[CQ-Contest] ARDF (was: Re: Recruiting Women into Contesting)

[Kenneth E. Harker]

On Thu, Aug 05, 2004 at 06:30:33PM -0600, Grillo's wrote:

> Are you familiar with the European "fox hunting" idea?  This is hiding a
> transmitter and everyone trying to find it with directional antennas hooked
> up to portable receivers, while running in the woods getting bearings until
> the fox is found.  

This is known as Amateur Radio Direction Finding, or ARDF.  There is a 
steadily growing amount of ARDF activity in the United States and Canada.
Interestingly, major ARDF meets in North America in recent years have been 
attracting roughly a 15-20% female participation rate - making it an order 
of magnitude more popular among women than HF radio contesting:

http://www.ardf-r2.org/
http://members.aol.com/homingin/nancy04.html
http://members.aol.com/homingin/farsnews.html

>                                                      It could be set up as a
> club activity in densly populated amateur radio communities.  Alas, such is
> not the case in Colorado.

One of the most active clubs in the country is the Albuquerque Transmitter 
Hunters (http://home.att.net/~wb8wfk/), who hosted the 2001 USA ARDF 
Championships.  If they can drum up activity, I should think that the 
greater Denver area could, too... :-)

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