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Sponsored by the Backwoods Orienteering
Klub Inc.
Y'all Come Back! |
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The 2006 USA ARDF Championships are now at a close. Nadia and I enjoyed hosting our competitors and guests, and we appreciate all of your participation in these first ARDF championships held in North Carolina. You were very lavish with your praise, and indulgent of our shortcomings, and you made it a pleasure to host these games. We truly look forward to doing it again someday! For these Sixth USA ARDF Championships our philosophy was to focus on providing quality maps, courses, and overall competition experience. By "keeping it simple" we felt we could keep costs down (both in terms of expenses and time) while providing competitors with an event that prepares them for international competition. In that, we hope, we have succeeded. Being our first attempt to undertake such an event, we made our share of mistakes. Nadia and I learned a great deal, and we hope to apply those lessons to another championships in the future. We would very much appreciate hearing from those who attended, with their suggestions for improvements, and comments on what they liked.
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| To Our Volunteers | |||||
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We would like to thank all our volunteers who helped us before, during, and
after the event. Without you these championships would not have been
possible. In pseudo-random order we had:
Marvin Johnston (KE6HTS)- E-Punch Guru, and
all-around great help! In addition we had several volunteers that we met for the first time on the days of the event. We regret that we do not have records of your names and positions. Please contact us if you, or someone you know, was left off this list! In addition we gratefully acknowledge the kind assistance and support received from the following individuals and groups. Martha Woods - William B. Umstead State Park
Superintendent |
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| Where were those darn foxes??? | |||||
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Saturday, April 8, 2006 - 2-Meter Band Courses
The M21 course, which required finding all five transmitters (except for number 4, which we erroneously believed was not working) had a total length of 8.3 km. Excluding number 4 its total length was 7.2 km. That distance is measured "as the bird flies". Competitors rarely follow a straight-line route, and in fact, would have found such a route to be much more difficult than sticking to roads and trails whenever possible. Course designer's note: The 2M courses that included transmitter #3 contained a "trick". On most courses, transmitter #3 was the optimum first control. That is, in order to take the shortest route between all transmitters, it was necessary to take transmitter #3 first. Transmitter #3 was located between the start and finish, meaning that competitors would need to head directly from the start toward the finish to find the optimum first transmitter. That is not a route selection that one would instinctively follow. Those competitors who committed early to a route, before carefully listening to transmitter #3, generally took transmitter #1 first, which required them to return toward the start to find transmitter #3. Ouch! That added up to an extra kilometer for many competitors. Most competitors, you will see in the results, did not select transmitter #3 as their first control if their course included transmitter #1. Score one for the fox! The locations of the foxes, and the ideal route, are shown in the following map:
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Sunday, April 9, 2006 - 80-Meter Band Courses
The M21 course, which required finding all five transmitters had a total length of 8.5 km as the bird flies. This course, due in part to the narrowness of the map, and the closeness of the start to the finish, did not include any "tricks". Instead it is a fairly straightforward course. Even though transmitter placements were less challenging than on the 2M courses, the total length still challenged most competitors. Course designer's note: Actually, the 80M courses were intended to be a little more challenging than they turned out to be. The reason for this has to do with location of transmitter #4. The course designer had anticipated that most competitors would find #5 then #4 and proceed to the trail leading back toward the finish. Instead, many of the competitors after finding transmitters #5 and #4 proceeded to Ebeneezer Church Road, and followed it toward transmitter #2. The road was a more flat and direct route, and a "short-cut" that the course designer had not anticipated. In retrospect it probably would have made the courses more difficult, though shorter, if transmitter #4 had been placed farther west. That would have encouraged the competitors to opt for the hillier and more winding trail instead of the road. Score one for the hounds! The locations of the foxes, and the ideal route, are shown in the following map:
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Links to Pictures on Other Sites
