes.
Speaker 1: It's also important to point out that this is not universal.
Speaker 1: There are usually some sort of governing body within a
Speaker 1: country that designates what frequencies can be used for what purposes.
Speaker 1: In the US we have the FCC. So if you're
Speaker 1: looking at the terror hertz side of things, that's that
Speaker 1: ultra ultra high or terribly high frequency as is some
Speaker 1: sometimes referred to. It's for medical imaging, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: also molecular dynamics measurements, and other high tech information. The
Speaker 1: extremely low frequency would be like radio communication with submarines.
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 extremely
Speaker 1: low frequency and very long wavelength radio transmissions.
Speaker 2: Now, what about the kind of radio we think of
Speaker 2: as standard radio, as in radio accessible to the average
Speaker 2: consumer AM FM. That kind of stuff, so AM would
Speaker 2: be in the medium frequency. Medium frequency ranges from three
Speaker 2: hundred killer hertz to three thousand kill herts or three
Speaker 2: megaherts if you prefer AM radio specifically in the United
Speaker 2: States is in an even more narrow range than that, right,
Speaker 2: that's all of medium frequency AM radio in the US
Speaker 2: goes from five hundred third five killer hurts to one thousand,
Speaker 2: seven hundred killer hurts or one point seven mega hurts.
Speaker 2: If you wanted to talk about short wave radio, that's
Speaker 2: from five point nine mega hurts to twenty six point
Speaker 2: one mega hurts.
Speaker 1: CB goes to twenty six point ninety six mega hurts
Speaker 1: to twenty seven point four one mega hurts, and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth.
Speaker 2: So so FM radio is going to be that's mega hurts, right,
Speaker 2: So it's going to be around around one hundred mega.
Speaker 1: Hurts, yes, exactly. So yeah, because power ninety nine, that
Speaker 1: would be at ninety nine mega hurts right, ninety nine
Speaker 1: point one I think originally maybe.
Speaker 2: Starts high eighties, I think, yeah, and.
Speaker 1: Goes up to like one oh seven I think somewhere
Speaker 1: around there. So different countries have allocated their broad broadcast
Speaker 1: spectrum in different ways, so not everyone follows those exact
Speaker 1: same rules. There's usually some overlap. Now, when you know
Speaker 1: something about the wavelength of the radio frequency, that tells
Speaker 1: you what you need, how you need to build your
Speaker 1: antenna right, Because the length of your antenna is dependent
Speaker 1: upon the frequencies you're looking for. You want your antenna
Speaker 1: to be the right length to resonate properly with the
Speaker 1: radio frequencies you're searching for. There's no such thing as
Speaker 1: really a perfect universal antenna that can equally pick up
Speaker 1: all frequencies across the radio range. Now, you might wonder,
Speaker 1: how can you have like a pocket AM radio, because
Speaker 1: if AM radio is broadcasting in the medium frequency and
Speaker 1: has pretty long radio waves, and you need to have
Speaker 1: an antenna that is the right length to pick that up.
Speaker 1: Typically we're talking about half the length of the wavelength
Speaker 1: of the radio frequency you're looking at right, So if
Speaker 1: you're talking about like a wavelength that's one hundred meters long,
Speaker 1: then you're looking at a 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: AM radios are typical wire that are and that wire
Speaker 1: is wrapped around the core. Because it doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: the wire's straight or not straight or whatever, you can
Speaker 1: you can coil it inside a device and have it
Speaker 1: completely housed within the radio. So if you were to
Speaker 1: open up an AM radio, chances are you'd find a
Speaker 1: wire where one end is not attached to anything and
Speaker 1: it's just wrapped around around around around around a core
Speaker 1: of some sort. That's the antenna. It's it's not like
Speaker 1: it's providing any sort of electrical stimulation apart from convert
Speaker 1: you know, pulling in radio waves and having that induce
Speaker 1: an electric current. So that's why AM radios don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have a visible, incredibly long antenna. And this is important
Speaker 1: when it comes to things like transmitter hunting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if you look at transmitter hunting sites and
Speaker 2: we'll get into the specifics of the sport here in
Speaker 2: a minute, you see a lot of jargon that obviously
Speaker 2: has to do with stuff about like antenna length and
Speaker 2: frequencies and stuff like that. One of the common things
Speaker 2: you'll see is like the idea of a two meter hunt. Yes,
Speaker 2: the two meter arena is often considered the sweet spot
Speaker 2: for transmitter hunting. Now what does that mean When a
Speaker 2: HAM radio enthusiast talks about two meters.
Speaker 1: They're telling you specifically about the size of the antenna
Speaker 1: that they are using. To two meters is a pretty
Speaker 1: decent sized antenna, right, like you know, a meter's like
Speaker 1: here in the United States, we don't necessarily think in
Speaker 1: terms of meters that frequently because we're not on the
Speaker 1: metric system. But yeah, that's the reason is because the
Speaker 1: frequencies that are being used by ham radio enthusiasts are
Speaker 1: falling in the VHF radio frequency band, that very high frequency. Now,
Speaker 1: that frequency band goes from thirty mega hurts to three
Speaker 1: hundred megaherts, and the radio wavelengths go from ten meters
Speaker 1: down to one meter. And we're using descending sizes because
Speaker 1: remember as frequency increases, the wavelength decreases, right, So if
Speaker 1: you're if you're hunting for a radio signal that's somewhere
Speaker 1: in that that four to five meter range, you need
Speaker 1: a two meter antenna in order to pick them up
Speaker 1: effectively to have it be particularly sensitive to those transmissions. Now,
Speaker 1: the specific range within VHF designated for amateur radio use
Speaker 1: is in the United States one hundred and forty four
Speaker 1: megahurts tow one hundred and forty eight megahertz. It's a
Speaker 1: little different in Europe where it's one forty four to
Speaker 1: one forty six.
