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Triangulating a Radio Signal

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Dragostar

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Hia,
I'm relatively new to electronics, and wondered if anyone here knew how to triangulate a radio signal based on the input from three aerials. I know its been done before and so on, and I know that it involves measuring the strengths of the signals and comparing them, but in terms of the electronics involved I have no idea what to do. If anyone could point in the right direction it would be mcuh appreciated. I'm planning to make something along the lines of a tracking system, and I can make the transmitter fairly easily- but I can't work out how you locate something based on that.
 
If you have three directional antennas and they have sufficient separation - and other conditions are right - you can draw lines on a map representing the antenna direction - and where the lines converge is the likely source. Many other types of antennas may be used. Frequency and distance among other variables affect how you do this and the various problems. Line-of-sight at VHF might seem simple enough until you consider reflections/other from buildings, mountains or even the atmosphere.

Seems to me that before GPS there were a number of commercial services - Loran and others used by ships, aircraft, etc - that used RDF. I remember at least one radio sold for Marine service that had a ferrite loop that you could rotate and triangulate on broadcast stations.

There are groups of people including radio amateurs, who do this for fun - though it's quite serious fun for many of them. I'd encourage you to research amateur radio and other publications on Radio Direction Finding (RDF) and Foxhunt, among other terms.
 
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