[ARDF] Fun and Frustration

[Bill Noyce]

Coming late to this discussion, but I would agree that simpler
equipment is better.
In the R2 championships, I used a home-built version of Dale's
direct-conversion receiver for 80m, and never felt  the equipment was
holding me back (though I've had a fair amount of practice using it).
For 2m, I used a 3-element measuring-tape Yagi and 1-MHz offset
attenuator jury-rigged to my regular HT: a Kenwood TH-F6A which can
receive AM, CW, & SSB as well as transceive FM.  Most of the time this
combo led me straight to the control, and for the one control I had
trouble with, I'm not sure what would have helped besides X-ray
vision.  Certainly my own physical conditioning was far more of an
impediment than any deficiencies in the equipment.

PS - my total investment for both bands was well under $100, not
counting the HT I already owned.
  -- Bill, AB1AV

On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 1:51 PM, Marvin Johnston <marvin at west.net> wrote:
> 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
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