[ARDF] maps

[Marvin Johnston]

Hi Pete,

As Dale mentioned, the best place to start is an orienteering club if there is
one in your area. If that is not available or possible, you can make up your own
orienteering maps.

Couple of comments on ARDF vs Orienteering. The idea behind orienteering is
being able to use the map for navigation. The maps are quite detailed as far as
trails, vegitation, buildings, power lines, and anything that is useful for
navigation. If you don't know where you are on the map, you need to be able to
relate the terrain features you can see to the map to find where you are.

ARDF has an advantage in that you are receiving some "outside" help through the
transmitter beacon. As such, keeping contact with the map is very important from
the standpoint of being able to triangulate the locations of the transmitters,
and finding the best or fastest route choices between the transmitters. As such,
if the map isn't quite as detailed, it may slow you down, but you don't get as
"lost" when you loose contact with the map as with orienteering.

When I "competed" in the 1998 World Championships in Hungary, I knew almost
nothing about orienteering and the map became pretty much useless (to me) about
800M or so out of the start. BUT, my DFing skills were such that I was able to
find the transmitters and the finish. Of the four transmitters I needed to find
(for my age classification), I found three and was headed towards the fourth
when I ran out of time and had to head back to the finish. Orienteering skills
would have shown immediately that some of the route choices I made were just
plain brain-dead :)!

Making a good orienteering map takes experience. But making an adequate
orienteering map for ARDF is not too difficult. The standard program for making
up orienteering maps is OCAD. You can download it from
http://www.ocad.com/en/index.htm. I think full function version 6 was made
available at no charge and is adequate for your purposes (later versions have
size and save restrictions unless you buy it.) You need to be familiar with the
orienteering symbols. The mapping standards PDF is available on the IOF
(International Orienteering Federation) website at:

http://www.orienteering.org/

The basic process is copy the topo map into OCAD, field check the area, and
start adding in all the terrain features. Field checking is the process of
physically going through the area and mapping all of the features you find. You
will find and recognize more as you get better :). I've found the slowest part
of the process is getting the original topo map into OCAD since that is
basically using a BMP of the topo map as a template and hand drawing the contour
lines into OCAD. I should add that I am NOT good at this process, but am merely
adequate for ARDF.

For the hunts here in Southern California, I am a member of the Los Angeles
Orienteering Club and use their maps. We charge $2.00 per map and we generally
charge $5.00 per informal ARDF event to cover the cost of maps and the use of
the electronics scoring equipment (epunch) and software. I am in charge of
epunch for LAOC so I have everything readily available including OCAD maps of
the areas.

If you are going to get serious about ARDF, you might want to look into joining
a nearby orienteering club and attending their events.

Hope this helps!

Marvin, KE6HTS






pete sias wrote:
> 
> Hello to all,
> 
> Here in Kansas we are noted for being the flatlands
> but we do have wooded and hilly areas that dot the
> landscape. Some are suitable in my area for setting up
> a training area that can introduce people to radio
> orienteering and spur interest in the sport.
> 
> With transmitters due in today from Marvin and boxes
> drilled and ready for them, I am wanting to get a test
> course set up but I need a source for topographic maps
> that fit the ARDF scale and are down loadable, i.e.
> free.
> My searches have not turned up much in the way of
> free.
> Can someone point me to a source that will allow me to
> pick the area and print out maps to use?
> 
> Second, I notice the rules  state the use of
> horizontal omni directional antennas on 2 meters. For
> ease of setting this course up for the first time I am
> using 1/4 wave vertical antennas. Is there a down side
> to this? Attenuation is more with vertical in foliage?
> 
> Tnx in advance,
> 
> Pete   NØOY
> 
> 
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