"My club wants to start two-meter transmitter hunting but first we need a hidden transmitter. What is available?"This inquiry is near the top of the list of frequently asked questions in my e-mail. There isn't a one-size-fits-all answer, because no single transmitting setup is right for every situation. Regular hiders use a wide variety of equipment. Power output and antenna type depend on the distance to the start point and the level of intended difficulty.
Think about how you will be using your fox transmitter. Will it be for short range on-foot hunting, longer range hunting on bicycles, or still longer range mobile hunts? How long will the hunts last? Must the transmitter be unattended? Does it need to have an automatic startup at hunt time? Remote control? Is camouflage an important consideration?
If the club is just getting started in mobile T-hunting, it may be sufficient to use an ordinary handi-talkie or mobile rig and just have someone stay with it and key it up at appropriate intervals. The hider can read into the mike from a book, or from the club newsletter, or just make comments and urge the hunters on, as NØQEC and KBØIEK of the Lincoln (Nebraska) Amateur Radio Club are doing in the photo at left.
For a simple unattended continuously transmitting setup, connect your two-meter hand-held or mobile transceiver to a tape recorder playing an endless loop answering machine cassette with an appropriate message and ID.
OK, I'm showing my age. That's what we did thirty years ago. Nowadays, how about an MP3 player that repeats an audio file over and over? For delay between transmissions, use two files in rotation, one of which is a blank file, and a transmitter with voice activation (VOX).
To throw your voice, hide a dual-band hand-held operating in the crossband-repeat mode and activate it via the UHF subband from another location. I remember well the first time I did that, putting the dual-bander into a small underground sprinkler vault in a park. Nobody thought to look in such a tiny place for a transmitter that had my voice coming from it, taunting them regularly and making comments about their hunting abilities!
After a while, most hiders graduate to self-contained dedicated "foxboxes." Oftentimes, a local radio club funds the construction of a foxbox and makes it available to whichever member is hider for the hunt. The foxbox contains a transmitter, battery, antenna, and controller/timer unit. For VHF/UHF bands, the transmitter is often an old handi-talkie (IC-2ATs are very popular) or mobile radio. Unless the hunt is very long-distance or the antenna is very inefficient, two or three watts of power is plenty. For a commercial alternative, consider crystal-controlled and synthesized two-watt transmitter boards such as the ones sold by Hamtronics Incorporated in Hilton, NY.
A controller/timer provides audio and on/off outputs. Here are five options, listed from oldest to newest:
Of the above options, the PicCon has been the most popular by far, because it can be easily reconfigured for either mobile T-Hunts or international-rules ARDF events. For ARDF, the Montreal Controller is a close second in popularity because it has crystal-based timing, which will keep a set of five ARDF transmitters within a couple of seconds over a one-day period.
Original PicCons had crystal-controlled timing also, but the latest PicCons are being shipped with a ceramic resonator instead. While this is OK for most mobile T-hunting applications, it isn't good enough for a championship ARDF event, especially with e-punch and WWVH start/finish timing. Depending on temperature and unit variations, users report that resonator-controlled PicCons run about 20 seconds per hour slow. To correct this, PicCons can be modified by replacing the resonator with a crystal and two capacitors. Details are at the Web site of Ken Harker WM5R.
You will need to mount your SquawkBox, MicroHunt or Micro-Fox circuit board into your own enclosure with a battery and power switch, perhaps in camouflage. A SquawkBox in a black plastic case is shown opened up in the photo above right. Encased MicroHunt boards are available from Marvin Johnston KE6HTS.
I built this Byonics Micro-Fox 15 into in a die-cast metal box with a piano-wire lanyard and lock to prevent theft.
For longer distance hunts, including international-rules on-foot events, Byonics has added the Micro-Fox PicCon (MF-PC) to its catalog. It is a program-and-play transmitter and PicCon controller that covers the entire two-meter band. With its built-in receiver, it can be remotely controlled with DTMF tones like PicCon. The receive frequency can be different from the transmit frequency. It can also be programmed via its serial port like the Micro-Fox 15. MF-PC will operate for about 20 hours on three AA batteries with transmit cycle of 50 per cent or less. Claimed power output is 700-milliwatts with fresh batteries, dropping as battery voltage falls. It will operate longer at lower power on two AA batteries. The MF-PC internal clock has a ceramic resonator, but the firmware includes a programmable correction factor to minimize timing drift in a multiple-fox hunt.
A MicroFox Piccon with added Velcro holding straps, piano wire lanyard and lock.
IARU regulations permit two-meter championship foxes to run between 250 milliwatts and 1.5 watts. Output powers of all foxes on a course must be within 3 dB of each other and antennas must be identical types at equivalent heights. It's not necessary to follow these rules for local practice hunts, but it's still important to be able to adjust power to suit the course. For hunts in small parks, running less than a half watt will preserve battery life, enabling longer practice sessions. When it's time to try ARDF in a really big park, over a watt may be necessary when a fox is a mile or more away from the start.
