[ARDF] Fun and Frustration

[Marvin Johnston]

I really appreciate all the comments that have been made regarding this 
topic! Right now, I'm still thinking about them to see how they can be 
used to increase participation. I still need to check out the online 
orienteering game to see how useful it would be for training.

A couple of thoughts come to mind.

First, I don't think anyone who would like to be more serious about be 
too concerned if it is called ARDF or Radio Orienteering. Where it might 
be important is when creating images in newer peoples head about what 
this is all about, especially orienteers.

Here are the Google external keyword Global monthly search counts for 
August:

ardf - 6,600
transmitter hunting - 390
thunting - 1,300
radio orienteering - 390
t-hunting - 14,800
transmitter hunt - 320

As a first thought, it would be a good idea for any of you running a 
blog or website to make sure both "ARDF" and "Radio Orienteering" are 
included as part of your keyword list in addition to "t-hunting."

A second thought is still that monthly hunts are just too infrequent to 
get anyone seriously interested in ARDF. That is one reason I'm 
interested in hearing how the weekly hunts in Boston are working out.

A third thought is that I am starting to work on is a website dedicated 
to ARDF training. I've been talking to Joe Moell, K0OV, about this for a 
while, so I'm sure he is sick of hearing about it :). There are SO MANY 
things that reading just can't make clear, so I am planning on using 
audio and video as well.

A simple example would be what the sound of pointing towards the 
transmitter vs away sounds like. I don't think training people to use an 
HT S-meter is useful as it starts people off on the wrong way of doing 
things.

And just to make it clear, I would most likely have a bunch of free 
content covering the basics to get people interested, but charge for the 
more advanced content. I'm not sure at this point if I would publish a 
DVD or just make it available for viewing/downloading.

Thanks!

Marvin, KE6HTS



> I would love to hear your thoughts about is what people find fun, and 
> what they frustrating about ARDF. Joe and April Moell and myself have 
> been putting on ARDF hunts almost every month in So. California for a 
> number of years now. Something I've noticed is the relatively low return 
> rate of newcomers.
> 
> This begs the question of why.
> 
> Your comments/thoughts would be very much appreciated!