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no, been mobile makes it easier to track anybody down, we do it on 11mtrs,
a base station situated within say 25miles usually takes no more than 45 minutes, 4x4's can be easier or harder depending on where they park and how well hidden/how well they use terrain and obstructions to fool the hunters but rarely is the fox not found within a couple of houres unless its me and my buddy hiding
over larger areas its the driving time and fuel costs that take the pleasure out of it, if all hunters are experienced and work together its not difficult to find almost anybody.

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the blind lead the blind but the enlightened will lead you to the sigma4

From what I have seen as a new ham, there are a couple different ways of dealing with someone who is on a ham freq and shouldn't be.

1. If it sounds like someone who is new or generally clueless, but trying to do the right thing hams will point them in the right direction.
2. If it sound like the kids found dads radios, the hams will ignore the kids so they get bored and go away.
3. If you cause problem or threaten someone the hams will hunt you down and make sure you pay in one way or another. I listened to someone on another non-ham board explain how their club worked with the local cops and feds to kick in someone's door in the middle of the night because the suspects threatened the old ham who ran the local repeater.

This being said I have also talked to some old hams who say that as long as you were nice and polite and had a legitimate call sign, no one would ever know if you were legit or just using someone else's call sign.

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CISA, CISSP, Computer geek
clueless about HAM

www.linkedin.com/in/dariandunn

Maybe more difficult, but certainly not impossible. In the NC area, for a while there were hams patrolling the local truck stops and interstate highways looking for truck drivers who were using the bottom end of 10 meters. A few letters from the FCC to their companies drove them off of the ham bands.

Radio Fox hunting is fun and easy with the right set up. There are guys who are really good at DFing a signal from practice. Most active hams can tell you a lot about the radio atmosphere where they live, just because they have lived and used the radio in the same area for years. They can listen to a signal and sometimes get a good idea which direction the signal is coming from.

I live near the mountains, when a 2 meter signal is coming from the North, I can tell just by listening to it, it has a distinct anomoly that only signals coming from the North seem to have (maybe refraction off of the mountain???)

A seasoned fox hunter can find someone fairly quickly, even if mobile. If they are working in teams, it is even more effective, and usually the offender does not even know they are being DF'ed. A lot of hams work in teams and don't even use the same band as the offending signal, so as not to scare the fox so to say.

73

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“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”- George Carlin.

More often than not, it is done by one or two hams instead of this huge group of people mobilizing to go "hunt' a bootlegger station. With the truckers (who have been one of the worst about straying up into 10 Meters), sometimes they get caught because the hams simply listen or scan 28 MHZ while going to work or running errands. The drivers then give themselves away by talking about this "car with a buncha antennas" on it coming up behind. That way, the ham who is listening has just identified the trucker who sometimes will also try to call the ham about "all them antennas". He is now busted as the amateur op simply records the truck's info off the door and turns it in to FCC. There were quite a few truckers turned in this way----including UPS and FedEx drivers.
While it can be a bit more difficult to locate mobile stations, it is not THAT hard. If it is, for example, someone who is local and operates in a specific geographic area, even some relatively primitive equipment can give up an illegal's position. I'll try to explain. If someone starts operating----say..........on 10 Meters with his export radio, a few of the hams would simply meet for coffee. Their tools are a beam antenna and a map of the area. They may also designate an HF frequency that is WAY outside 10, 11, or 12 Meters---something the interfering station is not likely to have access to. When the illegal station is heard they may also call each other on the phone and have each station swing their beams across the signal. Then they plot a line from their location that CROSSES the signal that is coming into them. Each station does the same. Then they bring their maps for coffee and "connect" the lines. With just TWO plots, + the offending station, it will form a rough triangle. Where THOSE LINES CROSS IS WHERE THE OFFENDER IS The triangle doesn't have to be perfect; it can be all sorts of shapes, but it will show where the station is: it is called TRIANGULATION, btw, for obvious reasons! What if the station is moving and showing up at various places at different times? Well, you take as many plots as you can, and look at them to see where this signal appears the most, the most used direction of travel, times of day the signal is most frequent, and, of course, the general vicinity of the signal. All this data can be saved in a computer file until a "profile" begins to form. And, yes, it can take weeks to gather this data, but it DOES work. Even if the tracking stations can't track at the same time or EVERYTIME the signal appears, each station can gather enough data to form a "picture" of the interfering signal. FCC, tho, has some AWESOME equipment, and suffice it to say, it is like OnStar on STEROIDS using satellites and remote "stealth" antennas they can even sit in Columbia, MD and monitor!! It IS costly, so one has to really get someone MAD to stir the Feds to action. Still, there are plenty of actions against CB operators of late along with some misbehaving hams, too!

