Is it possible to track where radio transmission is coming from

Yes no equipment needed except your own radio. Fairly easy! Keep reading, one guy explains...about watching your meter etc

 

It really doesn't take long to find a stationary transmitter, The guy looking for you has to know what there doing, My car is directions off the left front fender, I can do 1 circle and get the initial direction, after that very time I make a right or left and watching the needle on the S meter I can confirm my directions. We have tee-hunts, The rules you have 30 minutes to hide, typically we find them in 20 minutes or less.

 

We used to play fox and hounds back in the 70's in Portland, or... never took linger than 1/2 hr to fine them

 

One of the tragedies of 20th Century aviation is the loss of the record-setting aviator, Amelia Earhart.

She took off from Lae, New Guinea on July 2, 1937 in her two-engine Lockheed Electra to look for tiny, mile-long Howland Island 2556 miles away. Landing on Howland's specially cleared landing strip for refueling was to be her last stop before Hawaii on her effort to be the first to fly around-the-world on the longest-and-hardest route, along the equator.

On board with Ms Earhart was one of the world's best celestial navigators, Fred Noonan, who was the pioneer navigator that established the routes used by Pan American Airlines for their classic seaplane "clippers" flying the Pacific. Fred used the stars and planets to guide the plane close enough to the island for them to get the strongest signal strength possible on the Coast Guard's radios on a ship waiting for them, a 5-out-of-5 signal. All she needed to do was to follow the radio signal from the ship for the last few miles of the trip. This should have been easy, since the plane was equipped with the latest direction-finding radio equipment, including the iconic loop antenna that can be seen above the ####pit in pictures of her plane.

Tragically, Ms Earhart was not interested in the technicalities of radios and radio direction finding, so because of that and several other SNAFUs including problems with her radio receiver that prevented two-way communications, she was not able to find the island. Amelia and Fred are still out there somewhere at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, probably pretty close to Howland Island. So close and yet so far.

It is interesting to read here on this forum about how effective radio direction finding can be, IF the right equipment, frequencies and knowledge are applied to the effort. But it didn't work on that fatal day in 1937.

 

She had problems using the radio, I had the same exact setup early in my radio collection - western electric 13c/20b. I put the set on the air twice and was a big PIA to use. Traded it for a johnson invader 2000. The radios in the plane were modified and she knew what to do to use them but there was a question if the mods were made that she may not have understood,

she also had the bendix df system minus the bendix receiver, which is a problem.

 

Nobody cares anymore about CB Radio it's just Sesame street now and nobody snitches on nobody or snitches end up in ditches CB radio is for truck drivers only on ch 19 it's for hearing I have no panties on in the late hrs of the night to early am hours or for bear reports or lane closures and etc. People today need to mind their own business and let us run our Radios and Base stations the way we want to unless your pushing out over 1,000 watts of power on a base radio and causing harmful interference to your neighbors car alarm or tv the fcc will do #### about it so keep running your 3 to 4 loose leaf log books and ungoverned trucks shut the F up and truck on outlaw truckers for life and keep blowing up channel 19, Be Good........ Lizard Hunter Back Quiet

 

This installation can track any radio transmission!
That is a four story building inside the circle.

 

Double Tap

 

You dont need all that to track a radio transmitting, I suppose you can actually track a radio that is turned on even in receive although it would be a bit more difficult. A radio that is turned on till transmits a low level if frequency.
Back in the 70's we actually had organized radio hide and go seek type gamesm just a mobile rig, our groups out here in the San Fernando Valley did not allow loop df style antennas. Most of us would use something like a M125 base load mag mount and place it on the rear center of the vehicle, very directional, there were several of us that used large vu "s" meters just to make a drop or rise easier to see.
On a given night we could get in 10 to 15 hunts. Rule to start you had 15 minutes to hide, your signal had to be heard back a Safeway (Center of the hunt), No amplifers on th transmitter. It would normally take less than 10 minutes to locate the one hiding. You also had to get bumper to bumper to count as a find, something like R/R tracks between you meant youe were there yet.
We had a few large area multi part games, But I like the smaller local hunts better. I used a Midland 13-892b mobile, and a 102 Tandy fiberglass whip, off the rear of a 1962 Chevy II SS, I found that by moving the antenna to the left rear corner of the car it made it very directional off the right front.
Lot's of fun, but not at 4.00 bucks a gallons for petrol.