Boston ARDF - 2009 USA and Region 2 ARDF Championship

Tenth USA ARDF Championships will take place near Cincinnati, Ohio on the weekend of May 21-23, 2010. This is one week after the Dayton Hamvention.

As in recent years, there will be a practice and equipment testing day on Friday, followed the next day by the two-meter competition and an evening banquet. On Sunday, the 80-meter competition and medal award ceremony will take place in a different location.

Organizers of these championships are members of OH-KY-IN Amateur Radio Club, Orienteering Cincinnati (OCIN), and the Butler County VHF Association. These are the same folks who put on the very successful 2003 USA and IARU Region 2 Championships, but the 2010 competitions will take place in different venues.

USA’s ARDF Championships are open to all, regardless of radio-orienteering skill level or ham radio licensing status. Category winners may earn positions on ARDF Team USA, which will travel to Croatia for the Fifteenth ARDF World Championships in September, 2010.

For the second year, registration for USA’s national championships will be at no charge for first-time participants and for participants coming from outside North America. The official championships Web site (www.usardf2010.com) is now online. Registration and suggested lodging information will be posted soon.

2009 US ARDF

The ARRL Fund for the Development of Amateur Radio Direction Finding is now accepting monetary donations to support deserving groups and individuals as they expand international-rules ARDF activities in the USA.

This fund was first established in year 2000 with “seed money” from the Colvin Award, the ARRL Foundation and the ARRL General Fund. In its first five years, payments from the fund were made on behalf of 18 individuals to help defray the cost of their participation in three ARDF World Championships. Grants from the fund have also been made to the organizers of two USA ARDF Championships.

No further contributions are anticipated from the original sources, so the fund has been opened to contributions from individuals and clubs. All contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law and will be acknowledged by ARRL, a registered 501(c)(3) organization. Contributions may not be designated by donors to be granted to any specific recipient, individual or group.

Grants from the fund may be requested by groups sponsoring ARDF events in the USA and by individuals who have qualified to represent the USA in ARDF competitions sanctioned by the ARRL or the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU). Requests for grants should be submitted electronically at least 60 days in advance of need to Mary Hobart K1MMH at ARRL Headquarters (mhobart@arrl.org). They will be reviewed by a committee that includes ARRL’s Chief Executive Officer, Chief Development Officer and ARDF Coordinator.

You can help support ARDF in the USA by sending a donation to ARDF Development Fund, c/o ARRL, 225 East Main Street, Newington, CT 06111. Checks should be made out to ARRL with “ARDF Development Fund” on the memo line.

The not-for-profit American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the national association of Amateur Radio operators, founded in 1914. ARRL is a member society of the IARU.

Joe Moell KØOV
ARRL ARDF Coordinator

2009 US ARDF

While I was on business trip in Kiev/Moscow I was able to compete at the Ukranian Championship held in Lutsk, small town located only 90 kilometers away from Poland border. This year M40 category has to find all 5 transmitters - same number as M21. I marked in RED members of Ukranian Team, who competed last year at the European Championship in Bulgaria. Valeriy Gerachenko won both day in M40 category in Bulgaria. In general I was not loosing too much even to M21 leaders but lack of constant ARDF trainings does not allow to get closer to leaders at this point. Below are results for both days for M21 and M40:

 80 MetersResults, M21:

M40 Results:

2 Meters results, M21:

M40 Results:

2009 US ARDF

Hi everyone,

It’s time to order US Team uniforms for the new year! I made some arrangements this year, and we can get same team uniform as US National Orienteering Team.

Here are some things to note:

1. All US Team members are encouraged to wear the latest Trimtex stuff at elite-level international events (e.g. World Cups), but not necessarily local events or trainings. It is encouraged but not required to wear Trimtex stuff at national events.
2. I’ve attached the design files for the US top and US jacket.
3. If you have old uniform, you do not need to order anything this year, unless you’d like to, but we will look better if everyone will have same uniform.
4. Uniform available for team members as well as for team supporters.

The available items for purchase in 2010 are:
1. Extreme Top $58
2. Extreme 3/4 O-pants $42
3. 3/4 Tights $42
4. Basic long O-pants $32
5. Trainer Extreme Jacket $73
6. Trimtex Socks $18
7. Trainer Extreme warm-up pants $55

PRICES:
- we get free printing and a 40% discount on Trimtex clothing (as long as we order at least 10 of each item)
- the prices above are inflated by 25% to cover exchange rate fluctuations and shipping

HOW TO ORDER:
1. Email me your order, including sizes. For the tops and bottoms, available sizes are XS,S,M,L,XL. For the socks, available sizes are 36-40 and 41-45 (European).
2. Send a check for the full amount you owe to “Tom W. Carr” at the following address by Feb 1, 2010:

Thomas W. Carr
9647 Trailview Dr.
Dallas, TX 75238

This year we ask that everyone pay up front - so make sure Tom gets your check by Feb 1!! Along with the check, please send your full name and return address, so that Tom can send you a refund check later on in the spring.

