ARRLWeb: ARDF Update: Transmitter Tracking at Tahoe — The 2007 USA and IARU-R2 ARDF Championships

Another season of Amateur Radio Direction Finding is climaxed by a competition to see who is best in the Western Hemisphere.

Marvin Johnston, KE6HTS, of Santa Barbara, California was Event Chair for these USA ARDF Championships. He also was in charge of electronic scoring, which kept him busy on the computer. This photo was taken at a practice session with electronic scoring at Topanga State Park in August. [Joe Moell, K0OV, photo]

ARRL’s USA ARDF Coordinator Joe Moell, K0OV, of Fullerton, California, discusses the championships with mapper and course-setter Bob Cooley, KF6VSE, of Pleasanton, California. [April Moell, WA6OPS, Photo]

Monique Beringer of Brea, California was the youngest competitor at this year’s USA ARDF Championships. She is checking a 2 meter ARDF set at Camp Concord on Friday, the day before the hunt on that band. [Joe Moell, K0OV, Photo]

At left, Brigitte Roethe and her husband Nick, DF1FO, are ready at the 2 meter starting line. At right, Vadim Afonkin studies his map. Each is destined to take home gold from this event. Behind them, the next competitors affix their maps to map boards. [Joe Moell, K0OV, Photo]

Jay Hennigan, WB6RDV, of Santa Barbara, California, is first through the starting corridor in this group, followed by George Neal, KF6YKN, of Maspeth, New York. Each will win gold medals in their age categories. [Joe Moell, K0OV, Photo]

Dale Hunt, WB6BYU (left), of Yamhill, Oregon, receives a silver medal for his 2 meter performance from ARRL Sacramento Valley Section Manager Ron Murdock, W6KJ. [Joe Moell, K0OV, Photo]

Karla Leach, KC7BLA, of Bozeman, Montana, sets out on the 80 meter championship hunt on her way to a gold medal. [Joe Moell, K0OV, Photo]

At the ARRL Southwestern Division convention on-foot foxhunt, Brent Scheneman, K6ROV, gets a bearing. This hunt took place at Angel’s Gate Park in San Pedro, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. [Joe Moell, K0OV, Photo]

The results of USA’s seventh national championships of Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF) are now in the record books. The weekend of September 14-16 brought radio-orienteers, families, friends and volunteers to the south shore of Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Mountains. Some had the goal of qualifying for the next World Championships. Others just wanted to learn about the sport and experience it in an atmosphere of friendly competition.

As in recent odd-numbered years, USA’s national championships were combined with the ARDF championships of International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) Region 2, which encompasses North and South America. The courses were also open to visiting foxhunters from anywhere else in the world.

About half of the participants bunked at Camp Concord, the event headquarters. Campers were assigned to cabins in the upper section; these cabins were equipped with electrical circuits sufficient to power a very small space heater. That was of limited help, as temperatures dipped into the 30s overnight. Fortunately, the nearby restrooms and showers were well heated.

In mid-summer, Camp Concord is full of youth and adult campers, but on the third weekend of September, the season was almost over. Radio-orienteers had the whole camp to themselves, except for a plethora of wildlife and a few ladies doing scrapbooking. Black bears are in the area. None visited the camp during our stay, but there were sightings on the courses.

Meals at Camp Concord gave new meaning to “camp food.” Friday night’s supper was a Mexican food feast. Everyone gathered in the dining hall on Friday evening just after the practice session where the hunters verify that their 2 and 80 meter receivers and directional antennas are ready for the competitions to come.

After supper, Event Chair Marvin Johnston, KE6HTS, welcomed everyone; Johnston is a past President of the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club (SBARC). By then, some of the participants had already been in the area for two days; course-setter Bob Cooley, KF6VSE, had conducted intense training sessions around Lake Tahoe, several miles from the actual competition site, but in similar well-mapped terrain.

Cooley was the perfect choice for trainer and course-setter, because he had been in charge of mapping when the United States Orienteering Federation held its national championships at the same site in 2003. None of the ARDFers had attended that event, so the terrain was new to them.

Representing ARRL elected leadership was Sacramento Valley Section Manager Ron Murdock, W6KJ, of Yuba City, California. Not only did he come to the Championships to congratulate the winners, but he volunteered to be a Course Marshal on the 2 meter hunt, spending most of Saturday in the forest watching competitors run by and punch in at one of the transmitters.

At international-rules ARDF championships, everyone competes as an individual. There is no teaming or assistance allowed on the courses. Ten minutes before starting, each runner receives an orienteering map and can affix it to a flat board if desired. Maps are drawn relative to magnetic north, so no compass correction is required.

Groups of up to four start at five-minute intervals, coincident with fox #1 beginning its transmissions. The starting four are always in different age and gender categories. They must go to the end of the starting corridor and be out of sight from the starting line before they can turn on their ARDF receivers.