Speaker 2: So stingy with it over there and not quite as
Speaker 2: wide a range. Give us our two megaherts come on, yeah.
Speaker 1: And well, to be fair though, it's not the only
Speaker 1: band for amateur radio. Amateur radio actually has bands and
Speaker 1: several different frequency ranges. It's just for the VHF frequency range.
Speaker 1: It's this specific UH range of frequencies from eight in
Speaker 1: the US one forty four to one forty six in Europe.
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. Yeah, like it can pick up stuff outside
Speaker 1: of it, but not as effectively as the stuff it
Speaker 1: was designed for. It's that's the sweet spot. So you
Speaker 1: can build your own if you wanted to. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of different resources, both online and in libraries
Speaker 1: that will teach you how to build an antenna. I
Speaker 1: watched one that actually was so cool that I think
Speaker 1: I might do it as a project here at how
Speaker 1: stuff works and do a video about it. What kind
Speaker 1: of antenna was it would be? It would be a
Speaker 1: quad antenna. I'll talk about a little bit a little
Speaker 1: bit later.
Speaker 2: Mostly guys, now, I've been thinking about trying to build
Speaker 2: a yacky antenna.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that would be great, both of them.
Speaker 2: As some of the Hams pronounce it, yaggy yaggy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that project would be really kind
Speaker 1: of fun. And also I like the way a quad
Speaker 1: antenna can look. I'll talk more about that in a
Speaker 1: little bit.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Well, well, I challenge you to an antenna built off.
Speaker 1: That sounds great. Yeah, let's do it. Totally 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 an attempting to do, and
Speaker 1: they'll tell you exactly how long each element.
Speaker 2: I've been to exactly one of these calculators. I found
Speaker 2: one online that says like, Okay, here's the frequency I
Speaker 2: want to look for, here's the decibel gain I want. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then it'll tell you the relative size of your
Speaker 2: of your elements for your antenna.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, if you are a transmitter hunter, chances are
Speaker 1: you have multiple antenna or as I put, a veritable
Speaker 1: array of antenna, oh, perhaps a literal arrayna's, depending upon
Speaker 1: what you're depending upon how much money and time you
Speaker 1: have to put into the hobby.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: But then we also have another element that you put
Speaker 1: in our notes. Yeah, they're a question. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So sometimes you'll hear or you'll read about people in
Speaker 2: the transmitter hunting community talking about harmonics. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: so they'll say, maybe, oh, I got very close to
Speaker 2: the transmitter and I was I was overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: What could I do?
Speaker 2: You know, I suddenly I couldn't isolate the direction of
Speaker 2: the signal anymore. And somebody else might say, well, try
Speaker 2: looking for the third harmonic. I love that because it
Speaker 2: sounds very cryptic and in the know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds a little Star Trek esque in a way.
Speaker 1: So harmonics are integer multiples of the fundamental frequency, which
Speaker 1: is a fancy way of saying you start with whatever
Speaker 1: frequency you're looking for, because generally speaking, transmitter hunters there's
Speaker 1: a specific frequency that they know they are searching for,
Speaker 1: Otherwise it would be needle in a haystack. Right. Plus
Speaker 1: they're limited anyway by the range that amateur operators are
Speaker 1: allowed to use. So you start with whatever the target
Speaker 1: frequency is and you multiply it by integers in order
Speaker 1: to get the harmonics. So the first harmonic is the
Speaker 1: fundamental frequency, because you just multiply 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 y five mega hurts. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to find the third harmonic, you multiply
Speaker 1: that number by three. That gives you four hundred thirty
Speaker 1: nine points six ninety five megahurts. The fifth harmonic you
Speaker 1: multiply by five. That gives you seven hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: two point eight two five megahertz. Now, each of those
Speaker 1: harmonics has a weaker signal than the fundamental frequency.
Speaker 2: But it would be related to the fundamental.
Speaker 1: Three related to it. But it is a weaker signal. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're when you get close to one of these transmitters,
Speaker 1: chances are the signal strength is such that you are
Speaker 1: it's hard for you to get any useful information.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, Like, say you might if you have a
Speaker 2: directional antenna, which we'll talk about in a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you might be sweeping it all around and you're just
Speaker 2: maxing out your receiver no matter what direction you pointed in, right, because.