Let us know about other links and we will post them here. |
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A Matter of Timing Was it relativistic time dilation? The slower pace of the southern lifestyle? UFOs? Why were competitors subjected to "minutes" that were 70.3 seconds in length? During my investigation of this problem I was surprised to learn that the Montreal fox controllers, bought second-hand several years ago but only recently installed in the fox transmitters, were equipped with 3.579 MHz processor crystals instead of the 4.194 MHz crystals assumed by the ARDF software. The test board used to confirm proper operation of each programmed PIC controller was properly equipped with a 4.194 MHz crystal, thus all the testing done prior to mounting the PICs in the foxes showed the timing to be precisely 60 seconds. When those same PICs were then removed from the test board and placed in the actual foxes, they provided 70.3-second transmit periods (60 seconds x 4.194 / 3.579). Clearly this problem should have been discovered during tests conducted prior to the championships. But the 17% slower Morse code speed was not obvious (to me) without having a reference to compare it to. The timing of the foxes relative to one another remained very precise. Only measuring the actual transmit period of the foxes with a time piece would have been sure to detect the problem. Obviously that test should have been conducted using the fox transmitters, not just using the test controller prior to placing the PICs in the transmitters. Friday night before the first day of competition, convinced that the timing problem had to be related to recent software changes I'd made, I spent several hours debugging the software. In my sleep-deprived and harried state of mind, I somehow convinced myself that I'd discovered just such a software bug. A quick test (conducted on the test controller, of course) confirmed that the new software was working properly. So, after carefully reprogramming all the controllers, I was astounded to discover the next morning that all foxes still had transmit periods exactly 70.3 seconds in length! Mea culpa. I apologize for the non-standard transmit intervals to which the competitors were subjected. You were all very forbearing and good natured regarding the non-standard timing. Thank you! I would also like to add that I am impressed with how well all the competitors adjusted to the added challenge. Well done. What Happened with TX#4? Transmitter #4 on the 2-meter band seemed considerably weaker at the Start on competition day than it was during tests run prior to the event. So weak, in fact, that the organizers removed it from the list of required transmitters for all courses that included TX #4. Testing of transmitter #4's 2-meter transmitter after the event revealed that its output power was in fact about -6 dB below (roughly one-fourth the power) the power level of the other transmitters. The root cause of the lower transmit power level has not yet been determined. |
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Certificates & Medals
Certificates for USA competitors were mailed May 5, 2006. Those USA competitors who finished in the top three among all USA competitors in their category should expect their certificates to arrive within about one week of that date. Medals for the medalists who missed the award ceremony were also mailed May 5 and should arrive at the same time as the certificates. Please let the organizers know if certificates or medals are not received by May 12, or if they arrive damaged. Note: If one of the certificate recipients would like to scan their certificate with an optical scanner, and send me the .jpg file, I will be happy to post it on this web site. Unfortunately, I had no color scanner readily available. Video Production A professional film (DVD format) has been created from the video footage taken at the 2006 USA ARDF Championships. Many of the competitors in the event make appearances in the video. Thank you to everyone who contributed by allowing themselves to be interviewed, taped while running, or who demonstrated ARDF techniques for the film crew. Thanks especially to Gary Pearce (KN4AQ) and his film assistant Steve Worley (KB4HDQ) for their efforts in filming, directing, and editing this video production. The film is approximately 40 minutes in length, and presents the championships as a ham radio news event, with enough detail to serve as a promotional piece for ARDF. It includes interviews, equipment demonstrations, and candid shots of competitors arriving at several of the controls. Competitors in the 2006 USA ARDF Championships may obtain copies of this professional DVD production, created by Amateur Radio Video News, at the special price of US$10 plus US$2 s/h. (Non-competitor price is US$20 + US$2 s/h available at the ARVN web site: www.ARVidNews.com.) Those wishing to place foreign orders should contact Gary Pearce (kn4aq@arrl.net) to inquire about foreign shipping. Mail your check or MO made payable to Gary Pearce to: ARVN - ARDF Video |
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| 73, | |
| Nadia Scharlau | |
| Charles Scharlau |