But WHY would this even be an issue (or a question) unless you were being "tempted" to operate ON the ham bands illegally? It is something I would certainly caution you about, and I do not agree that hams are being "anal" because they attempt to seek out those who ignore laws and rules that THEY had to learn (and follow). I'm sure there are some who will jump me immediately about this position.......................BUT!!!!!!! There are good reasons why hams have a more strict view of unlicensed operators on their bands. Part of the problem is FCC ITSELF that removed licensing from CB in the 80's. This helped to bring on an "appliance" mentality and a situation where NOBODY even bothered to read the rules for CB anymore! It fostered a free-for-all, law-breaking, let's-throw-all-rules-out-the-window mentality, a SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST atmosphere, and a genre of people who had never HAD to abide to rules before. THEY just went out and bought a CB radio and had at it.
To THEM, WHY should THEY have to obey any rules, and they saw no reason why they couldn't just invite themselves onto the ham bands, too!
HUH???? A LICENSE??? I don't NEED no 'license', I've got this BIG radio with all them 'channels' and I've got a "right". It just so happens the incumbent licensees on "them channels" happen to OBJECT. Try to see it this way: If you buy a house, you expect the LAW to protect you from intrusion, right. If somebody just walked into your house, brushed past you, then got a STEAK out of the fridge, then what????? You'll stop him at gunpoint (or other means of force), call the LAW to come and STOP this thief. or a combination of BOTH!!!!! Does THAT make YOU "anal" because you STOPPED this guy from taking something that belongs to YOU? It is what LAWS, RULES, and REGULATIONS are FOR: to protect innocent citizens from loss, damage or injury. Same with radio. A ham starts out just like everybody else. He EARNS his privileges by doing what the law requires. So, one day he attempts to USE one or more of the frequencies his license permits, only to find some dolt happily yapping away on AM in the digital portion of 10 Meters. Maybe the perp is local, maybe not. But this inteference is NOT welcome, so the ham(s) seek out the interloper and turn him in to the "cops"---which, in this case, happens to be FCC. WHY does that make HIM "anal" and not the guy who called the cops for STEALING from him?

The usual argument I get is, "Well, its "different": we ain't hurting anything by using them channels" It is NOT different!!!!! By operating on the bands assigned to other users, you are depriving the rightful users of the abilility or the potential for use, of that privilege. "Well, it's different because there's no 'danger' from using a radio". It is STILL preventing the rightful user from having access to those frequencies at the TIME they may want it!!! So, the ham(s) will then seek out interlopers and turn them IN. It is how the bands are prevented from becoming a cesspool of noise, arguments, and just plain trouble.


CWM

I've often heard that the FCC stopped licensing and enforcement per say of CB because of under funding. But in reality they lost $200,000,000 in potential license fees when a Federal Court overturned the FCC's license structure. The FCC instead of appealing it or overhauling its license fee structure they decided to suspend all collection of license fees Jan.1, 1977 . I believe that would in itself gave a whole lot of funding. I believe they became overwhelmed with the paper work dealing with the amount of CB op's-
By the end of 1977 over 10,000,000 CB licenses were issued.

