It seems that the precise birthdate for ARDF was never recorded. But it seems reasonable to assume that sometime in the late 1940s, as surplus World War II equipment made backpack-portable radios a possibility, some outdoor-minded hams (likely in Scandinavia) took up maps and compasses and headed into the woods to settle a bet on who had the better radio direction-finding skills. When the loser couldn’t cite a violation to disqualify the winner, the need for formal ARDF rules documents was realized.
Whatever those first ARDF rules looked like, one thing is certain: equipment availability played a major role in determining the details. Super-regenerative receivers used by the competitors likely made it necessary to maintain large distances between competitors in order to prevent receiver-to-receiver interference. High power requirements of both receivers and transmitters would have limited the time duration of competitions. The bulk of the equipment likely placed restrictions on the course length. Lack of equipment probably restricted the number of foxes that could be fielded.
The same is true today: the equipment influences the rules. Smaller, lighter, and less power-hungry equipment has allowed the rules to define events with more fox transmitters, longer overtime periods, and more closely-packed competitors. Because competitors generally outnumber the foxes, and out of the desire to keep the sport affordable for all, rules generally favor placing any added cost and complexity into the transmitters and not the receivers. But recently a problem has arisen.
Four major events are defined in recent rules documents and are featured at most championship ARDF competitions: Classic 80m, Classic 2m, Sprint 80m, and Fox-O 80m. Because the radio band, power level, and timing requirements are so different among those events, different transmitters are generally required for each event. Classic 80m requires five foxes and one homing beacon, Classic 2m requires a like number for that band, Sprint requires at least eleven transmitters, and Fox-O at least twelve. That adds up to 35 separate transmitters plus spares. Add in the same number of antennas, and organizers have a
A high transmitter count poses a significant burden on the competition organizers and increases the chances of hardware failure. At some point, the burden of holding an event becomes unaffordable to too many organizers. Has the point of “organizer overload” been reached already?
Flexible transmitter designs can support operation across multiple bands, power levels, timing configurations, and identification patterns. But pushing the complexity into the transmit hardware increases the cost of each transmitter, so it doesn’t solve the problem. To keep costs down, the rules need to take into account the organizer burden. The two steps below, if done together, could help prevent organizer overload.
- Define events that use transmitters with identical, or nearly identical, characteristics: band, power level, timing, identification, etc.
- Allow championships to include a subset of all event types, so that organizers can choose what they can best support with their hardware.
The way the Region 1 ARDF rules documents are now organized, certain event characteristics are described in the body of ARDF Rules Part B, and some are described in the appendices. For instance, Part B, Section 27 describes transmitter requirements. But not all the events described in Part B appendices adhere to the transmitter requirements in Section 27. It would make more sense to move all event descriptions (Classic, Sprint, and Fox-O) each to its own appendix, and remove all event-specific rules from the body of Part B. This would simplify rules organization, and make it easier to find and identify all the rules specific to each event. With that done, event-specific rules could be analyzed and modified more readily and with less confusion.
With each type of event described independently in its own appendix, the event descriptions could be tweaked to bring transmitter requirements of different events closer together. New events could be added to allow organizers more options. Events with similar characteristics could be grouped into event types or “families”. Organizers then might be allowed to choose from the list of approved events, selecting the ones that can most readily be supported by available equipment, provided that they select one event from each family.
Thought should be given to devising fun and challenging events that emphasize a variety of skills and abilities yet utilize existing equipment capabilities. Examples
- A relay event could test overall team strength and might include both men and women competitors on different relay legs.
- A mass-start event, perhaps modeled on the popular “Goat” orienteering events, could provide a fun and entertaining race.
- Group events, involving 2-or-more team members working together, could test competitors’ cooperation and strategic thinking.
The possibilities for expanding the event list, without expanding needed transmitter capabilities, are endless.
ARDF has evolved over the past 70 years. The changes suggested above should be considered as part of ARDF’s evolutionary process. Let’s innovate with the equipment, and the rules, taking care that the rules don’t impose too great a burden on either the competitors or the organizers.