Direction-Finding With Help From The Steam Deck

Direction-getting, or fox hunting, is a well-liked exercise in ham radio circles wherever a group of folks armed with radios attempt to identify a broadcasting resource. Apart from remaining a interest for amateurs, it’s also a vital resource in the belt of regulators who are attempting to monitor down violators of the air room. There are a good deal of strategies to determine out the exact place of a radio transmission, but this 1 manages to pull it off using the two a boat and a Steam Deck, each individual armed with a program-outlined radio.

This task arrives to us from [Aaron] who is perfectly regarded in the amateur radio circles for his SDR-focused Linux distribution named DragonOS which has all the resources needed for a good quality SDR practical experience, in this scenario KrakenSDR and DF Aggregator. He’s loaded everything up on a Steam Deck and remaining that in a safe place on the shore of a lake, although he carries next system with the exact software program with him on a boat. With the two units listening for a unique signal, he’s capable to promptly zero in on his pal on the shore who is broadcasting on the 70 cm band thanks to the enable of all of these software deals.

Though ham radio is not usually acknowledged for getting a youthful and fascinating exercise, the introduction of software-defined radio and other digital modes look to be shaking points up in that environment. Certainly rushing all-around a lake on a boat is pleasurable on its very own as effectively, and a fox hunt like this can be performed with anything as modest and uncomplicated as a Raspberry Pi way too.