Ham-Shack.com : The History Of Amateur Radio

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http://www.haminfobar.co.uk

C W Morse:

wow, thanks for the LENGTHY explanation with ALL the emphasis pointed out with CAPS!

so lets say....

i own a house, and a fridge, and a steak. someone comes into MY house, into MY fridge and takes a steak from ME.

youre saying thats the same as someone using a freq. they shouldnt be using??
sorry man, but as much as youd like to think, but you dont OWN that freq.

bad analogy my friend.

you come into my house trying to steal a steak, i WILL shoot you......... hell it might even be justified.

if i come onto your freq. and you shoot me........... well lets just say everyone will think youre crazy.

But he has the r i g h t to that freq; and when that right is infringed - a f e d e r a l law has been broken. You're not dealing with local yokels on this issues - Washington boys play different.

Play carelessly; and be very surprised...

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What gear do I use?
BASE: Icom IC-718 & GAP Titan DX, Yaesu FT-8800R & Diamond X50A, Magnum OmegaForce S45 & IMAX 2000 w/Astatic D104/TUP9.
MOBILE: Galaxy DX99V & Wilson 1000 w/Astatic D104-M2, Yaesu FT-8800R & Diamond NR-770.
"...The 444 in San Jose CA; the Central Gold Coast..."

Yes , there are hams that live for this stuff. Fox hunting was very popular in my area til fuel got so high.

Look at it this way. If the person is qrm'ing a repeater and it has a 80 mile coverage. There is probably atleast a dozen people with directional antennas that know close to where you are and which way you are headed or if you are stationary before a catch team even goes out.

And dont think its always cb'ers that qrm repeaters lots of times its other hams old and new.

No its NOT a "bad" analogy! It illustrates the REASON for all laws and regulations. Whether they are perfect or not, the reason for them is to protect citizens from harm, damage, or loss whether it be a piece of tangible property or an IN-tangible one like a "frequency". I never SAID frequencies are "owned", but they are REGULATED by governments, AND necessarily so! The simple fact is, if they weren't you might as well abandon the use of radio and go back to 1850 or so. Why? Because radio would become UNususable as an effective tool. Just listen to CB and what it became after it was mostly deregulated in the 80's. Did it become better as a result? No. I remember a time when CB was regulated, there was voluntary organization (the users themselves "policed" it; iow, if you were a malcontent, a troublemaker, PEER pressure kept most users down to a dull roar! And they would "shun" them and ignore their calls) If you just threw the doors wide open, removed all regulation, chaos would ensue and nobody would be able to use it.

While most of us are not trained in communications, we also do not understand one of the main reasons for regulations in radio that makes it the SAME as theft from one's home. It is the potential loss of life and property! While YOU, for example, may pout and chafe under these regulations that people can see no reason not to violate, your indiscriminate use of a radio could be causing someone in dire need of help not to receive that help. Your signal (like in the unbridled atmosphere of CB carried over into other radio services) could be covering up the legimate communications of another station. If you KNEW that you were causing someone to die, would you continue to jabber away? It matters not if it is once, twice, three times, regulations are in place in an attempt to prevent such a thing from happening-----even once! So unlicensed stations---yes, even on the ham bands-----are not welcomed nor tolerated. And in such case, WHO is really the "anal" one; the ham that protects his allocations by reporting interlopers, or the guy who thinks he has some "right" to 'them channels'? (And some outlaws with questionable or NO upbringing DO think that). Who is the 'anal' one if someone is trapped in a car & upside down in a creek, and radio was blocked from obtaining help? For grins and giggles, google "Jack Gerritsen" for an example of this very thing where hams were involved with the Coast Guard and trying to help with a sinking boat. Gerritsen did this very thing. He *(rightfully)* went to prison for it.
Was he a "big man" for doing this, or were the hams "anal" for tracking him and turning him in?

The point is still that stealing from a home is an example of a direct, physical act that is regulated. Radio is an unseen commodity that we can't see or touch but is also regulated for the same reason: to prevent harm, loss or injury to the citizens of a nation or the POTENTIAL for same. IOW, if you steal a guy's groceries, you'll get pinched! If you "steal" the ability to use that which is assigned, given by authority, or license, you are commiting a crime. You should (and will) get nailed. Except for the percieved moral equivilency, or lack thereof in ones own mind, they ARE the same.

CWM