[ARDF] Fun and Frustration

[Marvin Johnston]

I am not convinced that high quality equipment is necessary; the 
equipment only needs to be adequate to teach the skills necessary to DF. 
  If someone is interested, they will obtain the equipment required for 
them to do better.

Most of us could probably do reasonably well with almost any equipment 
put into our hands (excluding a higher level competition.) An example 
would be the 80M Chinese receivers that a number of us bought some years 
ago :). Granted, most of us have developed the skill set to know what we 
are after, so the equipment we use is secondary to getting the job done.

A number of people have pushed for using AM here in the US to bring us 
in compliance with the rest of the world. A big problem I see here is if 
people aren't going to get involved with equipment they DO have, there 
is little chance they will get involved when specialized equipment is 
required.

Bruce - I think that some of Bryan's receivers are used for loaners in 
Austrailia; has that helped get in new people?

While I am certainly in favor of developing/obtaining good equipment, 
I'm not so certain that the lack of good equipment is hindering the 
growth of ARDF.

My suspicion is that relatively few people are willing to dedicate 
regular time to promoting ARDF, and that is the real problem. Anyone 
disagree?

And if this is the problem, what is needed to get more people to devote 
time to promoting ARDF?

Thanks!

Marvin, KE6HTS


Charles Scharlau wrote:
> In orienteering, a compass is pretty much a compass, and shoes are shoes,
> and gaiters are gaiters. If you're going to try the sport just once, it
> hardly matters what you use.
> 
> ARDF, unfortunately, is different. A cheap, simple receiver, is generally
> more difficult to use and provides poorer results. Thus low tier is
> generally going to frustrate and discourage the beginner.