[ARDF] Report from IARU R1 Ad-Hoc Committee

Tue Nov 6 21:17:31 GMT 2018

     For those who are interested:

     At the IARU Region 1 ARDF Working Group meeting in Sokcho, Korea in September, 2018, two ad-hoc committees were formed to discuss issues related to the rules and make recommendations to the Working Group for future potential adoption.  One of those two committees was formed to look into "Information given to the competitors, consequences and impact to the fairness of the ARDF: the ad-hoc group chaired by LZ3NN was established” (agenda item 12.2 in the 2 Sep 2018 meeting minutes).  Viktor LZ3NN recently submitted the Working Group's recommendations (below).

     Personally, I don’t think any of these are especially controversial except possibly the implementation of the first one, but as always you can reach out to me if you think Region 2 should bring something up before these are voted upon.  

Transmitters
27.3: The current text says " All transmissions shall be monitored and recorded by the organiser.”  The core concern is that organizers should not be allowed to have a transmitter go silent or have major issues for a long period of time during a competition.  I think the idea is that if the competitors can hear the transmitters in the start area you have a whole lot of ears making sure things are not failing.  This would presumably give everyone some slight extra information pre-start (which transmitters are loud and which are not) but everyone would get the same information so it’s presumably fair.  This is one I think could invite a lot of debate.

27.10: The current rule says "The flag shall be close to the transmitter antenna and not more than 4 meters away. The flag shall be visible to competitors when they reach the transmitter antenna. “  This was directly related, I think, to a DQ in Korea due to frustration at sightlines to the control flag.  I don’t anticipate this being controversial.

Finish and time-keeping
29.3: The current rule states: " The finish line shall be at least 3 m wide and shall be at right angle to the direction of the run-in. The exact position of the finish line shall be obvious to approaching competitors. Competitors in the finish corridor may run only in the direction from the beacon towards the finish line.”  I don’t think this will be controversial either.  As organizer could always request a jury exception in cases where maybe arriving at the finish corridor from the “wrong” direction is either not possible or requires one to go out of bounds (such as placing the corridor on a bridge or something).

Sprint Rules
S7.1: The current text reads: "The start corridor is the corridor that runs away from the start. The end shall be clearly marked and only after this point can the competitor start searching for the transmitters. The start corridor shall not be longer than 400 metres.“  So this would establish a minimum length as well as the maximum.   This actually gives course setters better flexibility since they do not have to anticipate a fast runner leaving the corridor prior to hearing al the controls for the first time.

Foxoring Rules
F26.5: The current rule states: "Competitors shall enter the pre-start area not earlier than FIVE MINUTES before their own start. Competitors receive maps after their start, at the starting line or at the indicated point within the starting corridor.”  This change would remove the option of the organizer to hand the map after the start (say, laying on a table you reach after your time starts).  I suspect there is strong support for this change.

F27.3: The current rule states: "Each transmitter shall be clearly audible during the whole competition at its nominal position marked on the map AND at the distance of 30m from its real position. Transmitters shall NOT be audible at the distance of 250 m from their real positions. The finish beacon operates at normal power and therefore shall be clearly audible during the whole competition from the start point.”  The idea with this change is to prevent an organizer from putting all the Foxoring controls in the center of the marked map location.  I don’t think this will be controversial.

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27.3 All transmissions shall be monitored to the competitors at the start line and and recorded by the organiser.
(This is an additional free of charge and a very effective control of the work of transmitters. As we see in many cases the referees don’t  quickly react  on a missing tranmission. 
e.g. in Korea the antenna of the TX #2 at the first lap of Sprint fell down onto the ground and lay there for 40 minutes. If there was a control from the competitors at the start line, they would tell that immedeately to the referee at the start and the antenna would be up in a minute, certainly not in 40 minutes.)
27.10 The flag shall be no closer than 3 metres to a thick tree or any other object which closes the visibility of it.
(The flag should be visible from all directions, not to be hidden behind any object because we don’t know where will a competitor come from. This is more important than only the distance from the transmitter.) 
29.3 …..The finish corridor shall be well runnable outside at least along one side of it.
(Certainly not as in Korea 2018)
S7.1 The starting corridor shall be 300-400 m long. 
(So that the fastest competitor was not able to cover it in 1 minute. This will give chance to everybody to listen to all TXs and then start smirching them).
F26.5 The competitor receives the map in the pre-start area 2 minutes before the start.
This will remove the stress of the competitor, gives him/her a chance of choosing the right decision (like in Foxoring) 
 F27.3 Each transmitter shall be located at the distance not less than 50m. from its nominal position.
(As we see now in ARDF the competitors from the orienteering take all the top places in Foxoring when the transmitters are located close to their nominal position. This is because they run pure orienteering with a primitive seeking the nonstop working transmitters. Any radioamateur will always be behind them. When the transmitter is enough away from the nominal position, the competitor will need  experience  in tuning to the frequency of a weak signal and this is the privilege of the ARDFer. Otherwise we will soon loose one part of ARDF. Foxoring will go to the orienteering side).

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