Tips and Techniques for Radio Orienteering -

1. The Map

With the Region 3 International Championships coming up this November (2003), and since the Victorian ARDF Group is now affiliated with the VOA, I thought it timely to put down some of the various techniques and approaches I've picked up in the hope some might be useful to those giving it a try or competing on the Australian team. As I started to write this it became increasingly obvious I would have to split it up since there was way too much to cover in one go. Therefore this first will deal only with something familiar to orienteers; the map.

Tips and Techniques for Radio Orienteering –

2. Propagation

My last article on Introduction to Radio Orienteering covered the map and how it is used a little differently in Radio orienteering to standard Bush orienteering. Though applied differently, the principle is the same; a means to find your way around the course in the quickest way.

The concepts presented in this article, however, may be quite foreign to many orienteers, but stay with me; it's not all that hard once you get used to it. This is about radio signals and their characteristics in Radio orienteering event.

Radio orienteering is traditionally held in two competitions, VHF and HF. This isn't to say direction finding isn't possible and challenging on other frequency bands as well, each with unique and often bizarre characteristics, but for now I'll concentrate on these two.

Tips and Techniques for Radio Orienteering –

3. The Event

By now you've totally forgotten what the first two tips articles were all about, right?

Well, the first covered the map and how it is used differently in Radio orienteering, as well as map boards and techniques of transferring transmitter bearings onto the map to slowly build up a picture of where the controls are.

The second dived into radio propagation and the differences between the lower frequency HF and at times trickier VHF. Also what to do when bearings don't make sense and some ideas to get around some of the propagation oddities.

This article will go deeper into some ways to approach a radio competition. In some ways this is the most subjective and all I can do is present ideas that seem to work for me. Just like bush orienteering there are many possible 'good' techniques and you just have to find what works for you. It's also an area I don't really consider myself an expert at all!