Pre – Geocaching

[WISearchers]

Does anybody watch “Insomniac” with Dave Atell on Comedy Central?

A little background…Dave Atell, a stand up comedian, goes out into the city he just performed in search of standard and not so standard nightlife with a cameraman in tow. It’s pretty entertaining the people he runs into.

Last night’s airing from Albuquerque made my jaw drop… He meets these guys in vans and cars with lots of electronics and antennae. (The big telemetry type antenna that you track wildlife with.)

One person hid a transmitter in a bush out in the middle of nowhere, NM (see where I’m going with this?) and the rest of the bunch race to find this transmitter following the strong signal, find themselves also going in circles sometimes. Some people even have antennae in their cars hooked up to LED light readout that directs them to the direction of the signal. They also use GPSrs/laptops to help them navigate the roads. This group said they’ve been doing this 10++ years.

I just thought that was so cool, and sort of like PREgeocaching.

They said the real life side of it was for example a plane crash would yield a homing beacon, which could be tracked.

I’m not sure what they call it.

Anyway… FYI!

WISearchers

[BantamC]

Ham radio operators call this fox hunting.

[jthorson]

SBukosky still does this I think …. paging Steve Bukosky ….

[Lee]

[WISearchers]

[sbukosky]

quote:

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Originally posted by jthorson:
SBukosky still does this I think …

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Haven’t done it for a few years but my numerous hobbies come and go and return again. The way our local group did it was to transmit for 10 seconds every minute. Usually in order to get a bearing, the vehicle would have to stop. This was murder on brakes! Most of us would have antennas mounted on the side of the car that would stick up a bit and often sucumb to tree branches. Once as near as we could get with a car, we’d have some on foot gear to use to find ”the fox”. KA9EVK and I once foiled the hunters by hiding in a huge thistle patch in the Havenwoods park in Milwaukee. It was a hot August night and we used winter coats and blankest to safely get into the patch. The hunters were not so prepared! One of the toughest finds I made was where the transmitter was buried and the antenna was covered with a hollow weed stem.

Oddly enough, I didn’t care for the out of car footrace that much. Yet, here I am geocaching and 99% of it is off road and that is what I love about it so much.

I want to point out that speed and the ”foot race” is a key need of this activity. Our group offered rogue transmitter track downs to find jammers and such. Part of the group are radio technicians for the Milwaukee police department and they would often have to use their Fox Hunting skills to track down a stuck transmitter or someone that stole a police walkie talkie and would cause havoc on the police frequencies.

Because getting a Ham Radio license is so much easier now, I’m sure that many geocachers would like to get into fox hunting. If you are around Milwaukee, visit Amateur Electronic Supply on 58th and Good Hope. They should have information on getting a license. Actually, to do the hunting, you don’t need a license. Just the person using the transmitter needs it.

Also do a google search on fox hunting or transmitter hunting. Lots of good sites about it. And don’t be scared by the technology. It can be done as simple or elaborate as you want. In fact, you could do a simple version of it with FRS radios. Just don’t use Rhino’s!

[Author]

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