The search team needs to triangulate the signal with a certain degree of confidence that they indeed have directional bearings. They can only do this by measuring amplitude of the signal i.e if the signal strength is growing stronger, they are moving closer.
That in itself is not exact because they could be on a tangent source to the signal. I'm sure the triangulation is exactly what they are doing as I write this.
I was referring to the Fox headline as BS, based on one man not in the search at all.
I referred to the ROV ‘pattern’ just as you describe with ‘triangulate’.
All conspiracy-theories aside, a confirmed source on the ocean floor would be good enough for me to put this to bed, as unless all the seats are empty of an intact fuselage or there’s an orgy of evidence contained within, there’s nothing else to learn unless there was new data intentionally read into the CDR after all the pertinent data had been overwritten of the timeframe when it went missing. FDR will just confirm its final moments.