Give scouts something new and exciting to do during Jamboree On The Air

The hidden transmitter signal is getting stronger, and these two scouts are getting more intent about tracking it down. [Joe Moell, K0OV, photo]

Is it in here? A signal is coming from inside this shed, so this scout is eager to find it. Helping him at right is Marvin Johnston, KE6HTS. [April Moell, WA6OPS, photo]

Darryl Widman, KF6DI, helps a scout with the construction project. Darryl is a longtime scout leader who organized the 2005 JOTA campout at the Sedgwick Reserve. [April Moell, WA6OPS, photo]

Each scout at JOTA 2005 near Santa Barbara had the opportunity to build an oscillator for practicing Morse code. Al Soenke, WA6VNN, organized this project. [Joe Moell, K0OV, photo]

Upon arrival at JOTA 2005 near Santa Barbara, each scout received a special JOTA card. Stars were added for each activity completed. [Joe Moell, K0OV, photo]

Assisted by Scott Moore, KF6IKO, a scout contemplates his next move. The pistol grip on this RDF antenna makes it easier for young people to hold properly when taking bearings. [Joe Moell, K0OV, photo]

Transmitter hunting was an important part of the ham radio display at Scout-O-Rama 2006 in Long Beach, California. In the foreground, Marvin Johnston, KE6HTS (left) helps one scout, while in the background, Richard Thompson, WA6NOL, helps another. [Joe Moell, K0OV, photo]

Ham radio and scouts -- what a great combination! The activities of our hobby fit well into the objectives of scouting, and there's no better place to introduce young people to our hobby. I hope your club is planning a get-together with local Boy and Girl Scouts (or Girl Guides) during Jamboree On The Air (JOTA), which takes place this year the weekend of October 20-21.

Besides the usual QSOs and shack visits, why not provide some outdoor activities for the scouts in your town? Radio direction finding (RDF), which hams often call "foxhunting" when they're doing it for fun, would be a great way to exercise their minds and bodies at the same time. I've been helping clubs with JOTA foxhunting activities for 10 years, so I can attest to its value.

Getting Started

Many medium-sized areas are suitable, from city parks to rural fields and forests. In 2000, Mel Goldberg, N6MEL, organized a large-scale JOTA for nearly 900 Orange County (California) scouts on the grounds of Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove. There were 13 hands-on exhibits including HF, VHF, ARES, RACES, ATV, APRS/Packet, CW and hidden-transmitter hunting.

I put 10 VHF "foxboxes" on the school grounds, ranging from easy-to-spot ammunition cans in the bushes to tiny transmitters concealed in unlikely places, such as affixed to the pipes under a water fountain. Several helpers, each of whom brought direction-finding antennas, receivers and other gear, were on hand to accompany the scouts.

Scouts usually arrived at our foxhunting display tent in groups of two or three. We found that a good way to start explaining RDF to them was to point out how it's used to find the emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) of downed aircraft. Techniques are similar to those used by biologists tracking radio-tagged animals in nature TV shows that most scouts have seen.

After showing how RDF gear works, the helper would select one scout from the group, hand over the gear, and help him or her to track an easy transmitter as the others followed. The youthful hunter got encouragement and help when needed, of course. When it was found, a different scout would go after one that was a bit harder, and so forth. The last hunter of the group, who had received the benefit of watching all the others' mistakes, got to find a well-disguised micro-transmitter for a surprise ending.

Into the Woods with RDF

How about a campout for JOTA? Getting the scouts out of town for JOTA weekend helps focus their attention on ham activities and provides a larger area for foxhunting fun. Greg and Gabriella Owens, WA6HKM and KE6JQS, of Simi Settlers Amateur Radio Club proved this by organizing an overnighter for JOTA 1996. They chose Lake Casitas Recreation Area near scenic Ojai, California.

This event officially began at noon Saturday and continued for 24 hours. Many scouts camped over Saturday night, while others were at the lakeshore for just a few hours on one day. In addition to foxhunting, there were the usual HF and VHF stations available for QSOs, plus a place where the kids could build their own oscillators for an introduction to CW.

The 200 or so scouts who came to Lake Casitas were mostly elementary schoolers. Since foxhunting at night with kids that young would be unsafe, we had to make it possible for many scouts to be hunting at the same time during our limited daylight hours. I got help from several members of the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club (SBARC).

We decided to hide the Lake Casitas foxes within the wooded campground instead of the nearby wilderness area. Scouts would not have a long hike, plus the sight of them combing the grounds with "sniffing" gear attracted lots of attention and interest. It was so popular that when my xyl April and I drove back to the campground on Sunday morning, we were surrounded with young voices shouting, "The fox people are back! When can we go hunting?"

Last year, SBARC put on its own JOTA campout for seven local troops under the leadership of Darryl Widman, KF6DI, a former scoutmaster and scout Commissioner. For two days, scouts made contacts on the air, sent TV pictures, built their own code oscillators from kits and learned all about RDF. After completing each activity, they earned stars to put on their individual JOTA cards, marking their progress toward radio merit badges.

Site of the SBARC JOTA 2005 was the Sedgwick Reserve, a 6000-acre wilderness area in the Santa Ynez Valley, owned by the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). In charge of the foxhunting activities was SBARC President Marvin Johnston, KE6HTS, who is an international-rules foxhunting (ARDF) medal winner and organizer of the 2004 USA ARDF Championships. I assisted, as did SBARC member Scott Moore, KF6IKO.

Marvin's ambitious goal was for the scouts to successfully complete a one kilometer round trip ARDF course on 2 meters in competition with others. Following International Amateur Radio Union's championship foxhunting rules, these 2 meter foxes transmitted for one minute each in rotating sequence on one frequency, although there were only three of them instead of the usual five. Scouts were unassisted by adults on this course and went out in teams of two or three for safety and to help build teamwork.

