2008 World ARDF Championships

The 2008 summer Olympics are over and so are this
year's world championships of radio direction finding games.

And in the latter, Team USA brought home a medal. Newsline's Joe Moell K0OV has the details:

Members of ARDF Team USA are returning from the 14th World Championships of Amateur Radio Direction Finding, held in a resort community near Seoul, Korea.

Ten competitors from 7 states, plus two officials and a visitor, traveled to Korea to take on about 330 competitors from two dozen other countries.

As always, the eastern European and former Soviet bloc countries took most of the awards, but this year, for the first time, a North American team member medaled in one of the five age divisions for males.

It was George Neal KF6YKN, who won a bronze medal in the category for men ages 50-59 during the two meter competition on September 4. He found all four of his required transmitters in 1:23:42, about five minutes longer than the gold medal winner took. The route he chose was a little over six kilometers long.

USA has been represented at the biennial ARDF World Championships since 1998 and our performance continues to improve, thanks to an increasing number of training sessions around the country.

This is the second consecutive World Championships in which the USA has brought home a medal. At the World Championships in the forests of Bulgaria in 2006, Nadia
Scharlau of North Carolina won bronze in the 80-meter contest.

As the team members return home, more photos and results are becoming available. See the latest at the "Homing In" web site, www.homingin.com, where you will also learn how you and your family can begin enjoying the fun of on-foot hidden transmitter hunting.

Joe Moell, K0OV
Amateur Radio Newsline