[ARDF] Fun and Frustration

[Marvin Johnston]

Jay Hennigan wrote:
> Marvin Johnston wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> I have to respectfully disagree here.  Those entry-level Chinese 80M 
> receivers are utterly worthless.  Completely useless for DF at all under 
> any circumstances.  A Ouija board and a dowsing stick would be more 
> reliable.  They don't even make good wheel chocks as the cases are too 
> flimsy.  They named them PJ-80 for a reason, they were too polite to 
> name them PS-80.
> 
> If you want to turn someone off to ARDF forever, let them use one of 
> those for their first hunt.

I think this is a case where we will have to agree to disagree. The 
sensitivity is certainly not adequate for a highly competitive hunt, but 
for a beginning hunt, they should be more than adequate. And I *think* 
the person who won the M21 or M40 80M US ARDF Championships some years 
ago used the Chinese receiver (Cincinnati, OH?)

The problem with 80M is getting newcomers used to the idea of hunting on 
both the null and using the sense switch. I *think* the people from 
Australia were using their 80M receivers with the sense sw on most of 
the time ... Bruce?

Dale did a comparison test a few years ago, and ISTR they were not that 
far below a high quality receiver with respect to sensitivity. Granted, 
they were at the bottom of the list, and wouldn't be my first choice :).

Marvin