KE6HTS set that three-fox ARDF course, but before the scouts were ready for it, they had to become proficient at RDF by going after some practice foxes that I'd put out around the camp site. There were lots of them on different frequencies, so multiple teams could be learning without having to follow each other around. Marvin, Scott and I led the self-appointed teams of scouts in their personalized training.

The first fox was always very close and easy to locate. The next was more difficult, and so on. Each member of the team took a turn at taking bearings with one of the RDF sets. One of the scouts was in a motorized wheelchair, and he enjoyed rolling to the specially placed foxes that he could find by himself.

By the time the team members had tracked down three or four transmitters, they were ready for the ARDF course. Only one team was allowed on the course at a time, and each team was timed from start to finish. Working together, they determined which of the three foxes to find first. Usually one scout did the RDF while the other team members beat the bushes and marked their punch slip at the foxes. Then the fastest one raced back to the finish line with the completed slip.

Stars for their JOTA cards were presented to all who completed the course. The fastest team on the ARDF course received special recognition around the campfire Saturday night.

Kid-Friendly RDF Gear

For first attempts at RDF, it's best if all the foxes are on different frequencies and transmit continuously, or nearly so. Short bursts are OK for experts, but are discouraging to beginners. Let them concentrate on one transmitter, find it, then tune for another. Success for every scout is the goal, so don't make it too hard right away.

A simple tape measure beam, an active (offset) attenuator and a scanner or handheld transceiver covering 2 meters make up the typical beginner RDF setup for on-foot foxhunting. That's fine for adults, but for beginning youngsters, there are some special considerations. First, the receiver must have some sort of signal strength indicator, such as an S-meter. To regular users of VHF FM, it's easy to gauge the strength of incoming signals by the amount of background hiss or lack of it (quieting). However, this may not be as obvious to a Cub Scout using a handheld for the first time.

Don't make the scout hold the antenna in one hand, the receiver in the other, and the attenuator ... well, where would that go? Everything should be in a one-piece assembly that can be held in one hand. Foreign-made one-piece ARDF receiver/antenna sets with earphones, continuous tuning, and tone-pitch S meters meet that requirement and are preferred by champions, but they aren't ideal for situations like this because the phones can only be used by one scout. (A splitter and multiple headsets aren't suitable for safety reasons).

For JOTA 2005, every RDF receiver we used was a Sniffer 4 from Bryan Ackerly, VK3YNG. Operation was simple: All the scouts had to do was turn the antenna for strongest signal indication and walk in that direction. Their excitement grew as tone pitch in the speaker rose and then dropped again as the automatic attenuation kicked in and displayed a higher number. This was a clear indication that they were closing in. The synthesized receiver made it easy to QSY from beginner fox to beginner fox.

Weight and balance are important considerations. At first, it surprised me how difficult it is for grade schoolers to hold a 3 element, 2 meter Yagi overhead long enough to hunt down a hidden fox. Their arms become fatigued in about three minutes, and the beam slips lower and lower. Antennas with handles in the rear, intended to be held in front of the hunter, put too much torque on the wrist of children, so they tend to end up pointing toward the ground instead of the horizon.

A lightweight Yagi with a pistol grip handle underneath at the balance point seems to work best. Make sure that the antenna tips are covered to prevent accidental cuts or punctures. Scouts should hold antennas in front of them and turn their bodies to get bearings, not just the antenna.

This Could Take Off

Will foxhunting become a mainstream scouting activity some day? After JOTA 2005, KF6DI wrote, "Some of the scouts said that the transmitter hunt was the best part of all and that it was the most fun. You should have seen them running back to the starting point to beat the times of the other teams. They were really into this!"

JOTA isn't the only opportunity to bring foxhunting fun to scouts. Since 2003, Amateur Radio has been part of the annual Scout-O-Rama, an all-day activity fair in a Long Beach city park the first weekend in June. The ham radio displays at this event are quite similar to JOTA, including QSOs, simulated emergency communications, an introduction to CW, and transmitter hunting. Scouts receive a certificate for completing any activity, with endorsements for each additional activity.

Give some thought to other opportunities for using RDF to capture the imagination of young people and introduce them to Amateur Radio. I have enjoyed putting on transmitter hunts for high school students in Rancho Palos Verdes and Pasadena, as well as for other youth groups such as the YMCA Indian Guides and Princesses. I'd be interested in hearing your ideas.

Keep Listening for the Owls

Your help is still needed to monitor for radio-tagged burrowing owls like this one. [Photo courtesy Kirsten McDonnell, Envirological Services]

Two volunteer wildlife monitoring projects are still going on and need your help. A non-profit organization in New Mexico wants to find the wintering grounds of the burrowing owls that spend summer months in the grasslands of Kirtland Air Force Base. Last summer, 28 of these birds were fitted with pulsing radio tags near 172 MHz. All but two are believed to still be on the air somewhere, perhaps in a southwestern state or in Mexico.

Researchers at two Toronto universities have radio tagged 20 young purple martins at a breeding colony in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. These beautiful birds are also headed for winter grounds, perhaps in South America. Listeners in southern states from Texas through Florida are asked to monitor and possibly detect the flyovers.

If you live in the target areas and can receive 172 MHz signals, you could help. If you have RDF equipment for that range, so much the better. My "Homing In" Web site has more information on these projects, including frequencies and suggestions for equipment and antennas. It includes a page that describes the unique characteristics of wildlife tags to help listeners distinguish them from other signals they may encounter at 172 MHz.

Thanks for your help!

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