I know that if someone were to be interfering with critical radio communications (such as police and fire communications, air traffic control communication, etc.), the FCC (or another country’s equivalent) has equipment to trace down the source.
How does the equipment to find the location work? And also, how does it tell how many transmitters are currently broadcasting at that frequency?
In: Technology
Mostly through triangulation with directional antennas. When you take two directional readings from two different points, the lines drawn by the readings will intersect at a point. That’s where your transmitter is, in general. Once you get into a neighborhood, you can use raw signal strength and your directional antenna to know if you are getting closer or further away.
Ham radio folks like to do this for fun in a game they call “fox hunting”. One guy sits somewhere and transmits occasionally and everyone else has to track him down. I’ve done it many times, it’s a blast.
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