[ARDF] Final call for USA ARDF Championships

[Homingin at aol.com]

It's less than two weeks to the USA's national championships of on-foot 
transmitter hunting.  For the fourth year in a row, the best radio-orienteers in 
the USA will gather to see who is best in the nation and who will represent our 
country at the World ARDF Championships.  The Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club 
(SBARC) is this year's sponsor.

The competitive courses will be open to anyone of any age.  Gold, silver and 
bronze medals will be awarded in five age categories for males and four for 
females, in accordance with rules of the International Amateur Radio Union.  If 
you're not a marathoner, you still have a chance for a medal, as there will be 
plenty of trotting and walking on the courses. 

An optional training camp starts the action during the weekend of June 12-13, 
with map-and-compass orienteering at Mount Pinos in the Los Padres National 
Forest.  The next two days of the camp will be in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 
practicing course strategies, route choices, and bearing-taking.

The main events get under way on Wednesday, June 16 as competitors arrive at 
the headquarters site in Gorman, California.  A free and open slide show about 
the last World ARDF Championships takes place that evening.  Thursday, it's 
time to fine-tune skills and align direction-finding equipment using short 
courses on both the 2m and 80m bands.  Opening ceremonies and a drawing for the 
starting order are that evening.  Friday starts early with a bus ride to the 
full-length 2m competition at an undisclosed location, followed on Saturday by an 
80m event of similar size in a different venue.  Closing ceremonies take 
place Saturday evening and the competitors take their medals home on Sunday.

Equipment for hunting radio foxes can be very simple and inexpensive.  Most 
beginners do very well by augmenting their handi-talkies with simple yagi 
antennas made out of a steel measuring tape and PVC pipe from the hardware store. 
For closing in, an offset-type RF attenuator made from about 15 dollars worth 
of small parts will knock down the signal and keep your S-meter on scale. Plans 
are on the Web and kits are available, so warm up your soldering iron.

The official Web site of the Championships is now online at the SBARC Web 
site at <www.sbarc.org>.  It has details on the schedule of events for both the 
championships and the optional training camp, plus a downloadable registration 
form.  For more about the sport of ARDF, go to the "Homing In" Web site at 
<www.homingin.com>.  There you will find equipment ideas and photos from previous 
championships.  There is also information about other local, national and 
international radio-orienteering events and local contacts. 

Joe Moell K0OV
USA ARDF Coordinator