Speaker 1: The signal it's not like you're right on top of
Speaker 1: the transmitter, but you're close enough where the directionality is
Speaker 1: no longer useful. It's kind of like you can hear
Speaker 1: someone yelling off in the distance and you're blindfolded, so
Speaker 1: you know generally what direction they're in, but as you
Speaker 1: get really close and they're yelling and it's an echoe area,
Speaker 1: you can't really tell where the noise is coming from necessarily.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like that as an analogy. So if
Speaker 1: you're able to switch to one of these harmonics because
Speaker 1: it's a weaker signal, you can get a little more
Speaker 1: precise with that directionality. You can use it. If you
Speaker 1: have an antenna that can switch to one of these signals,
Speaker 1: or you have an antenna specifically made to detect those harmonics,
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 chief two meter antenna.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's why harmonics are important. Uh, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about the Yaggi antennas in
Speaker 1: a second. Yagi antenna more formally is the yagi Uda antenna,
Speaker 1: which sounds like it should be a Star Wars character, right,
Speaker 1: yagi Uda? Oh you seek yagy udah. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: directional antenna that looks kind of like one of those
Speaker 1: old TV antennas, like the old aerols that you would
Speaker 1: see on top of houses, typically in the movie like
Speaker 1: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has it has one long boom in the
Speaker 2: middle as well. Yeah, to a central pole on which
Speaker 2: are mounted parallel elements. And these elements are what does
Speaker 2: the shaping and receiving of the signal or transmitting. You
Speaker 2: can have a transmitter or receiver.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, antenna they're meant to be both transmitters and receivers, right.
Speaker 1: Typically the antenna that I use and most people use,
Speaker 1: I would imagine are simply used as receivers, except when
Speaker 1: you get into things like phones and stuff. Obviously, any
Speaker 1: phone type device has both a transmitter and receiver. Otherwise
Speaker 1: it's just a radio, so not terribly useful if you
Speaker 1: want to make a call, not that anyone does anymore,
Speaker 1: but I digress.
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, we'll talk about the specific centementute. But the
Speaker 2: point of these parallel elements on the Agie antenna is
Speaker 2: to create this directional effect. Yes, where a signal is
Speaker 2: detected if you are pointing right at it, but it
Speaker 2: is killed if you are pointing perpendicular to it right right.
Speaker 1: So the idea being that if you turn to your
Speaker 1: right and the signal suddenly drops out, you know that
Speaker 1: the the direction to the right is not the way
Speaker 1: to go. You start turning to the left and you
Speaker 1: find where the signal drops out, you can eliminate that.
Speaker 1: It narrows down the range where the transmission can actually originate.
Speaker 1: And since transmitter hunting is all about finding that transmitter,
Speaker 1: that's important. And we're going to talk more about transmitter
Speaker 1: hunting and really dive into the hobby and the sport
Speaker 1: in just a moment, But first let's take another quick
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. All Right, we're back, and Joe,
Speaker 1: I want you to tell me more about this sport
Speaker 1: of transmitter hunting, a sport I did not know existed
Speaker 1: until you brought this topic to my attention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I at some point want to try this.
Speaker 2: I've never done it myself, but I've been reading about
Speaker 2: it over the past couple months, and I've watched a
Speaker 2: few videos of people trying it out on YouTube and
Speaker 2: it looks very interesting. So the sport is known as
Speaker 2: transmitter hunting, also t hunting or fox hunting, and a
Speaker 2: standard game goes like this. You got one participant who
Speaker 2: is the hider. This is sort of the dungeon master
Speaker 2: of the fox hunt. Gotcha, and the hider puts together
Speaker 2: a radio transmitter appropriate for the scale of the hunt.
Speaker 2: So you might use a small handheld transmitter stashed inside
Speaker 2: an old ammunition can for a small scale hunt on
Speaker 2: foot or in a small several mile area with cars.
Speaker 2: And in this scenario, you would set the transmitter to
Speaker 2: repeat a signal at steady intervals, so it might be like.
Speaker 1: Bpity beep beep beep, bpit beep, beep beep, gotcha.
Speaker 2: And then you'd hide it somewhere, maybe in a public
Speaker 2: park or another a reasonably small search area. For large
Speaker 2: scale hunts, you could actually build a powerful antenna capable
Speaker 2: of transmitting miles and miles across state lines. There are
Speaker 2: people who do this in you know, these long all
Speaker 2: day car hunts. Where they're going a really long way
Speaker 2: to try to find a transmitter somewhere out in the
Speaker 2: desert or something. It looks like a lot of fun
Speaker 2: and you use it. You hunt it using cars or
Speaker 2: maybe fan boats. Wow, you know, so.
Speaker 1: You can you can do this in the Everglades. I
Speaker 1: would That's just the way I would like to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just all I can imagine is now we talked
Speaker 1: earlier about possibly making a movie. This movie would now
Speaker 1: have to star Burt Reynolds.
Speaker 2: But if you are hiding a transmitter, there are some
Speaker 2: social and safety concerns you probably want to keep in mind.
Speaker 1: Makes sense.
Speaker 2: Imagine, for example, you are out at a public park
Speaker 2: with your children and you see some creepy loaner with
Speaker 2: an antenna attached to their van pull up beside the
Speaker 2: park and then put a bunch of electronics inside an
Speaker 2: ammunition can and hide it in the bushes next to
Speaker 2: the sandbox.
Speaker 1: I would say that that would raise at least one,
Speaker 1: possibly two red flags.
Speaker 2: Right, So you probably first of all, need to be
Speaker 2: careful where you hide your transmitters. You need to if
Speaker 2: it's you know, in a place where you would need permission,
Speaker 2: get permission first. In any case, if you're doing transmitter hunting,
Speaker 2: I've heard that it is a good idea to notify
Speaker 2: the police ahead of time that there are going to
Speaker 2: be people running around with antenna's and that you're going
Speaker 2: to be hiding a thing and let the police know
Speaker 2: where you're hiding it so that it doesn't get mistaken
Speaker 2: for a bomb or some other nefarious device. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: also looks like it's a good idea to put some
Speaker 2: writing on the device warning people that it's not dangerous.
