4th US ARDF Championships Update #1

This year, the Fourth U.S. ARDF Championships will be held in Southern California, and is being sponsored by the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club and the Los Angeles Orienteering Club. with the headquarters at the EconoLodge in Gorman, California (about 35 miles north of Los Angeles on I-5.)

The registration form (PDF file) is now available for download on both the SBARC web site and the HomingIn web site. Registration will cover only the costs of the competition (permits, awards, bus, etc.) with meals and lodging being the responsibility of the competitor with the exception of the awards banquet Saturday night. A block of rooms has been reserved at the EconoLodge in Gorman for those of you who would like to stay at the headquarters location. There are also a number of campgrounds located within a 20 mile or so radius.

As was done at the 2002 ARDF Championships in Georgia, we are making the venues public information. The venues that were chosen have excellent orienteering maps and will provide challenging courses. The reason for making the maps public information is these venues have been visited a number of times by California competitors and this is a way to even things out. The start/finish locations will not be public information. To encourage early registration, preview maps of the venues will be included if the registration is postmarked by May 14, 2004. After that, they will cost $5.00 for the pair including mailing.

The 2M competition will be held at Vasquez Rocks on Friday, April 18, in Agua Dulce California. Because it can get quite hot, we plan on starting the competition at 8:30AM so most people can finish before the heat gets to be too much in the afternoon. In addition, we will have water at each of the controls. This is also a very scenic area and many movies have been partially filmed there including Star Trek and The Flintstones.

The 80M competition will be held on Saturday, April 19, at Mt Pinos. Mt Pinos is situated at about 8000 feet in pine forest type terrain. This is one of the nicest venues in Southern California for this type of activity.

Because of limited parking and to keep competitors together for the start of the competition, everyone will meet at Gorman and take the bus to the competition area. How to handle lunch has not been decided as of yet since it is not included in the registration. We are currently looking into a low cost ($5.00 or less) Santa Barbara Style Tri-Tip BBQ (tri-tips, beans, salad, garlic bread, drinks) after the 2M competition.

We plan on having a training camp from Saturday, June 12 through Wednesday, June 16, available for any of the competitors who care to participate. The most probable venue will be the Travel Town section of Griffith Park in Los Angeles. This will provide a challenge both physically and with 2M reflections. More information will be on the web site as it becomes available.

The latest information as it becomes available will be posted on the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club web site at: http://www.sbarc.org/ardf/index.shtml and the HomingIn web site at: http://www.homingin.com

Marvin Johnston, KE6HTS Chairman, 4th US ARDF Championships