[ARDF] Re: Photos from 2006 USA ARDF Championships

[Charles E. Scharlau]

Greetings Ken,

Thank you for posting the pictures, and for your comments on the
championships. These championships were, and continue to be, a learning
experience for Nadia and me. As much work as it was, it was a real pleasure
having all the participants and other guests attend. It is just a shame that
running the event prevented us from spending more time with all of you.

Below are a few comments on your comments...


> * In the two meter event, I did think it was odd that the map included
> many private home sites that were not marked out of bounds.  I
> would kind of
> feel wierd running through someone's back yard during an event like this.

As you noted later, it was the 80M map that included some private homes and
roads. In hindsight we should have marked the homes and Ebeneezer Church
Road as being out of bounds. The park superintendent didn't catch the
oversight either when she reviewed our maps.


> * I'm mildly surprised that we didn't have any issues with the
> use of 144.200
> as the hunt frequency on Saturday.  144.200 is the national CW/USB call
> frequency for two meter weak signal enthusiasts, which is
> probably the only
> other interest group on the band that is also horizontally polarized and
> likely to understand the Morse code.  I was concerned that we might
> attract attention from up to a hundred miles away...

The transmitters came crystaled for 144.2 MHz, and we wanted to avoid the
expense of re-crystaling and re-aligning six transmitters (five foxes plus
one spare). However, we will be doing so in the near future, as I explain
below.

We realized that 144.2 was the SSB calling frequency, but with all the
practices we have run in the park, on many weekends, we have never had a
complaint. And we have never heard any SSB/CW activity on that frequency;
only a few packet ops, who really shouldn't be there.

As luck would have it, a 2M DXer was monitoring 144.2 MHz on both Friday and
Saturday of the event, and copied both transmitters on Friday, and three of
the five transmitters on Saturday. He looked up my call sign and sent me an
e-mail (Saturday evening after the event) reporting the signals as having
been "strong", around S8. Our stationary fox hunter was located
approximately 30 miles northwest of the park. Interestingly, he reported
getting maximum signal strength when his beam was pointed to the northwest;
directly away from the park. I am curious if he was picking up reflections
from approaching aircraft. Aircraft reflections is a phenomenon I have
witnessed frequently while monitoring 2M signals in the park (you probably
did too). If that was the case, I would expect the signal strength to have
risen and fallen with each approaching airplane. The signals arriving from a
direction above his beam would probably explain the very unreliable
bearings. The SSB op seemed less than happy about having our AM signals
cluttering up "his frequency", so I didn't inquire much further on the
matter. New crystals are on order.