Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club
A Very Different Type of Hide-and-Seek

Origintal Source: http://news.newspress.com/np_home/fsports.html
8/18/2000
By BECKY FREEMAN
NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
sports@newspress.com

Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF) -- it's more than just a sport, it's useful in emergency situations and it's mascot is a fox.

Five radio transmitters are hidden throughout five miles of rugged terrain and it's a race to see who can find all of them in the fastest time. Competitors use maps, compasses, other direction finding equipment, intuition and whatever else is needed to find the transmitters. When they do, they punch their score cards with a puncher attached to each box and run to find the next one.

It's called T-hunting (T standing for transmitter), or fox-hunting and it was introduced to the United States less than 10 years ago.

The man responsible for that, America's forefather of fox-hunting is Joseph Moell, a Fullerton-based electrical engineer. He started T-hunting in his car in 1975 and wrote a book about it, gaining fame in the amateur radio world. Then he saw the sport growing into a foot game in Europe and began promoting it in the U.S. in 1991.

At last year's World Championships in Hungary, America sent it's first team to compete. Among the U.S. representatives was Marvin Johnston of Santa Barbara. Now Moell and Johnston are setting up amateur competitions throughout Southern California to introduce newcomers to the sport.

"In Hungary we were going for the finish, not for the gold," said Moell. "Now we're trying to tell the rest of this country what this sport is all about."

Last Saturday, Moell and Johnston organized a friendly competition and barbecue at Lake Los Carneros in Goleta. Johnston went out early to hide all five of the transmitters, which read at a two-meter level, much like FM radio. The transmitters are set up to go off for one minute at a time. Once the first transmitter goes off for a minute the second one starts and so on.

That continues for two hours -- the time limit for a five-mile course on the world class level. If someone doesn't finish within the time limit they are disqualified. Many times a competitor will have to return without finding all the transmitters in order to make the cut. In Hungary, Johnston was forced to go to the finish line after finding only three transmitters.

Last Saturday, the participants had to deal with a two-mile course in the same time limit. The first to finish with all five transmitters was Rick Barrett of Newbery Park, finishing in 43 minutes, 27 seconds. He has been fox hunting since 1993.

The next finisher was a local youth Brian Peddicord. The 13-year-old finished in 1 hour, 9 minutes and 55 seconds. Peddicord grew up around radios and got his Amateur Radio License when he was in the fourth grade.

In addition to organizing events, Johnston is also training for this year's World Championships in China. Over 30 countries with 250 individuals will be there to participate.

Two others going to China besides Johnston were in Goleta Saturday -- Jay Thompson of Santa Ana and Bob Cooley of Pleasanton. At 15, Thompson is the only junior member of the team.

There are five age divisions and a team is allowed three people in each. Those 18-and-under are considered juniors, seniors are ages 19-39, old-timers are ages 40-54 and veterans are 55-and-up. Women of all ages are all put into the same division. Johnston is in the old-timer division and Cooley is a veteran.

The rest of the team's roster consists of two players from Montana, two men from Cincinnati, Ohio, and two individuals from Hungary (they hold dual citizenship). Dale Hunt, of Portland, Ore. is the team captain. Only the senior division is required to find all five transmitters in the World Championships, the other divisions only have to find four. The world record for a five mile course, using 80 meter transmitters (which are easier to read than the two-meter transmitters), is 45 minutes.

"Were not exactly world class yet," said Moell. "But we're having fun."