[ARDF] Getting more involvement in ARDF

[Neil R.]

Hi Marvin:

Your questions are of interest to alot of us.  I'm fairly active in western
Washington amateur RDF activities. We're always asking ourselves how we
might get more participation and try the tricks others have used with
varying success.  We have about 12 regular hunters that often show up to
most hunts when planned in advance.  They come from as far south as Tacoma
and as far north as Vancouver BC.  A few observations about these folks:
		--Most build at least some of their own equipment
		--We nearly all gravitate to "on-foot" hunts rather than car
hunts
		--Most of the serious hunters end up buying a Brian Ackerly
Mark 4 receiver but get started with much simpler equipment
		--We don't follow ARDF rules, would rather just keep it
simple with no overhead
		--Almost no 80 meter activity except in Vancouver and
Victoria (VE7BFK)
		--Occasionally have hunts with our Canadian counterparts
		--Most ham clubs don't get turned on to "foxhunting".
Exception: Tacoma ARC which has at least one hunt a year
		--Some of us would like to get involved in wildlife tracking
but terrain is more condusive to using aircraft.  Lack of funds have limited
bird/bat tracking programs
		--Project Lifesaver active in our area but they don't want
help from RDFers.  I believe its overrated and may fade away in time
		
One plan that I've been working on is to hide a low power 2 meter
transmitter on the input frequency of a local repeater then for say one hour
each Saturday have the repeater users work together to try to localize its
location.  Some repeater owners have said that they will support it because
it brings awareness to their machine.  We don't have jammers in our area but
it does encourage users to work together in locating the signal source to be
prepared.

I post the results of many of the hunts we have that I've planned.  You can
visit a list at: http://www.robin-wood.com/Ham/index.htm
Point to "Foxhunting " and a drop down menu will show of which you can click
on one of interest.

Hope this helps...
73's,
Neil, WA7NBF
Port Angeles, WA
		
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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 16:44:57 -0800
From: Marvin Johnston <marvin at west.net>
Subject: [ARDF] Foxhunting/ARDF Equipment
To: ardf-socal at yahoogroups.com, ARDF <ardf at kkn.net>, 	Foxlist
	<foxhunt at mailman.qth.net>
Message-ID: <4EC06489.5010207 at west.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed


Hi all,

One of the things I've been quite interested in is getting more people
involved in both transmitter hunting and ARDF (Amateur Radio Direction
Finding/Radio Orienteering.)

To that end, I've been providing Tape Measure Beams kits, offset attenuator
kits, and MicroHunt transmitters for quite a few years now. 
Recently, I added a few more things to the mix trying to get equipment
available.

I am curious about a number of things related to increasing the
participation in transmitter hunting/ARDF.

* Where do/did you get your initial training? How could it have been made
better?

* Where do you get your equipment? Is it mostly homebrew, plans on the
Internet, magazine articles, or something else?

* If you are traveling, how do you find out when and where local hunts are
held in other parts of the country?

* How did you find out about the listservers/forums dedicated to transmitter
hunting?

* How can we reach more people, and with what kind of information to get
them interested and/or involved?

Your comments would be much appreciated!

Marvin, KE6HTS