This was posted by Dale Hunt, WB6BYU, to the Foxlist. Dale is a former member of SBARC and has competed internationally in ARDF competitions
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Are you interested in ARDF but not sure if you have what it takes to participate in the upcoming National ARDF Championships in Albuquerque? Don't worry, you'll probably have a good time!
First, it is true that international-caliber ARDF competitors are good athletes, but that doesn't mean you have to be one to participate. The maximum course length is 7 km (about 4.5 miles) and the time limit will be at least 2 hours. A brisk walk is about 4 miles/hour, and 3 miles/hour is a leisurly pace. If you can walk 5 miles in an hour and a half, you should be able to finish the course, allowing some time for taking bearings, backtracking, and waiting for the transmitter to come on.
Talk a walk around the local school track and time yourself: 4 minutes per lap (1/4 mile) is just under 4 miles per hour. Of course, faster is better - but slow and steady will get you there.
If nothing else, it is a great excuse to get out for a walk each day, even if you just walk for half an hour or 45 minutes. Don't push yourself to the point of exhaustion or injury, however. Set a realistic daily or weekly goal that you know you can meet, and if you regularly exceed it, go a little further or faster each time. If you are long out of condition (like many of us) then start with a mile or two a day and build your endurance.
Afraid you will be out of place among the more experienced competitors? We all have to start sometime, and this may be one of the best learning opportunities, where you can watch others and see how they do things. But, remember that ARDF is still a new sport in North America, and most of the "experienced" American competitors are still relative beginners who have only participated in a handful of competitions. (In 1999, KB7WRD had never tried any direction-finding until a week before the event, and still took home several medals.) You might be surprised how well you do!
Equipment: what if you don't have the latest imported ARDF receiver with built-in map computer? You'll probably still do well. You will need a receiver for each band, a compass, and perhaps a piece of cardboard or plexiglass for your map.
For 2m, you can use your HT or scanner with a yagi and an attenuator. (Serious international competitions don't allow people to carry a transmitter, but for now we will just have to trust people not to use it to talk to other competitors.) The "active" or "offset" attenuator is a good choice - there are several versions out on the web, and they are easy to build. Joe Leggio WB2HOL's tape measure yagi has a good pattern and will withstand quite a bit of beating through the bushes. (I've hunted with a quad in the woods before, and the loops tend to catch on branches.)
The best approach, of course, is to use something you are familiar with, or to get familiar with the equipment you will be using. If you typically use a TDOA system or L'Per, you may have difficulties with the horizontal polarization. Instead of using vertical dipoles for the antenna elements, you should be able to use small horizontal loops, though they will need to be tuned carefully to get the right pattern.
There are a lot of 2m HT's around, but very few 80m DF receivers. If you have a hand-held shortwave receiver (preferably with a BFO), you can build a simple DF loop from the ARRL Handbook or Transmitter Hunting: Radio Direction Finding Simplified. Some shortwave receivers use a ferrite-rod antenna for the bands below 10 MHz, which will give a directional pattern (but will leave a 180 degree ambiguity.) 80m DF receiver kits are available from VK4BRG and DL3BBX. Jerry Boyd WB8WFK presented his FoxFinder 80 in 73 magazine (last November?) and circuit boards for it are available. I'm also have a receiver circuit which Jerry has built and tested. So there are a number of options for equipment.
But, if equipment is the only thing which is keeping you from attending, I suggest you contact the organizers and inquire about the possibility of borrowing equipment. For the Region 2 ARDF Championships in Portland in 1999, we arranged for some of the visiting hams from overseas to bring some extra receivers that gave everybody an opportunity to compete on 80m. I expect that the organizers will try to coordinate extra equipment for those who need it this year as well.
(The first in a series of articles to help folks prepare for the first US National ARDF competition this summer. Comments, questions, suggestions, and other points of view are welcome.)
- Dale WB6BYU