The Great Gyrfalcon Rescue- How Chase was tracked and recovered by Neil G1TZC
Chase the Gyrfalcon.. oblivious to all the trouble caused !!
THE CHALLENGE
This adventure was interesting and unusual in equal amounts. A bird that went missing. The original message on Facebook was picked up by Clive (M0KNP) in the Wythall Radio Club and posted to the Groups.io reflector. I picked up the information but as I don’t use Facebook I got someone else to contact Nick, the owner of the bird.
Nick got hold of me by phone and we had a chat. The bird, a Gyrfalcon, had a beacon attached but it was on 216MHZ, which is not a band that many amateur operators in the UK have available. He explained that ‘Chase’ has flown away and they had lost both visual and radio contact so had put the call out by as many routes as possible.
Armed with this information I was able to get together some basic, less than ideal equipment. I used a RTL SDR (software defined radio) and a yagi antenna (like the ones you see on houses for TV). This is then connected to a tablet which shows the frequencies in graphical form along with any sound. The rest of Friday afternoon was spent in the Lickey Hills with the equipment scanning around hoping to pick up the beep from the beacon on the bird.
Unfortunately, nothing was heard and after several hours I headed home. Nick was kept up with my lack of progress during this time. However, it did give me time to think. If I was to make a vertical antenna with a magnetic mount for a vehicle this would make tracing quicker and able to cover more area is a faster time. As the weather was poor there was a good chance that Chase was not going to be that active.
A SOLUTION
It was decided that Nick and his dad, Kevan, would come to the workshop where something could be put together.
Magmount and vehicle..(at this stage not attached)
On the Saturday morning, Nick and Kevan duly arrived. We headed to the workshop where I got to look at their tracker. A neat bit of kit with a built in Yagi, but this wasn’t going to work well from inside the van. So we went for the external antenna solution. In the workshop I have a piece of equipment called a nanoVNA which allows you to analyse how an antenna will work in real time. It was at that point I realised we could speed this process up. I had a telescopic antenna that was designed for another band, but by not extending it fully it should be good enough. We put it on the analyser at the frequency we needed it to be and adjusted. Worked like a charm. The only other issue as this antenna had the wrong connector. Fortunately Nick had a spare patch lead, so we quickly soldered a new end on to turn it in to an adaptor.
THE PURSUIT …..AND THE HAPPY ENDING!
The mag mount and antenna were attached to the vehicle and off they went. Nothing was found between where I was, the last reported sighting and their home. Another visual siting was reported and investigated. Visual confirmation was made at the reported location and the antenna received the beacon. Switching back to the yagi and with visual checks, the bird was indeed Chase.
With some persuasion, in the way of food, she was reunited with Nick and is happily back home.
The author Neil G1TCZ and Chase..
Since then Nick and I have been collaborating on a UHF tracker. This is very much in the early stages and is a great way for two hobbies to work together. On UHF there will also be a lot more member of the amateur radio community who could help in similar situations.
SEE AND TALK TO NEIL ABOUT HIS AMAZING STORY AT THE STOKE PRIOR STEAM FESTIVAL THIS WEEKEND.
A TEAM OF OPERATORS FROM WYTHALL RADIO CLUB WILL BE THERE WILL BE FOR THE EVENT SO PLEASE VISIT, ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR AMAZING AND VERSATILE HOBBY.
Little Intall Fields, Stoke Pound Lane off Hanbury Road (B4091), Stoke Prior Bromsgrove, Worcestershire B60 4LF