Each competitor was individually timed. He or she carried a small RFID tag to dip into an electronic scoring device at each transmitter and at the finish. Published results included times to find each fox (split times) as well as start-to-finish time.

Starting point for the 2 meter competition on Saturday morning was next to the shore of Fallen Leaf Lake, about a 15 minute walk from the camp. This hunt was in the eastern part of the mapped forest, which extended right up to the area burned in the June wildfire.

The best time on 2 meters was turned in by Vadim Afonkin of Boston, who found all five transmitters in one hour plus two minutes, 30 seconds. He was 13 minutes ahead of the second finisher in that category, Bryan Ackerly, VK3YNG, who took Visitor gold. Bryan is in an active group of radio-orienteers in the Melbourne, Australia area.

In other hotly contested categories, 2 meter gold medals went to George Neal, KF6YKN, of Maspeth, New York, in the category for males over age 40; Jay Hennigan, WB6RDV, of Santa Barbara for males over age 50, and Harley Leach, KI7XF, of Bozeman, Montana, for men over age 60. Ladies winning gold on 2 meters were Emily DeYoung, K4MLE, of Alexandria, Kentucky; Jen Harker, W5JEN, of Austin, Texas; Nadia Scharlau of Cary, North Carolina, and Karla Leach, KC7BLA (wife of Harley Leach, KI7XF).

Santa Barbara style tri-tip beef barbecue has become a tradition at hamfests and ARDF events in California. The Camp Concord cooks did it to perfection for the Saturday evening awards banquet. Johnston and Murdock presented gold, silver and bronze awards from the 2 meter run. Separate rankings and medals were awarded to participants from USA and to visitors from outside IARU Region 2.

On Sunday, it was Bryan Ackerly, VK3YNG, who had the overall best time of one hour and two minutes, beating Vadim Afonkin, the USA gold medalist, by a little less than five minutes. Ackerly credits his success to regular training -- three or four days a week, he runs several miles around Melbourne. Although he could have competed in the category for men over 40 (and only having to find four transmitters), Ackerly chose M21 and its five transmitter requirement. “I didn’t come all the way to the USA to only go after four foxes,” he said.

All of the other USA gold medalists from the 2 meter competition also took USA gold on 80 meters; however, Nick Roethe, DF1FO, turned in the best overall time in the males over-50 category. This is the second year that Nick and his wife Brigitte have included our national championships in their automobile tour of the USA. This year, they brought new 2 meter ARDF sets that Nick had built. Brigitte earned Visitor gold in her category on both bands.

The 80 meter awards were presented during lunchtime on Sunday, just before many participants had to leave to get home. Complete results of the championships, plus more than 60 photos and links to still more photos, are on my ARDF Web site, Homing In.

Next year’s USA ARDF Championships will take place earlier in the year, because we must select our team for the ARDF World Championships and give team members time to make travel arrangements. USA’s three best performers in each age and gender category will be offered positions on ARDF Team USA, traveling to South Korea for the World Championships during the first week of September.

Not every potential ARDF medal-winner is ready to travel to the national championships, so it’s important to bring ARDF opportunities to hams wherever they live. An ideal time for hidden transmitter hunting is at ARRL conventions and hamfests.

One week before the USA Championships, an on-foot transmitter hunt was a feature of the ARRL Southwestern Division convention (Hamcon-07). It was the last event, starting about an hour after the final prize drawing, and took place in a park about 12 miles from the convention hotel. Fullerton Radio Club (FRC), one of the Hamcon sponsoring organizations, presented this hunt. Cloudless skies and cool breezes from the ocean made for perfect weather.

Angel’s Gate Park in San Pedro slopes up from the ocean at Point Fermin, south of Los Angeles. FRC previously put on Hamcon hunts here in 1995, 1999 and 2003. This time, only the southern half of this 130 acre park was available, but the hunt was still challenging.

The goal was to have something for hunters at every skill level. I put out 17 2 meter transmitters. Some were in traditional steel ammunition boxes, but others were the size of a small package of matches. Competitors were given up to 90 minutes to find as many as they could. Six of the transmitters were within the concrete-walled Fort MacArthur Military Museum, where displays of WW I and WW II memorabilia are viewed by the public every weekend. Five of the outside transmitters were on one frequency, transmitting in sequence as an international-rules ARDF course.

Championship medal winner Jay Thompson, W6JAY, made quick work of the ARDF-timed foxes. Then he bagged six more, ending up with a total of 11 to win the hunt. Thompson was the only individual competitor. All the rest were in teams of two, including Dennis Schwendtner, WB6OBB, an experienced blind transmitter hunter, who paired up with Marvin Johnston, KE6HTS. Most of the rest were trying on-foot foxhunting for the first time. Everyone found at least two foxes.