Speaker 1: Right, although honestly you wouldn't believe it. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I like if I were if I were the type
Speaker 1: to make a device that was intended to be harmful
Speaker 1: to people, I can't imagine that I would have the
Speaker 1: ethics to avoid writing this totally will not harm you.
Speaker 2: It's like, I'm pretty sure a box of hot pocket
Speaker 2: says this is not.
Speaker 1: Dangerous on it. Yeah, I mean it, but it was
Speaker 1: trust them, but definitely go to that extra effort. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were talking offline about this before we came in
Speaker 1: here to record the episode, and the world is a
Speaker 1: very different place than what it was when. Uh. Transmitter
Speaker 1: hunting was really one of those hobbies that that people
Speaker 1: could essentially go anywhere and play. No one really noticed
Speaker 1: because they didn't even It was just be beneath the
Speaker 1: public consciousness. Joe found a book and lent it to
Speaker 1: me that I got to read, and in it they
Speaker 1: describe a situation where one person who was hiding a
Speaker 1: transmitter didn't have the time to actually do it himself,
Speaker 1: and so 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.
Speaker 2: Rememberary prank back then now freaks people out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you remember the Moononites. Those are characters from Aquitine
Speaker 1: Hunger Force, where they Cartoon Network had done this promotional
Speaker 1: stunt where they put very simple led displays of the
Speaker 1: Moononites over certain bridges and it freaked people out. They
Speaker 1: thought perhaps it was like a weird warning about an
Speaker 1: explosive that had been attached to said overpasses. Turned out,
Speaker 1: of course, no, it was just a promotional stunt, but
Speaker 1: no one knew that at the time, and in the
Speaker 1: world that we live in today, it's probably better to
Speaker 1: take those extra precautions and to let whatever authority oversees
Speaker 1: the area that you're planting the transmitter in to know
Speaker 1: about it ahead of time, get approval, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and take these extra steps to make sure you don't
Speaker 1: inside a panic.
Speaker 2: By the way, you mentioned this book, and I just
Speaker 2: wanted to throw out the name of it, sure, because
Speaker 2: I was looking at this too.
Speaker 1: It's a book I order.
Speaker 2: Called Transmitter Hunting Radio Direction find being simplified. It's from
Speaker 2: the late nineteen eighties and it is a radio hobbyist
Speaker 2: manual by Joseph Moell and Thomas in Curly.
Speaker 1: An exhaustive hobbyist manual.
Speaker 2: Well, they've got a lot of projects and stuff back
Speaker 2: then for building different antenna types, but also just sort
Speaker 2: of an overview of what the sport looks like, you know,
Speaker 2: when people practice it. Sure, so when you get into
Speaker 2: a transmitter hunt, you've got the transmitter hidden somewhere, yeah,
Speaker 2: and you've got some boundaries established, and then the players.
Speaker 1: Are set loose.
Speaker 2: They're like the dogs on a fox hunt, which I
Speaker 2: assume is where the name comes from and not some
Speaker 2: other counterintuitive naming scheme. But they know what to listen for,
Speaker 2: so they've got the frequency established, they know what the
Speaker 2: signal is, but they've got to somehow find the physical
Speaker 2: location of the transmitter.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Now, once you think you have isolated the direction from
Speaker 2: which a signal is coming, and in just a second,
Speaker 2: we'll talk about ways you could do that, some different
Speaker 2: equipment you could have. Typically you'll have some kind of
Speaker 2: antenna or device that gets you a bearing, so you've
Speaker 2: got a line to where you think the signal is
Speaker 2: coming from, and then from there there are a couple
Speaker 2: of primary ways you can hunt. One is the simple way,
Speaker 2: which is just chasing the bearing. Even this is not
Speaker 2: as simple as it sounds.
Speaker 1: Idea is that you found you've found a direction, and
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, well the transmission is coming from the southeast,
Speaker 1: so let's just get in the car and travel as
Speaker 1: close to southeast as we possibly can for a while,
Speaker 1: and then we'll jump out and check again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you just follow it and then keep checking
Speaker 2: the signal. The other way would be what's known as triangulation.
Speaker 2: And so there imagine you would need a map.
Speaker 1: For this, Yes, an actual physical paper map would probably.
Speaker 2: You're going to make marks on as accurate distances and measurements.
Speaker 2: So you get a bearing from one known location. You
Speaker 2: know where you are, You mark your location on the
Speaker 2: map and then you get a bearing. So you draw
Speaker 2: a line on the map, saying, okay, it's coming from
Speaker 2: this direction. Then you go to another place on the
Speaker 2: map and you mark your location there and you get
Speaker 2: a bearing again. You say, okay, it's coming from this direction.
Speaker 2: Draw another line. Then you go to a third place,
Speaker 2: get a bearing again, and maybe do that another time. So,
Speaker 2: if everything is working correctly, those three or more lines
Speaker 2: should begin to intersect right the location of the transmitter.
Speaker 1: There should be a convergence around the general area. Now,
Speaker 1: it may be because of geography and buildings and such
Speaker 1: that the signal you're picking up is a reflected signal
Speaker 1: and not really indicative of the actual source of transmission.
