Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club
ARDF Hunt November 2001

Saturday, November 10, 2001
by Marvin Johnston, KE6HTS

The Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club sponsored another Southern California On-Foot ARDF hunt on November 10th, 2001. ARDF (Amateur Radio Direction Finding), also called Radio Orienteering, is a timed event where 5 transmitters are hidden and competitors use radio direction finding equipment to locate them.

This 2 Meter event took place at Lake Los Carneros (about 6 miles north of Santa Barbara, CA) and was run using our newly finished Orienteering map for the park. If the course was run on the shortest path, the total distance was about 2.4 Km (1.5 miles) long. The course was set up with the first two transmitters fairly close together with longer runs required for the last three transmitters. The approximate distances were:

    Start to #2     - 200 Meters
    #2 to #1        - 250 Meters
    #1 to #4        - 500 Meters
    #4 to #3        - 550 Meters
    #3 to #5        - 750 Meters
    #5 to Finish    - 150 Meters

The Results

Sergei Zarubin	32 Minutes	5 Transmitters	Advanced
Jay Hennigan (WB6RDV)	48 Minutes	5 Transmitters	Advanced
Dick Dabney (W5UFZ)	131 Minutes	5 Transmitters	Advanced
Scott Moore (KF6IKO)	68 Minutes	3 Transmitters	Advanced
David & Karen	150 Minutes	0 Transmitters	Beginner

Sergei, from the Ukraine, came to the US to participate in the US ARDF Championships that were held last August in Albuquerque, NM where he took first and second in the 80M and 2M competitions. Jay is a well known t-hunter in the Santa Barbara area and this was his first ARDF event. Scott also participated in the Albuquerque Championships where he took second place in the 80M competition. Dick, from Albuquerque, was out visiting his family and came up to participate. David and Karen came up from San Diego and this was their first ARDF event.

We had one 80 Meter transmitter up and running, but it failed before anyone had a chance to go after it.

After the event, we enjoyed one of our Santa Barbara Style Tri-tip BBQs. Many thanks to Daryl (KF6DI) and Dennis (WB6OBB) for helping out at the start and finish, and to Frank and Karen Caplan for preparing and cooking the Tri-tip BBQ!