[ARDF] Fun and Frustration

[Kenneth E. Harker]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 11:51:21PM -0700, Jay Hennigan WB6RDV wrote:

> > Seriously, I interpret "radio sport" to encompass contesting whether
> > at a HF multi-multi station or a modest home station.  It could be
> > V/UHF roving or moon-bounce. 
> 
> I would define that as a contest, not a sport.  Working the rare DX in a 
> pileup is somewhat like being the tenth caller to the top-40 AM radio 
> station with the right answer to the trivia question.  Exciting, 
> competition, fun, but not a sport.
> 
> Shame on the ARRL for this month's QST with a theme of "Radio sport" and 
> zero mention of even the existence of ARDF.

The term "radiosport" has been used in Europe to describe what North 
Americans call "contesting" for at least 50 years.  The first HF contest
sponsored by the IARU (rather than by one of the national societies) was
called the IARU Radiosport Championship (the name was changed in 1986 to 
the IARU HF World Championship, which is what it is known as today).  In 
1990, the first World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) was held in 
Seattle, an invitation-only event that has become the quadrennial de-facto 
world championship for elite HF contesters (the next one, WRTC 2010 in
Moscow, has had over two years of qualifying events for contesters trying to 
earn a spot at the competition).  A little over a year ago, QST decided to 
add a monthly column dedicated to contesting, which they've called Radiosport,
and they've also decided to make one issue a year the Radiosport focus issue
with a few more articles than normal on the topic (much like there's an 
antenna issue, an emcomm issue, a classic radios issue, etc.)  They chose 
the fall for that, as the HF contest "season" generally lasts from October 
to May, when the propagation is best for the northern hemisphere.

The term radiosport in Europe has been used to cover all competitive uses
of amateur radio, including contesting, direction finding, and telegraphy
competitions.  During the Cold War years, in some eastern European countries, 
especially Russia, it was not uncommon for festivals/events to include 
some of each competitive format, and the Friendship Radio Games did the same.
In North America, ARDF and HST were never as popular, so amateur radio 
operators over here who have heard the term "radiosport" are more likely to 
have heard it in the context of contesting.  The population of ARRL members 
who are contesters is probably three orders of magnitude larger (and growing)
than the population that actively participates in direction finding (which
is not growing), so it is little surprise that the term "radiosport" is 
used by QST to talk about contesting.  

But, that doesn't mean that Sean KX9X, who writes the Radiosport column,
might not be persuaded to write about other forms of "radiosport" once in a 
while.  In fact, the use of the term radiosport for the column and the 
QST focus issue might be a very good thing for ARDF and HST, as it gives a 
hook to get those "sports" mentioned in the magazine that did not exist 
beforehand.  Sean's email, by the way, is kx9x at arrl.org.

If anyone on the list wants to know more about contesting, feel free to 
email me directly - I've been an active contester longer than I've been
involved in ARDF:

http://www.wm5r.org/contest/

-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/