DISTRIBUTION+REFUND CHECKS:
- The clothes will be distributed upon order arrival, approximately in April-May.
- If there is money left over after Tom pays Trimtex (and we expect there will be), we will send refund checks to everyone who ordered clothing. This will be somewhere in the range 5-15%.

As usual, email if you have any questions(vadim.afonkin[ @ ]gmail.com).

Attachements: us_jacket,us_top

Vadim

2009 US ARDF

Some time ago I was invited by Andy Stewart - KB1OIQ , President of the Westford PART group to give a presentation about ARDF at its monthly meeting. I prepared a short presentation and gave an 1 hour speech to the group of hams. I hope this will bring a new ARDFers to our sport.

I made a presentation with OpenOffice and not sure if it will work with PoverPoint, but you can try it.

Here is some pictures provided by WB1GOF, Robert Schmeichel

Thank you Andy!

Local Events

On Dec 5, me and Lezsek had a 80 meters training at our famous Blue Hills map. Nick (UR8UA) set a course and we started around 9:30 a.m and finished well before rain started. I was transmitting my running as live session , and anyone could see it in real time, here on this website. This was a first time I tried to do it. It looks like there may be a few bugs exists in software I am using, and I will try to fix them once I have time, but besides abnormal speed (device showed I was running with 23,495 km per our speed)  - it was ok. My goal is to bring real time information from our training and competition and to make it here available at real time to view by the rest of the world while we are on the course. Final goal is to have inexpensive system to track athletes in real time and to see how they are doing at the finish and online for spectators. Here is the map with FOX and Start and Finish locations, along with my splits. Click on image to enlarge (to get full details - click on image on the next page as well.) Here is My GPS Track Running Details for 80 Meters Fox Hunt - Blue Hills. My time was 74 minutes with change… Lez finished it under 112 minutes which is great progress - course was really long and Blue Hills is not easy terrain to run. Here is my splits:

I lost 2 cycles - one at number 1, when I hit the marsh - it was impossible to cross it in 1 minute - I went west from marsh, as I did not expect fox to be at that small area behind it. And second cycle I lost at number 2 - when fox finished I got almost to water tank, marked on the map, but went 30 meters left from the transmitter in off cycle and did not find it. If it would be world class competition someone would not loose those 2 cycles for sure. In my opinion ideal time on this course was 64 minutes. I ran 74. Not bad for 12k distanse, but we need to do better. Loosing even a cycle at the World Champ - will get you no gold and may will leave you with no medals at all.

Local Events

Today we will have a training at Blue Hills , and I will be testing live feed from my GPS while I am on the course. You will be able to watch my course running in real time. My start time will be around 10 a.m. EST. Enjoy it!

LIVE TRACKING IS OVER.

GPS track along with fox location and results will be posted later.

2009 US ARDF

It was a while since I published my last post here. Most of it due to my busy schedule and a lot of travel time, but now I am back in Boston and I wanted to share my experience from 17th Europe ARDF Championship.  I have a lot of information in my head right now, but putting it here in writing is different,  please be patient and revisit this page frequently for updates. I will publish maps and results from Championship and from training camp as well along with my running routes and times.

First of all I wanted to congratulate Nick (Nikolay Ivanchikhin) getting his first Europe Champion title in M50 category - great performance Nick! Looks like our weekly ARDF trainings at the rough Blue Hills Terrain together with our Boston ARDF members(Brendan, Ian, Lori, Greg, Leszek - thank you guys for make it happen!) - did help a lot.

I can’t post all information here at once, so here is something to start with:

News

We plan to have a training at Blue Hills Reservation this Sunday with 10 km cross over the hills with up and down workouts, and 1-2 sprint 2 meter ARDF courses (5 foxes for 5 minutes) after the cross.

Gathering location is Houghton Pond parking lot at 9 a.m.

Please call me with any questions (617) 838-9345 or you need a ride.

73!

Vadim

2009 US ARDF

Orienteering is important part of ARDF, and every foxhunter needs to know how to use compass and map and use it quick while on ARDF course.

2009 US ARDF