[FoxHunt] LA Times ARDF report

[Marvin Johnston]

Art Goddard, W6XD, just forwarded information about a very nice article
in the LA Times about transmitter hunting. Readers of the online article
are required to register and I didn't like their non-privacy agreement
so I didn't register and bought the paper. For those of you with access
to the LA Times, it is on page 5 of the Outdoors section in the March 30
edition of the times. The URL for the online article is:

http://www.latimes.com/features/outdoors/
>From the Outdoors page, click on Obsessions - Signal Stalkers.

Most of the article seems to be about the experiences on a 2M ARDF meet
that Joe and April Moell, and I put on in conjunction with the LAOC
orienteering meet on January 11 at the Travel Town section of Griffith
park. To give a bit of perspective on the article, Griffith Park is a
huge area near downtown Los Angeles of which Travel Town is a small
part. The area is quite demanding physically and the hills create a very
nice reflection zone in which to gain more practice with reflections :).
While I would have liked to have made the course a full length ARDF
course, I didn't feel that most of the people would have the strength,
endurance, or orienteering skills to do that, so I shortened it bit and
only used about half the available area; the course length was in the
range of 2 miles. The start and finish were at the same place which
effectively means there are two possible "correct" routes. IMO, the
better choice would have been to get the climb out of the way before
getting tired later on in the course. Only two competitors found all
five transmitters, Jay Hennigan WB6RDV and Bob Cooley KF6VSE, and they
had both won gold in previous ARDF competitions.

You can read more about the event and see some pictures at the homingin
web site at:
http://www.homingin.com

BTW, the practice area for the US ARDF Championships will most likely be
held at Travel Town. It really is a wonderful area for both physical
conditioning and for practicing how to deal with reflections.