The 15th World ARDF Championships were held in Croatia this year. The headquarters were in Opatija, a beautiful resort town on the Adriatic Sea. Dennis and I were lucky as we had a spacious room with a balcony overlooking the Adriatic Sea. It was tough, but someone had to do it :).
The championships had two components this year; the 1st Blind World ARDF Competition and the World ARDF Championships.
It was raining for the Friday competition, and the German team got a kick out of my wearing a (borrowed) German club raincoat, especially since I was an international referee.
For the first time, the US took two medals; a silver medal in the Day one W-60 80M team event on Wednesday and a Bronze medal in the Day two M-50 2M event on Friday.
George Neal, KF6YKN, took the bronze medal which was the second one he has won as a US ARDF team member. George (Gyuri Nagy) won his class for the World Championships many years ago when he competed with the Hungarian ARDF Team. He also got his US tech ticket at a special VE session held (primarily) for him at the club station.
Karla Leach and Ruth Bromar took the silver out of a field of three teams on the 2M competition. Karla has been at most of the World Championships since 2000 while this was the first World Championships competition for Ruth.
Jay, WB6RDV, took 28th out of 51 on the 80M competition and 48th out of 51 on the 2M competition. On 2M, the reflections were wicked and almost everyone I talked to had problems getting good bearings.
The regular competition results can be found on the DARC site here:
http://www.darc.de/referate/ardf/contest/10091517/10091517.htm
Dennis, WB6OBB, took 4th out of a field of 7 in the veterans catagory for the 1st Blind World ARDF Competition. He claims if I hadn't worn him out by taken him up some hills earlier that day in search of a practice 80M transmitter, he would have done better :).
A link to the Blind ARDF Competition results can be found here in zip format:
http://www.ardf2010.com/index.php/results
Marvin, KE6HTS