I’ve had a recent exchange with an advocate for the use of GPS in ARDF. The reasons for it, and I am paraphrasing, are as follows:
1. GPS navigation doesn’t fundamentally change the sport.
2. Everyone in the world is using it.
3. We would compromise the competitiveness of Region 2 ARDFers if it were banned here.
From experience and long hours of testing, I can attest that unbridled utilization of accurate satellite-derived position data will remove much of the need for navigation skills from ARDF. If that isn’t the case today, then GPS-enhanced receiver makers are either using substandard hardware, or poor software. (There is also a third possibility.)
If you want to see the future of ARDF under current Region I rules then check out the iPhone app Map-n-Compass (available for free starting 30 Oct 2017). That app uses standard GPS position data and electronic compass information to simulate an ARDF course, complete with transmitters, and the app serving as a simulated receiver. If you don’t install a map of the course terrain, and you remove the SIM card, you’ve got an ARDF tool that meets all the current Region I rules. In the beginner mode (default) the app allows you to see your position on the screen, record your track, see exclusion areas, record bearings, and calculate bearing crossing locations. And it will lead you almost inerrantly on a straight-line path to the transmitter of your choice.
If that doesn’t change the sport by diminishing the need for navigation skills, I don’t know what would.
While point #1 seems dubious at best, points 2 and 3 remain, and those final two points have some merit. Sadly, widespread use of GPS, and satellite navigation’s inevitable impact on the sport, means that everyone probably needs to have a GPS-assisted receiver (especially beginners in the sport) in order to be competitive with their peers so equipped.
The bar to entry into ARDF has just been raised. Or, maybe not. At least not by so much.
Rather than trying to slam the barn door shut after the satellite-following cow passed through, perhaps it is better to accept that GPS has given rise to a new event: an ARDF flavor that requires fewer navigation skills, but still uses receivers and hidden transmitters.
So a new sport is born, but what about the old one?
You know, the sport we used to call ARDF? Well that one doesn’t have to go away. Rules could allow those who prefer not to play the sat-nav version of the sport to instead elect to run as a classic competitor. Those choosing not to utilize GPS would be a different class of competitor, whose performance would be judged against others in their class, not against sat-navvers.
But it seems that the rules for Region 2 need to come into existence in order to make any of this a reality. Rules are needed in order to make it clear that traditional ARDF has a place, and so does the satellite-assisted version of the sport. The rules also need to provide for a mechanism to keep the sport affordable and accessible, by permitting approved apps to be used in competition.
It would be a shame for any IARU region to have its hands tied by blind adherence to Region I decisions. It is time for Region 2 ARDF leadership to engage, to move forward with new ideas, or explain why change is not needed, or to remove themselves as an impediment to the advancement of the sport.