Speaker 1: Right Like, let's say that the source of the transmission
Speaker 1: is off by a few degrees from where you get
Speaker 1: your bearing because of this reflection. Well, as you do
Speaker 1: your triangulation, you might notice that that this intersection is
Speaker 1: a little weird, like, not all the it's not like
Speaker 1: all the lines are converging on a single point. It
Speaker 1: might be that they create a trapezoid of possible, and
Speaker 1: then the idea is that, all right, well, now we're
Speaker 1: going to need to get further closer to that trapezoid
Speaker 1: because we know that the transmitter is most likely within
Speaker 1: that area somewhere, but we have to narrow it down
Speaker 1: from there.
Speaker 2: Either way you go, if you're just homing in on
Speaker 2: a bearing or if you're trying to do triangulation, it's
Speaker 2: not as easy as it sounds, because, as you alluded to,
Speaker 2: the propagation of radio waves can be affected by all
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff, many variables like terrain, presence of water,
Speaker 2: reflective obstacles like fences, power lines, or even concrete buildings.
Speaker 2: So a hill can block your line of sight to
Speaker 2: a transmitter. Yeah, so the hill, a hill can be
Speaker 2: in the way. You might jump out of.
Speaker 1: Your vehicle and you're trying to pick up the signal
Speaker 1: and you can't pick up anything or whatever. You pay
Speaker 1: so a week that you can't really get a reading
Speaker 1: on where it's coming from, and instead of freaking out,
Speaker 1: it just may mean that you have to travel a
Speaker 1: little bit further to get the hill out of the way.
Speaker 2: Also, apparently, sometimes water and shorelines can change the apparent
Speaker 2: direction from which a signal is coming. So if the
Speaker 2: signals coming at you over water and then there's a shoreline,
Speaker 2: it can sort of shear the direction of it. There
Speaker 2: are some obviously, things like metal fences, power lines, buildings
Speaker 2: can create these reflective surfaces that will bounce the signal around.
Speaker 2: Some environments, like cities are absolutely jammed with radio reflective objects.
Speaker 2: So if you're in a city, the very buildings around
Speaker 2: you are just like bouncing the signal back and forth
Speaker 2: like a pinball, and this can create what's known as
Speaker 2: a multipath environment. So multipath is going to be one
Speaker 2: of the biggest problems to overcome if you are looking
Speaker 2: for a hidden transmitter, especially in a city or other
Speaker 2: area crowded with reflective obstacles, and it just means that
Speaker 2: you're getting the signal, you're tracking from multiple different directions,
Speaker 2: and you've got to have some experience and knowledge of
Speaker 2: how exactly to work around problems like that. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: a good hunter needs to have experience and skill, but
Speaker 2: they also are going to need, not necessarily need, but
Speaker 2: it really helps to have some specialized equipment, including special
Speaker 2: antennas and receivers.
Speaker 1: Now, as the authors of that book, Joe mentioned point
Speaker 1: out multiple times, and experienced and skillful hunter can use
Speaker 1: seemingly inferior equipment and still produce a better result than
Speaker 1: someone who has lots of money and has dropped it
Speaker 1: on a bunch of high tech equipment but has little
Speaker 1: to no experience actually using set equipment. So there is
Speaker 1: a lot of art to this. It's not just science.
Speaker 1: There's a bit where you know, knowing kind of having
Speaker 1: an intuition about how radio waves work and the geography
Speaker 1: that you are in, and kind of getting an idea
Speaker 1: of how that could be affecting what you are receiving.
Speaker 1: It might be way more helpful than just a high
Speaker 1: tech antenna that is the costs a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have read the authors of this book say,
Speaker 2: and it does seem true to me based also on
Speaker 2: other things I've read that one of the most important
Speaker 2: pieces of equipment in a transmitter hunt is a map. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's having a good map, especially like a topographical map
Speaker 2: that includes surface features and buildings.
Speaker 1: And they also say that, you know, it can become
Speaker 1: incredibly challenging because the game doesn't necessarily confine itself to
Speaker 1: the area of any given map, so you might need
Speaker 1: multiple maps and that also becomes a bit of a
Speaker 1: challenge because unless the maps are both produced at the
Speaker 1: same scale, you can't just overlay them, you know, and
Speaker 1: tape them together or whatever it may be. That it
Speaker 1: requires a lot of math on your part. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's a 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: mentioned by name several times the yagi or yaggy antenna yep.
Speaker 1: So this is a directional antenna. There are a couple
Speaker 1: major kinds of directional antennas, but a directional antenna, as
Speaker 1: we've said, it is designed to isolate the directionality of
Speaker 1: the signals. So if you point it at a right
Speaker 1: angle to the signal, you shouldn't be getting much of anything.
Speaker 1: Right if you point it 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: two year receiver should spike yes, and so a yaggi
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 very 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 their job is. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there is the most important elements. The main one
Speaker 2: is the driven element, and this is the electrically active part.
Speaker 2: This is the one that connects to the wires that
Speaker 2: go down to your receiver handheld radio receiver. This is
Speaker 2: what is resonating with that frequency. But then there are
Speaker 2: these other elements that are known as the parasitic elements,
Speaker 2: and they're not connected to the receiver, but they're there
Speaker 2: to manipulate the types of waves that the driven element receives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is what gives these directional antenna their directionality. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there's a reflector element that goes behind the driven element.
