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May 14, 2026 Previous All Nets

Thursday, May 28, 2026

20 check-ins

This Week's Question

"Are you aware of methods and/or techniques to find a fox with just an HT?"

Tonight's Format: Open discussion on Radio Direction Finding (RDF) — commonly called a "fox hunt." We'll start with how to hunt a fox using nothing more than the HT on your belt, then build up to the gear that makes it easier: attenuators, Yagis, loops, and clever use of your radio's S-meter. Share your own tricks when Net Control calls on you.

Fox Hunting 101: Finding a Hidden Transmitter with an HT (and Beyond)

A fox hunt — also known as Radio Direction Finding (RDF) or Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF) — is the sport (and the emergency-comms skill) of locating a hidden transmitter using only its radio signal. It's fun on a Saturday afternoon, but it's also the exact skill set we need when a stuck microphone is keying up a repeater, an EPIRB or ELT is sounding, or an unauthorized transmitter is causing interference on a public-service frequency.

The good news: you can fox hunt with the HT already on your belt. The better news: a handful of inexpensive add-ons turn that HT into a surprisingly capable direction-finding rig.

The "Body Fade" Technique: HT Only, No Extra Gear

Body-fade fox hunting technique: rotate with HT held to chest, find the null where your body blocks the signal, fox is directly behind you

The body-fade technique: rotate slowly and find the null — the fox is directly behind you.

Your body is mostly water, and water is a remarkably effective RF attenuator at 2 meters and 70 cm. You can exploit that to turn yourself into a crude directional antenna.

Tune to the fox and watch the S-meter (or signal-strength bars) on your HT.
Hold the HT tight against your chest, antenna pointed straight up. Your torso is now blocking signal coming from behind you.
Slowly rotate your whole body through 360°. The S-meter reading will rise and fall as you turn.
Find the null, not the peak. The deepest dip in signal strength is where your body is blocking the fox — meaning the fox is directly behind you. Nulls are much sharper and easier to identify than peaks.
Walk that bearing, repeat every couple hundred yards, and triangulate. As you get closer the signal will pin the meter — that's when the next trick comes in.

Pro tip: When the signal is overwhelming your front end and the S-meter is pegged no matter which way you turn, remove the antenna entirely. The radio will still hear strong nearby signals through its chassis, and the meter will become useful again. This is the cheapest "attenuator" in ham radio.

Make Friends with Your S-Meter

What to Watch

S-meter bars or numeric signal strength
Squelch break / busy indicator at low levels
RSSI in display menus (many HTs show a number)
How quickly the meter changes as you turn

What to Avoid

A pegged meter — you've lost all directionality
Multipath in tight neighborhoods (reflected signal off houses, cars, power lines)
Trusting one bearing — always triangulate from multiple spots
Hunting on the fox's actual frequency once you're close — switch to a nearby image or harmonic if needed

Once the fox is right on top of you, the receiver is overloaded and direction-finding stops working. That's where attenuators — or just unscrewing the antenna — save the hunt.

Plot It on a Map: Turning Bearings into a Location

Hunters working a paper map together, drawing bearing lines from multiple locations to triangulate a hidden transmitter

Two or three bearings drawn on a map will cross in the area where the fox is hiding.

A single bearing only tells you a line — the fox is somewhere along it. Plot two or more bearings from different locations on a map and the intersection narrows the fox down to a small search area. This is triangulation, and it's the part of fox hunting that turns guesswork into a plan.

How to Plot Bearings

Stop at a known location (street corner, parking lot, intersection) and find the bearing to the fox with your body-fade or Yagi.
Mark your spot on a paper map (or drop a pin in Google Maps, Gaia GPS, or CalTopo) and draw a straight line out in the direction the fox is.
Drive a couple miles in a roughly perpendicular direction — not toward the fox — and take another bearing.
Plot that line too. Where the lines cross is your best guess at the fox's location.
Take a third bearing from a third location. Three lines rarely cross at a single point — they form a small triangle, and the fox is almost always inside it.

Reading the Map for Context

Once you have a search area, look at the map. The fox isn't usually in the middle of a freeway or a pond. Foxes tend to hide where there's a logical reason to be — and the map will often tell you exactly where to start.

Parking lots, parks, public land — favorite hiding spots for organized hunts
High ground / hilltops — better range, often where the hunt master is set up
Driveable side roads, cul-de-sacs — easy in and out for the fox to deploy
Anywhere the bearings concentrate — not just the centroid, but where lines actually cross

Hills, ridges, large buildings — can bend a bearing through reflection; expect bad bearings near them
Lakes, rivers, freeways — unlikely fox locations, but great for ruling out big chunks of map
Tall towers, water tanks — common multipath source; double-check bearings from near them
Power lines, substations — noise floor goes up; signal strength can be misleading

The map is a teammate, not a record-keeper. Every bearing you plot eliminates territory and sharpens your guess. Two hunters comparing maps over the radio are dramatically faster than two hunters chasing peaks independently — even with identical gear.