The cost of five complete foxboxes built from new name-brand handi-talkies could easily exceed $1000. If your club doesn't have that kind of treasury, there are many ways to build them on a shoestring budget. For my own project, the biggest cost savings came by using transmitter boards salvaged from surplus 1980's-vintage 151 MHz business-band mobile transceivers, Yaesu models FTC-1525A and FTC-2025. The price was right (free!) and the boards from these sets are of quality equal to or better than most of today's transmitter kits and homebrew designs.
For surplus transmitters, check local flea markets and business radio suppliers. Get good documentation from the source if at all possible, because manufacturers' prices for old service manuals may be prohibitive. Fortunately, the circuits of sets using discrete semiconductors are relatively easy to trace, even without a schematic.
Inside one of my well-worn foxboxes. The circuit board plate provides physical protection for the transmitters boards for 2m and 80m, which are mounted to the lid to minimize flexing cables. A foam wedge holds the battery in place. The 1/8-inch jack is for DTMF audio input to program the PicCon.
For inexpensive, sturdy, waterproof enclosures, it's hard to beat surplus military ammunition boxes. Their dark green color blends well with surroundings. With some grey and black spray paint, you can change this into a "camo" paint job. The size I like (5-1/2 X 11 X 7 inches inside) is twice as big as necessary, but the large surface of the removable lid makes it easy to mount all parts except the battery.
A quarter-wavelength vertical whip antenna, mounted to the lid, will have an adequate ground plane provided by the metal box. The enclosure should be plainly marked as a licensed radio transmitter, with the owner's cell phone or pager number. Add provisions for a bicycle chain and lock to prevent theft.
Flea markets and military surplus outlets are good sources of ammo boxes. You shouldn't have to pay more than about $5 each. Look over the merchandise closely and pick boxes with good lid seals, to keep your transmitter parts dry and prevent corrosion. Protect the equipment inside by mounting parts securely and using foam cushioning. My foxboxes have fallen out of trees more than once, with no damage so far.
Over the years, many hams have learned the hard way that Murphy has a special fondness for foxboxes. There are lots of things that can go wrong when you put a hidden transmitter in a remote spot. You cross your fingers hoping that it will come on at the appointed time with full power and that your batteries will last for the duration. You certainly don't want to have to go out to service it, delaying the hunt and possibly giving away its location.
PicCon includes a delayed startup feature that allows you to put out your foxes several hours before the hunt and have them automatically come on at start time. However, just a few milliseconds of power interruption in the interim will reset the timer. There's no way to tell if this has happened until it's too late, so take extra steps to prevent it. I use connectors instead of switches between battery and PicCon. Fuse holders can become intermittent, so I made my own battery fuses out of AWG 32 wire and soldered them into the circuit.
The plate has been separated to show the crystal deck and PicCon. There is a fine-wire fuse in the lower left corner. On the lid are the two meter exciter and final RF stage boards. There is no 80-meter transmitter in this box.
My surplus radios had separate 12-holder crystal boards for receiver and transmitter. I used the transmit crystal boards without the switches to avoid their potential for intermittents. Frequency changes in the field are made by moving one wire. (You do carry a small soldering torch along, don't you?) The coordinated frequency for transmitter hunts in southern California is 146.565 MHz. This frequency is also popular among other cities in the USA and Canada. For hunts where contestants from Europe or Asia are present, a frequency below 146 MHz may be necessary to accommodate their limited-range RDF receivers. I purchased five crystals from Transko, formerly Cal Crystal Lab, in Anaheim, California. You can also try ordering from Bomar in Middlesex, NJ.
The Yaesu transmitter board output originally went to a separate heat-sinked 35-watt final stage. Power from the "barefoot" board exceeds 5 watts, so there is no need to use the battery-wasting finals. An easy and effective way to adjust power on boards like this is to control the supply voltage to the pre-driver, which is the RF stage just preceding the last one on the exciter board. A variable resistor wired as a rheostat will do it, but there would be a large power change as the battery sags during the hunt. In a quick test with a resistor selected to run a FTC-2025 board at 1.5 watts with a nearly charged battery (12.85 volts), the power was only 0.75 watts at near discharge (12.0 volts). A better solution in this case was to use a LM317 IC to regulate the pre-output stage voltage over the range of 3 to 9 volts, sufficient to adjust from 0.1 to 3 watts out of the board. With this regulator, power remains nearly constant as the battery discharges.
Retuning from business band to two meters was a simple matter of installing a new crystal and adjusting each stage from oscillator to output for resonance. The output stage trimmers were set for best efficiency (maximum RF output consistent with minimum current draw). I then used a spectrum analyzer to verify signal stability and purity.
Fox transmitters must follow good amateur practice, which includes suppression of spurious emissions and harmonics. There was a filter in the high-power output stage of the transmitters I used, but no such filtering for the preceding stages. Sure enough, the spectrum analyzer showed that the modified FTC-2025 driver output was stable, but its second harmonic was only 16 dB down. So I removed the final stage board from its enclosure in the transceiver and mounted it into the ammo box, unpowered, passing the driver output through just the low-pass filter components. Upon retest, two-meter power was the same but all harmonics were better than -40 dB, in accordance with FCC regulations.