Speaker 2: So if you're pointing at the signal source, the reflector
Speaker 2: element should be closer to you and behind the driven one,
Speaker 2: and it reflects the signal back and focuses the reception
Speaker 2: field to the direction that the antenna's pointing. And then
Speaker 2: there may be multiple director elements, which are more elements
Speaker 2: in parallel ahead of the active element to help manipulate
Speaker 2: the shape of the wave forms and enforce directionality.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking at these different elements, first of all,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to envision this in your head, imagine
Speaker 1: that broomstick, all right, the broomstick you are holding out
Speaker 1: from yourself. These elements are perpendicular to the broomstat stick,
Speaker 1: but parallel with each other, right, So at the closest
Speaker 1: end to you, you have this reflector element. It's going
Speaker 1: to be the largest of those elements. Then you have
Speaker 1: the just slightly not just slightly and not by a
Speaker 1: whole lot, and it sort of is acting kind of
Speaker 1: like the dish in a satellite dish antenna sort of
Speaker 1: in that same style. So it's it's slightly larger than
Speaker 1: the driven element. That's the one that you were you know,
Speaker 1: is actually hooked up to the sensor so that it's
Speaker 1: pulling in the signal. And then at the far end
Speaker 1: you have the director elements. These are the shortest of
Speaker 1: the elements. And again it's not dramatically shorter, it's just
Speaker 1: a little shorter. All of the size sizes of these
Speaker 1: depend upon the frequency you're searching for. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you want to build a yagi for a very specific purpose,
Speaker 1: you would look at the frequency you're looking for, and
Speaker 1: there's a mathematical formula you use that gives you the
Speaker 1: ideal driven element size, reflector elements size, and director element sizes,
Speaker 1: And it's essentially you take a number and you divide.
Speaker 1: Also also their distance from each other. That is also Yeah,
Speaker 1: the spacing is also important. The spacing between these elements
Speaker 1: is very important. You can't just put them anywhere along
Speaker 1: that broomstick. You need to have them spaced out properly.
Speaker 1: So both of the those things are very important in
Speaker 1: order for you to get an antenna that is going
Speaker 1: to resonate properly with the frequency you want and therefore
Speaker 1: help you narrow down its direction. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then there's another very popular form of directional antenna
Speaker 2: that is accomplishes the same goal but with a different
Speaker 2: type of construction, and that's the quad antenna.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They're also typically used to detect frequencies in the
Speaker 1: high frequency or very high frequency ranges. So they consist
Speaker 1: of the driven element and the direction and a reflective
Speaker 1: element or directive elements, I should say, just like the
Speaker 1: yagi is, but they're arranged in a slightly different way.
Speaker 1: They use loops of wire, these loops that are not
Speaker 1: necessarily in a circle, They just need to be closed off.
Speaker 1: So 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
Speaker 1: the the direction one the directive element. I liked it
Speaker 1: because it kind of looks like a tie fighter.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they look like tie fighter wings the loops do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now that's just the cubicle version. There are other
Speaker 1: variants of the quad antenna. These are these are slightly
Speaker 1: different look, I mean, a very different look from the yagis.
Speaker 1: They have a very sensitive directionality to them, and they
Speaker 1: also tend to have a slightly higher gain than Yaggi's
Speaker 1: by about two decibels. Decibel is a sliding scale, by
Speaker 1: the way, it's a logarithmic scale, right, not so two
Speaker 1: decibels on its own means nothing. You need to have
Speaker 1: another point of reference for you to understand what.
Speaker 2: To decibles, but if you've got a weak signal and
Speaker 2: you need to amplify it, that could be important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So quad antennas are a popular way of trying
Speaker 1: to track down a signal, especially if you need a
Speaker 1: little bit more sensitivity than you would with a yagi.
Speaker 1: So both of these are popular. They also come in
Speaker 1: different sizes. I mean, obviously it depends upon what frequencies
Speaker 1: you're looking for. The quad antenna is interesting because the
Speaker 1: length of the loop is dependent upon the frequency you're
Speaker 1: you're searching for. So the squares in the tie fighter,
Speaker 1: like the wing size of the tie fighter, are dependent
Speaker 1: upon that frequency. And the reflector is actually going to
Speaker 1: be slightly larger than the other ones. So I was
Speaker 1: watching a video on how to make this, and that's
Speaker 1: when I said, I kind of want to make one
Speaker 1: of these. And you know, the mobile ones are slightly
Speaker 1: smaller than the ones you might mount at your house
Speaker 1: if you happen to live out in the country and
Speaker 1: you can have a forty meter tall antenna in your backyard.
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.
Speaker 2: They have mounts attached to their cars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so you'll see vans with the things attached
Speaker 1: or jeeps that kind of thing, with these things attached
Speaker 1: to the vehicles themselves mounted on them, and they're not
Speaker 1: meant to be taken off. So that's another popular one.
Speaker 1: Another one is the Doppler direction finder.
Speaker 2: Now this is going to be somewhat different than the
Speaker 2: directional antennas. It still ultimately establishes directionality, but it makes
Speaker 2: use of the eponymous Doppler effect.
Speaker 1: Yes, named after a Christian Doppler who was known for
Speaker 1: running down the hallways going e I got Dylan laughing
Speaker 1: on that one. Who's just so absurd that Dylan Stern laughing.
Speaker 1: It's rare that I get our producer to laugh at something,
Speaker 1: but that was one of them. No. So, Doppler was
Speaker 1: a nineteenth century physicist, apparently in my world, a 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 us center of a signal and
Speaker 1: the receiver of a signal or a wave. Now you've
Speaker 1: heard me talk about this before you probably experienced it.
Speaker 1: The easiest way to give an example is with sound waves.
