FoxHunt

ASP.NET Web Forms hobby app for Radio Direction Finding / fox-hunting — watches where a known cooperative transmitter is being heard on publicly-available receiver networks (PSKReporter, WSPRnet, Reverse Beacon Network, KiwiSDR) and renders the footprint on a Leaflet + Esri satellite map.

No hardware required. Single-user. Not a stalking tool.

Run it

1. Open FoxHunt.sln in Visual Studio 2022.
2. Right-click solution → Restore NuGet Packages.
3. Make sure ..\..\Lib\ (DTI libs: DTIControls.dll, DTIGrid.dll, Reporting.dll, BaseClasses.dll, etc.) is present alongside your sibling projects — FoxHunt's .csproj references them via HintPath.
4. F5. IIS Express launches → browser opens at Default.aspx which redirects to /Hunt.aspx.
5. On first boot, Global.asax creates SQLite tables and seeds 19 bands (CB 27MHz, 160m, 80m, ..., LPD433).

First-time walkthrough

1. Go to Targets → add W1AW (ARRL HQ beacon) with band HF 20m 14MHz and freq 14074000. Save.
2. Go to Hunt → pick W1AW from the target dropdown.
3. The Leaflet map should populate within a few seconds with colored dots: blue = PSKReporter, green = WSPRnet. Marker size is scaled to SNR.
4. Toggle the heatmap layer on/off; toggle the KiwiSDR gray-pin layer on to see where v2 TDoA will be able to source receivers from.
5. Visit Sessions to see the run you just started. Each target-pick opens a new session; reports are persisted.

Config

Edit on Admin.aspx or directly in the SiteConfig SQLite table:

Key	Default	Use
RefreshSec	30	(reserved for client poll cadence override)
AppContactEmail	dbeuttel@dconc.gov	Sent as appcontact= to PSKReporter and as User-Agent tail.
PskReporterBase	https://retrieve.pskreporter.info/query	Swap if they move endpoints.
WsprLiveBase	https://db1.wspr.live/	ClickHouse query endpoint.
RbnBase	https://www.reversebeacon.net/main.php	Unused in v1 (RBN client stubbed).
KiwiPublicUrl	http://rx.kiwisdr.com/public	Scraped every 5 min.

Known gotchas

• The project was bootstrapped from VibeBaseProject, which carries unrelated pages (elections, candidates, trucks). These may show build warnings/errors you can ignore or clean up — see FoxHunt/CLAUDE.md → "Known inherited cruft" for a deletion list. FoxHunt functionality does not depend on any of them.
• Leaflet + Leaflet.heat load from unpkg.com CDN. If you lose internet, the map won't render tiles or code. Vendor them under assets/vendor/leaflet/ if you want offline dev.
• The RBN client returns an empty list. Wiring it up requires cross-referencing spot callsigns against the RBN stations DB for lat/lon — a known TODO for a v1.1.

Architecture at a glance

┌──────────┐      ┌─────────────────────┐      ┌──────────────────────┐
│ Hunt.aspx│ JS   │ /Handlers/ReportsApi│      │ PskReporterClient    │
│  foxhunt-│─────▶│                     │─────▶│ WsprClient           │
│  map.js  │ 30s  │ ReceptionAggregator │      │ RbnClient (stub)     │
└──────────┘      └──────────┬──────────┘      └──────────────────────┘
      ▲                       │
      │                       ▼
      │                 ┌──────────────┐
      │  L.circleMarker │ SQLite       │
      └─────────────────│ HuntSession  │
       + L.heatLayer    │ Report       │
                        └──────────────┘

Roadmap

• v1.0 — Footprint viewer (shipped). PSKReporter + WSPRnet on Leaflet/Esri satellite map.
• v1.1 — RBN wireup (scheduled). Replace the empty stub in FoxHuntCore/Clients/RbnClient.cs with a real implementation: scrape reversebeacon.net/main.php?hc={call} for spots, join skimmer callsigns against a cached RbnSkimmer table populated from public stations list, emit ReceptionReport rows with lat/lon. Handles CW/RTTY traffic, which PSKReporter and WSPRnet don't.
• v1.2 — Emergencies Near Me (scheduled). A layperson-friendly emergency-services map at /EmergencyMap.aspx. Geolocation-first: browser asks for your location, map centers on you, shows incidents within a radius you control (5–100 mi). Plain-English labels: "Police", "Fire", "Medical", "Helicopters Overhead", "Where's the action?" — no jargon. Pulls active calls from municipal open-data feeds in ~15 US cities behind the scenes, plus live police/EMS helicopter positions via OpenSky/adsb.fi, plus inline scanner audio playing recent calls from the matching channel via OpenMHz. Big red 🚨 Emergencies Near Me button in the top nav on every page. Encrypted channels skipped automatically. No vehicle GPS tracking — agencies don't broadcast it; this map shows incident locations + helicopters + radio activity, not individual trucks.
• v2.0 — TDoA overlay. Python sidecar (directTDoA) invoked from TdoaApi.ashx against 3+ selected KiwiSDRs, renders the solved point + uncertainty ellipse on the same Leaflet map. See FoxHunt/CLAUDE.md.

License / ethics

Hobby/educational. Only direction-find transmitters whose operator has consented (e.g. your own, licensed beacons like W1AW, WSPR/FT8 automatic beacons that publish their location anyway, or a cooperative fox deliberately put on air for the game). Do not use this for covert surveillance.