Boxing the Fox: Packing up the Foxhunt Transmitter

While a collection of pieces sitting on the bench is great for playing around, if I plan to deploy my foxhunt transmitter to the real world, I need to package it up for the outdoors. Many of the larger foxhunt transmitters seem to use ammo cases or pelican cases, which should be fairly waterproof. Trying to keep costs to a minimum, I found a $5 plastic ‘field box’ from Plano intended for keeping ammo dry while out in the field. Construction seems fairly solid and simple overlapping plastic around the top should keep the contents fairly rainproof. Certainly not going to withstand being submerged or anything of the like, but some rain should do fine.

Inside I added some ‘rugged’ velcro strips to attach the 6v AA pack, the UV5R and the Arduino Uno with shield. Plenty of space left for larger battery systems or other future developments. For now it seems like a good cheap start. I drilled a 1/4inch hole in the top and attached an SMA extension with SMA female bulkhead. This will bring the signal out to the attached antenna. While the bulkhead itself seems fairly tight fitting, I opted to add a small rubber washer to further waterproof the setup.

I’ll do a future post on the proposed antenna for this fox at a later point, for now, here’s the set up.