Speaker 1: So if you've ever noticed a siren on an approaching
Speaker 1: emergency vehicle being much higher pitched than it is when
Speaker 1: it passes you, So it's coming at you, it's a
Speaker 1: higher pitch noise, it passes you, it's a lower pitch noise.
Speaker 1: Or if you happen to be next to it and
Speaker 1: the two of you are either motionless or you're moving
Speaker 1: at the same speed in the same direction, it may
Speaker 1: sound like a pitch that's somewhere in between. That's because
Speaker 1: of the Doppler shift. When the vehicles moving towards you,
Speaker 1: it is effectively compressing those sound waves. So it's increasing
Speaker 1: the frequency, which we perceive as an increase in making
Speaker 1: the pitch go up. When it's moving away from you,
Speaker 1: it's elongating those sound waves, and so our perception of
Speaker 1: that is that it's a lower frequency and the pitch
Speaker 1: goes down. Same sort of thing is true with electro
Speaker 1: magnetic radiation. Actually it's also true with light I mean,
Speaker 1: which technically is part of electromagnetic radiation, but it's not
Speaker 1: radio waves. The same thing is true for all of
Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, so you shift exactly. Yeah, it's how
Speaker 1: we measure how fast we're moving away from or toward
Speaker 1: other galaxies, for example. So using a very special type
Speaker 1: of antenna you can take advantage of this property of physics.
Speaker 1: So Toppler direction finders typically have several rotating elements and
Speaker 1: it's usually between three and eight vertically oriented antenna. The
Speaker 1: antenna pick up these signals that then are sent to
Speaker 1: a processor that determines where is the signal really coming from?
Speaker 1: The incoming signal, where is that coming from? And typically
Speaker 1: there's like a circular display that it's just a circle
Speaker 1: of led lights is the simplest version, and whatever direction
Speaker 1: the signal appears to be coming from with respect to
Speaker 1: the the front of your vehicle, a light will pop up.
Speaker 1: So it's not telling you that, oh, you need to
Speaker 1: go northeast. It'll tell you, oh, the signals coming this
Speaker 1: many degrees to your right, or this many degrees to
Speaker 1: your left, or it's actually coming from behind you. That
Speaker 1: kind of thing. So if you were driving due west
Speaker 1: and the signal at the three o'clock position or the
Speaker 1: light at the three o'clock position on your little circular
Speaker 1: display lights up, that would tell you that the signal
Speaker 1: is actually coming from the north. Yeah, because to your
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Now, another type of direction finder that you could use
Speaker 2: would be something that's known as a time difference of
Speaker 2: arrival antennas. Yeah, and this is another interesting thing. So
Speaker 2: it has multiple receips elements arranged in a pattern that
Speaker 2: passed the signal along to an electronic or computational core
Speaker 2: that compares the time delay between when the different elements
Speaker 2: received the same signal pattern.
Speaker 1: Now this is crazy because remember these signals travel at
Speaker 1: the speed of light, so the differences are not detectable
Speaker 1: by humans, right, Like, there's no way that we humans
Speaker 1: would be able to tell the difference.
Speaker 2: And this is obviously easier if you have, you know,
Speaker 2: something where there are multiple elements that are very.
Speaker 1: Far away from each other.
Speaker 2: Absolutely installations, sure, sure, but yeah, so you can use
Speaker 2: time difference of arrival. Since we know the speed of
Speaker 2: radio transmission is constant. We know exactly what the speed is,
Speaker 2: and we know the difference between the different elements. We
Speaker 2: can use the time delay between when they receive the
Speaker 2: signal to calculate the direction the signals coming from.
Speaker 1: All right, So we've talked a lot about antennas and
Speaker 1: we've we've mentioned receiver quite a few times. Now. Some
Speaker 1: people listening maybe thinking that what you're doing is you
Speaker 1: got a pair of cans on your ears and you're
Speaker 1: listening really carefully for the beaty beeps. But as it
Speaker 1: turns out, most of the time, we're actually talking about
Speaker 1: a piece of equipment that indicates when it's receiving a
Speaker 1: signal and giving you an idea of how strong that
Speaker 1: signal is. Let's talk about that for a second.
Speaker 2: Well, so it is going to be a receiver, radio receiver,
Speaker 2: a radio receiver you might be familiar with, but the
Speaker 2: most useful ones obviously are going to be ones that
Speaker 2: are equipped with what's known as an S meter. So
Speaker 2: you've got your antenna and you've got a wire running
Speaker 2: from your antenna to the receiver or wires running from
Speaker 2: the antenna to the receiver, and the receiver should be
Speaker 2: able to translate the signal into something you can make
Speaker 2: sense of. That might be sounds, or that might be
Speaker 2: a number, and in the case of an S meter,
Speaker 2: it would be a number. It's a gauge that gives
Speaker 2: you a direct reading in a numerical value of the
Speaker 2: strength of the signal. So you're not just relying on
Speaker 2: you know, subjective impressions from listening or some other method, right,
Speaker 2: so you just find the direction where the number on
Speaker 2: the S meter is the highest.
Speaker 1: This makes it a lot easier, and the signal strength
Speaker 1: is going to increase the closer you get to the transmitter.
