Animal tracking

[smason]

Saw a brief story on the local news last night about some volunteers helping track bears in the Canmore area.
Typical clueless news reporter (don't get me started...) called it GPS, but the antenna was clearly VHF size, and the handheld radio showed 156 MHZ.

Anyone know some freqs commonly used around here for animal tracking? While photographing out in the Sheep River area last year I had seen a guy with a Yagi doing some tracking (probably Bighorns)


Steve

 

[mobile1]

Yes . 156.095 and 156.075. I was at a gun show and a guy there was selling these wildlife trackers . They were old and used ones and I took a look at the frequencies on the two units I could see and thought that 156.095 was the local RCMP repeater input channel in my area . He was from Alta and I from Sask.

 

[DX-300]

Saw a brief story on the local news last night about some volunteers helping track bears in the Canmore area.
Typical clueless news reporter (don't get me started...) called it GPS, but the antenna was clearly VHF size, and the handheld radio showed 156 MHZ.

LoL yeah, I saw that news report as well. Anyhow, this subject has often crossed my mind while visiting/hiking in the mountain parks here.

 

[rescue54]

ok... so how does that work? do you just set your scanner to the freq and wait for it to get stronger? I can think of some new ways to use those trackers.

 

[smason]

ok... so how does that work? do you just set your scanner to the freq and wait for it to get stronger? I can think of some new ways to use those trackers.

Normally they use directional antennas (like a beam) and they rotate it to determine what direction the critter is in. Oviously they're low power (battery powered usually on a collar) so you'd need to be fairly close.

I've never tried finding them, but might be interesting to leave a radio searching that range if you lived near where they might be (Canmore/Banff)

 

[electricsheep]

Drive through someplace like Jasper or Banff national park with close call on and a big antenna on your car and you will find these tracking collars all over the place. Parks Canada uses ones in some really odd frequencies though, I have them someplace and will try find them. Pretty much all the wolves, bears and larger dangerous mammals in the parks are collared. It's a handy way to tell if you should have your camera ready or not. But they are VERY low power. If you are not within a couple of hundred meters you will not pick them up without a antenna with some serious gain.