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Tracking Collar

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slc1414

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I was wondering if you could tell me how I can make a 216-220 mhz transmitter. I am wanting to use the transmitter on a dog collar so it has to be pretty compact. I have already made a reciever using a pro-94 dual trunking scanner from Radio Shack, attatched to a homemade yagi antenna I built using 1/2inch pvc for the boom; coax, and pieces of tape measure for the elements. The antenna works with existing collars I have, which work on 216, 217, 218, and 220 mhz. Now if I could just figure out how to make on of these transmitters I could save a lot of money, each collar is about $150. I found a kit at Ramsey Electronics that was used to track model rockets but it only reached 1/4 mile, and it was the wrong frequency. I need this transmitter to put out a signal that can be picked up at a mile or more if possible. Any help you can give me on this would be greatly appreciated. SLC1414
 
Seeing as how no one replied to your post from 2003, I will hi-jack it with a tangent, yet related topic.....Dog tracking collar jamming. You see, every year during deer hunting season, hunters are still allowed to hunt with dogs around where I live for a period of time. These particular hunters have zero regard or respect for private property. They release their dogs on bordering state-owned land and intentionally run their dogs through our 1500 acre property to drive the deer out. They ride the surrounding roads with radio telemetry tracking receivers to track their dogs and then race their trucks to where the deer running dogs might cross the road onto state land in hopes of getting a shot. As a hunter myself, I invest a lot of time, effort and money in still hunting in a tree stands on our property so it goes without saying that these dog hunters drive me crazy each year. I've tried everything from confronting the hunters, policing the property and catching their dogs and escorting them off the property back to their owners. While I can legally charge the hunters with trespassing, I cannot do this with their dogs and the hunters are smart enough (most times) to stay off the private property. They just give me a shrug and a grin when I complain about their dogs on my property. The best solution is to lobby the politicians to outlaw dog hunting all together but that is a tall order here in the south where dog hunting tradition still prevails. SO.... Now I want to try another tactic in my little battle and disrupt these annoying hunters by jamming their radio dog tracking systems in hopes that maybe they take their hunting elsewhere. First of all, is this legal? As mentioned above, the frequency range of these devices is between 216.005 to 219.995mhz. Jamming this range would only affect these specific tracking devices right? Is it even possible to jam these thing over a 1500 acre property? Any insight would be appreciated.
 
I can neither confirm nor deny that that hasn't already occurred but I heard a tale once where that happened and said tracking collar was thrown in a lake. The trackers found the collar at the bottom of the lake. Another solution I heard was to catch the dog and disable the collar with a magnet. Not sure if that would work or not.
 
You can jam the radios because a dog will not use the radio to call for an ambulance if he gets shot by you. If you shoot a dog then its owner might shoot you and claim it was an accident (the bullet missed the deer and got you because you were in the way).
A magnet does not jam a radio but its metal might change the frequency a little.
 
It would make sense that a magnet would be used to disable a dog collar, such a device would prevent the dog itself from turning the collar off.
But why would you want to go looking for a dog at the bottom of a lake, sounds like you heard BS, plus would a VHF signal make it through water that far, probably not.

Oh yes, welcome to the forum.
 
I can neither confirm nor deny that that hasn't already occurred but I heard a tale once where that happened and said tracking collar was thrown in a lake. The trackers found the collar at the bottom of the lake. Another solution I heard was to catch the dog and disable the collar with a magnet. Not sure if that would work or not.

As others have said, the tracker almost certainly wouldn't work in a lake - but just shoot the tracker as well :D
 
what about solar dog whistles on your perimeter, loud enough to drive them crazy (away)?
 
Lake story is true but it could have been a GPS tracking collar. Water was only 3 feet deep.

Solar dog whistles are out as we have our own dogs that run free around the house and nearby surrounding area.

You could kill the dog and destroy the collar but the hunters no exactly where the dog is at all times and will know it suddenly stopped on your land along with the transmitter going out...not to mention the gunshot. Pretty obvious what happened. I don't trust these hunters as they are a bunch of outlaws. Need something less obvious.....hence a signal jammer.
 
Penalties might still be high, but I dont think anyone cares anymore in this country at least.
 
I think the RF cops are bored with nothing to do. They probably get very excited to go and catch somebody breaking their law.
 
I'm stateside in NC.

Even if jamming was legal, I have my doubts about the feasibility of something that would actually be powerfull enough to jam the hunter's transmitters/receivers. If I can't beat them, then I might as well join them and set myself up where I hear their dogs running and maybe I get a shot at the deer they are running through our property. I could also call the name warden to patrol the roads they travel.
 
i mentioned perimeter cos that way the red zone stays on the borders keeping yours in and theirs out, and you only need fraction of power, so there is less likely trouble with cops,
The big question is how much u want to spend:
add a detection turret, and some "friendly fire" response tags, im sure a few of these in some trees would do the trick;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon

and i think they work at the ultrasound level so the hunters cant hear them,, tough project thou.(at least a few hundred ea);
 
Interesting sonic technology. Only problem is it would target deer as we'll and scare them off when they weren't being chased by dogs. If jamming that 216-220mhz range is illegal, I think I'm just screwed on this little battle. Is the act of jamming illegal or is it the act of disrupting any and all communications vital to our daily existance, fire, rescue, radio, cell phones, etc.? I don't see how disrupting a dog collar tracking device would hurt anything other than the hunters success of shooting a deer.
 
A slightly different point of view.

We are talking about the USA here, where things are a bit different from the UK.

If you cause deliberate interference to licenced radio systems, the FCC will come down on you with something like a $10,000 fine.

However, the dog location system is most likely not licenced and maybe even operating under FCC "Part15" rules.
I don't have the exact wording, but some of the conditions of Part 15 is that the equipment "must accept interference from other radio systems", or something to that effect.

Now, this does not allow you to set up a nice big transmitter to flatten the hunters system, but, if you had similar equipment operating on the same frequency making it impossible for the hunters to correctly locate their dog....
....hey that is just tough for them.

The downside is of course that you need a receiver to identify the frequency of the hunters dog transmitter so that you can set your dog transmitter to the same frequency.

JimB
 
Maybe the dog locator uses GPS?

Dont even think about jamming the GPS downlink. Nowadays, almost all civil aviation uses GPS, so jamming that will get you in big trouble...
 
Build a pound and lure the dogs into it. Having caught an offending dog, disable the collar by removing the battery. Charge the dog owner a large fee to reclaim the dog.
 
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