Speaker 1: There's actually a very specific amount where you can sit
Speaker 1: there and say, like, all right, I look to see
Speaker 1: when the strength of the signal has doubled. That gives
Speaker 1: me an idea of how much closer I am to
Speaker 1: the transmitter. But using you know, describing that requires lots
Speaker 1: of calculations and variables that I don't really have the
Speaker 1: time to go into right now, But just general rule
Speaker 1: of thumb, you know, you look at that signal strength,
Speaker 1: and that gives you an idea of how much closer
Speaker 1: you are to the transmitter without actually giving you any
Speaker 1: sort of units, Like it doesn't tell you, oh, it's
Speaker 1: a mile away, or it's a thousand yards away or
Speaker 1: anything like that. It just tells you, oh, you have
Speaker 1: halved the distance between you and the transmitter. Whether that
Speaker 1: distance was ten miles or one mile, who's to say.
Speaker 1: It all depends upon the strength of the transmitter.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so you mentioned when you get close. Another
Speaker 2: important factor is going to be that most of your
Speaker 2: equipment is going to be attuned to weak signals. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you want to be able to detect a signal coming
Speaker 2: from a long distance.
Speaker 1: Right, But when you get close to something that is,
Speaker 1: you know you is no longer a weak signal, it
Speaker 1: can overpower your equipment.
Speaker 2: Right, So you might suddenly you've got your receiver and
Speaker 2: you've got your directional antenna and you can point it
Speaker 2: around in a circle, and no matter what direction you
Speaker 2: pointed in, your s meter is maxed out, right.
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 2: So in this case, another piece of equipment that some
Speaker 2: people might have that would make a big difference would
Speaker 2: be known as an attenuator and so yeah, in this case,
Speaker 2: an attenuators and electronic element that can help you knock
Speaker 2: down the power of the signals, sort of the opposite
Speaker 2: of an amplifier yeap, and so that your equipment can
Speaker 2: tell which direction the signals strongest and not just be
Speaker 2: maxing out at the top of the s meter.
Speaker 1: Right. This is also when the harmonics can come into play.
Speaker 1: Exactly 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.
Speaker 2: Now we've been talking about, you know, antenna types and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. If you are a HAM hobbyist and
Speaker 2: you want to build something or you want to spend
Speaker 2: some money and order something on the internet, you can
Speaker 2: have these interesting setups that will give you a big advantage.
Speaker 2: But some of these hams will talk about how you
Speaker 2: don't actually have to have something like that to do
Speaker 2: ham hunting. No ham hunting, transmitter hunting.
Speaker 1: You are the hand I've hunted ham before.
Speaker 2: Ham The most dangerous game it was there was There
Speaker 2: was this time where I spent with a bunch of
Speaker 2: my school friends on an island hunted HAM.
Speaker 1: I don't like to talk about it, though it didn't
Speaker 1: turn out well to serve Ham.
Speaker 2: But one example of an interesting hack for crude tea hunting.
Speaker 2: If you don't have a directional antenna, but you just
Speaker 2: got a standard receiver a handy talkie, you know, is
Speaker 2: this thing that I read about called body blocking or
Speaker 2: body fading, which doesn't involve tackling somebody. No, but this
Speaker 2: is a really interesting idea. So let's say you've just
Speaker 2: got a little handy talking The antenna on this thing
Speaker 2: is omni directional, right, like a standard radio antenna, It directs,
Speaker 2: 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. Hell,
Speaker 1: just you just know that you are within range of
Speaker 1: that signal.
Speaker 2: But here's what you can do. You take your regular
Speaker 2: omni directional antenna and press it tied up again your chest,
Speaker 2: hug it to your body. Now, stand in place and
Speaker 2: rotate your body slowly. You should find, actually that your
Speaker 2: reception will be fine in most directions, but that it
Speaker 2: will deteriorate when your back is facing one direction. And
Speaker 2: that's because you're suddenly that's the direction where you're putting
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of the opposite of a directional antenna here,
Speaker 2: because you instead of saying go to where the signal
Speaker 2: is strongest, you find the direction where you are most
Speaker 2: able to block the antenna from receiving the signal, and
Speaker 2: then you know that your butt is facing the transmitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as is always the case with me. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like this idea. I like the idea of actually holding
Speaker 1: a competition that only allows for that sort of tan.
Speaker 1: It's been her hunting. I think it could be really interesting.
Speaker 1: It would also be really interesting to see it from afar,
Speaker 1: like be able to see at least three or four
Speaker 1: Like you're just seeing these people turn around very slowly,
Speaker 1: stop and then immediately do a one eighty and start
Speaker 1: running in that.
Speaker 2: Direction, passionately embracing their little handy talkies.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When walking. Yeah, and again, like before you brought
Speaker 1: this topic up to me, I had never I'm not
Speaker 1: a ham radio operator. I've never gotten into amateur radio.
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating, but I've never it's just not
Speaker 1: that's never been a world that I've explored, so I
Speaker 1: didn't even know that this was a thing when you
Speaker 1: brought this up, and learning about it, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is it does appeal to me because just as
Speaker 1: geo cashing and letter boxing and those other forms of
Speaker 1: of kind of using technology to help hunt down something.
Speaker 1: It's kind of cool because that, you know, it does
Speaker 1: had that relationship between technology and skill, and that that
Speaker 1: desire for us to uncover secrets. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that's something that's kind of innate in humans, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this desire to the scavenger hunt is a 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. That concludes the
Speaker 1: two part episode series about Transmitter of Hunting. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that conversation from twenty seventeen. This episode originally
Speaker 1: published March fifteenth, twenty seventeen. And uh yeah, I gotta
Speaker 1: get Joe back on the show sometime. It's been a
Speaker 1: while since I've had a chat with him. Hope you
Speaker 1: all are doing well and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.