homing in
It’s a perennial question: Where to have USA’s annual national championships of Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF)?
It’s best when the championship venues are new to all competitors, so none has the advantage of familiarity. So the Sanctioning Subcommittee of the ARRL ARDF Committee is always on the lookout for fresh locations. A large wooded site is ideal, providing room for the four events in four different parts of it.
The Pacific Northwest has an abundance of outstanding possibilities. Other areas of the country, such as the woods of the northeast, the Appalachian Mountains and the moss-covered trees of the south, are quite good. Even mountainous parts of desert states like Arizona and New Mexico have suitable places for advanced radio-orienteering. The entire location doesn’t have to be forested. Sometimes portions of championship orienteering courses include farmland or open grass.
Good up-to-date maps are a must. Most foxhunting champions are also skilled orienteers, expecting detailed topographical maps with contour lines at elevation intervals and accurate depictions of vegetation. Older maps need to be field-checked and updated before the event.
Nearly every state has at least one site where a successful championship ARDF event could be held. But often there are no active ARDF groups or orienteering organizations near these sites. In 2007, radio-orienteers from various parts of California got together to put on the championships in the forests near South Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Mountains. Everyone slept in the cabins and ate in the dining room of Camp Concord, in