The Gear Upgrade Path

None of this is required — the body-fade trick really does work — but each of these tools makes the hunt faster, more accurate, and a lot more fun.

Directional Yagi Antenna

A handheld 2 m or 70 cm Yagi (typically 3 to 5 elements) gives you a real forward gain pattern and a strong rear null. Sweep the beam horizontally and the S-meter swings dramatically. Most hunters look for the null off the back rather than the peak off the front — nulls are sharper and more accurate.

Great for medium-range hunting and triangulating from multiple stops.

Offset / Step Attenuator

An in-line attenuator (often switchable from 0 to 60+ dB) lets you "turn down" the signal as you close in so the meter keeps reading mid-scale. An offset attenuator shifts the receive frequency so a strong fox can't get around the attenuation through the radio's case — essential for close-in work.

Pairs perfectly with a Yagi for the last mile.

Tape-Measure or Loop Antenna

A small shielded loop antenna has a very deep, very narrow null and is perfect for close-range sniffing — pinpointing a fox in a parking lot, in the woods, or inside a building. Loops are also cheap and easy to homebrew. The classic "tape-measure Yagi" is another popular DIY favorite.

Best for the final 50 feet of the hunt.

Other Useful Extras

Headphones — hear weak signals others miss
Compass + map (or phone GPS) for plotting bearings
Notepad to log bearing/location pairs for triangulation
A second radio set to the talk-around frequency for the hunt itself
Comfortable walking shoes — foxes always seem to end up uphill

Why an ARPSC Member Should Care

Fox hunting isn't just a game. The same skills are used to locate:

Stuck microphones that take down a repeater during an event
Malicious or unintentional jammers on public-safety or amateur frequencies
Downed-aircraft ELTs on 121.5 MHz (Civil Air Patrol does this constantly)
Missing-person tracking beacons in some search-and-rescue scenarios
RFI sources ruining your noise floor at home

This Week's Action Item

Before next Thursday's net, try one of these. The goal is to be ready when ARPSC fires up a fox hunt practice session (or when a real one shows up on the repeater):

Practice the body-fade technique on any strong local signal — a repeater, a broadcast translator, a neighbor's wireless device
Find your HT's RSSI / signal-strength display and learn how to read it under load
Try removing the antenna and walking around a known strong signal — see how directional your body becomes

Price out a 3-element 2 m Yagi or a tape-measure Yagi kit
Look into an offset attenuator — the cheapest big upgrade you can make
Build or buy a shielded loop for close-in sniffing

Bring it back to the net: if you have a favorite fox-hunting trick, a homebrew antenna story, or a stuck-mic war story, we want to hear it on tonight's net.

Suggested Equipment

These are suggestions, not endorsements — you can absolutely fox hunt with just an HT. Arrow Antennas (Cheyenne, WY) is a popular U.S. supplier of fox-hunting gear and ARPSC members have had good luck with their products.

4-Element 2 m Fox-Hunt Antenna

Lightweight handheld Yagi designed specifically for direction finding on 2 meters.

Arrow 4OFHA

2 m Fox-Hunt Loop

Shielded loop antenna for the close-in portion of the hunt where a Yagi gets overloaded.

Arrow FHL

Dual-Band 2 m / 70 cm Yagi

The classic Arrow II hand-held — great for satellite work and fox hunting on both bands.

Arrow II 146/437

#	Call Sign	Name	City	Member
1	KE8WUO	John	Warren	Member
2	N8WRO	Tim	Richmond	Member
3	26/N8CAF	Cliff	Clinton Township	—
4	W8BPD	Brian	Warren	Member
5	38/N8KJV	Jason	Warren	—
6	35/AD8MP	David	Saint Clair Shores	—
7	43/KE8RUH	Anthony	Grosse Pointe Woods	—
8	K8WA	Bill	Warren	Member
9	KF8ETQ	Darren	Fraser	Member
10	7/W8FU	Sean	Warren	—
11	41/KF8FQZ	Lisa	Warren	—
12	2/N8VDZ	Mike	Warren	—
13	6/N8WCB	Dave	Sterling Heights	—
14	KC8KJO	Tom	Memphis	Member
15	N8HLY	Tom	Sterling Heights	Member
16	KF8DRC	Jack	Rochester	—
17	WC8E	Jeff	Sterling Heights	Member
18	N8XZ	Ron	Warren	Member
19	KD8SFZ	Donald	Fraser	—
20	W8VD	Wally	New Baltimore	Member