A suitable harmonic filter could be made from scratch on a 2 X 2 inch piece of copper-clad board, using a Dremel(TM) tool to grind pads for the ungrounded component nodes. Below is the schematic and performance curve. Wind each coil on a 15/64-inch drill bit using AWG 20 enamel covered wire, then slide the coil off the bit and install. Turns should not touch each other.
The output of home-built VHF/UHF transmitters should be checked with a spectrum analyzer. If a low-pass filter is needed to prevent harmonic radiation from a two meter transmitter, this circuit will do the job nicely. Capacitance values are in picofarads.
At left, the added LM317 IC and potentiometer provide power regulation and control. Left of the regulator IC is a hole for access to the SO-239 output connector. At right is the lowpass filter section of the final amplifier board. The potentiometer and diode are part of a reflected power sensor circuit that is not needed at three watts or less.
Typical two-watt transmitters for two meters draw between one-half and one Ampere from a 13-volt source, so relays or hefty transistors are needed to key them on and off. I found a small relay on each Yaesu board that was just right for keying. However, its coil draws 40 mA, which is more than the PicCon keying circuit is designed for. Fortunately, the PicCon switching transistor can handle 40 mA, and more base drive for the transistor is available from the PIC chip. Changing R4 on the PicCon from 10K to 910 ohms increased the drive.
Select your batteries in accordance with current drain and anticipated hunt time. Let's say that the transmitter pulls 800 milliamperes at maximum power, including the relay coil. If there are to be five foxes in sequence, the duty of each fox will be 20%, which is 160 mA on average. The PicCon draws 12 mA continuously, so the battery requirement for a 3-hour practice session is 3 X (160+12) = 516 mA-hours. Battery capacity diminishes with age and they last longer if not deep-discharged, so it's best to have 100% safety factor and choose a 1 Ampere-hour or greater battery pack for this example. For full-scale ARDF events, transmitters should have sufficient battery power for at least five hours of operation, because competitors are started at five-minute intervals.
I prefer rechargeable sealed lead-acid (SLA) 12-volt batteries of 4 to 7 ampere-hours capacity, they provide plenty of hunt time without being too heavy to carry into the woods. Before shelling out cash for them, check with the biomedical engineers at your local hospital. Regulations call for periodic replacement of backup batteries in some portable medical devices. You might be able to obtain several used but fully functional SLA packs just for the asking. Another possible source would be computer companies that use SLA batteries in their uninterruptible power supplies.
A simple vertical antenna that's adequate for most small-park hunts is a 19-1/2 inch length of 3/32-inch bronze welding rod in a PL259 plug. I salvaged SO239 connectors from the Yaesu business radios and mounted them near the center of the ammo box lids, for best ground plane performance of the whips. To clear the protruding terminal on the back of the SO239 under the transmitter board, I drilled a half-inch hole in an unused area of each board.
At formal international competitions, horizontal antenna polarization is required for two-meter foxes. Crossed-dipole "turnstile" antennas with proper phasing provide an omnidirectional horizontally-polarized radiation pattern. Plans for simple, rugged two-meter turnstiles are in the Web site of Jay Hennigan WB6RDV. Kits for these turnstiles are available from Marvin Johnston KE6HTS.
After the solder fumes cleared and the drilling debris was swept up, I added my expenses and discovered that I had spent only $65 per foxbox. The majority of the total cost was for the PicCon controllers. Not bad for a few evenings' work!
Portions of this page are excerpts from my Homing In columns in the March 1998 issue of 73 Magazine and the Summer 2004 issue of CQ-VHF magazine. In addition, the following Homing In columns in 73 Magazine have covered hidden transmitter designs for two meters:
There are 43 pages about fox transmitters in my book "Transmitter Hunting -- Radio Direction Finding Simplified."
© 1998, 2004, 2012 and 2023 Joseph D. Moell. All rights reserved.
This page updated 7 December 2023
If you want a hidden transmitter that's the size of a chalkboard eraser or smaller and 15 to 25 milliwatts is enough transmitter power, consider these three miniature two-meter transmitter models that are about the size of a stick of gum and operate all day from an ordinary 9-volt battery:
Foxbox Construction Notes
Build Them Tough
Keep it Clean
Foxboxes for Other VHF and UHF Bands
The timers/controllers listed near the top of this page are suitable for use with FM or AM transmitters on other UHF bands. For complete miniature low-power transmitters with built-in controllers and timing, consider these options, which are popular among hams who launch model aircraft and rockets.
The BeeLine 70cm transmitter (photo at right) by BigRedBee LLC of Lake Oswego, OR (Greg Clark K7RKT, owner) puts out up to 16 milliwatts on frequencies between 420 and 450 MHz. Transmission rate, output power, frequency and callsign are programmable from a PC via RS-232 or USB. Power comes from a supplied rechargeable lithium-polymer battery. The 30-gram BeeLine was reviewed in my Homing In column in CQ-VHF Magazine for Winter 2009.
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