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Radio Society of Great Britain
IARU DF - Hints and Tips
Carrying all the stuff!
So what exactly do you have to take with you? Here is a list for a 144 MHz competition:
Receiver
Aerial
Compass
Map
Something with which to mark the map
Control Card or SI chip
Whistle
The whistle is easily hung round your neck on a piece of string. If pin punching is being used, the control card is best waterproofed (if it is not already printed on Tyvek) and then pinned to your outer clothing with safety pins.
The receiver, aerial and compass are best made up into a single unit if possible. Home constructors have a field day building a receiver for 144MHz into the boom of the yagi antenna.
The map needs to be waterproofed on the start line. If you hope to make marks on the outside of the waterproofing, the map must not move about inside its covering. Chinagraph pencils will write on plastic although they do break easily.
Marking the map
Unless you are blessed with incredible powers of memory you must mark some of the information about the bearings and strengths of the Foxes, onto the map. If the weather is fine and dry, you can carry the map unprotected but in the wet this is a real problem. Pulling the map out of a plastic bag, marking it with a pencil and then returning it to the bag is one option. A better idea is to mark on the outside of the plastic cover providing the map does not move about inside the cover. Chinagraph pencils and spirit based felt-tips will do this, although felt tipped pens will run in the wet.
How to decide the order in which to take the Foxes?
This is the hardest part really. Focus on the known location of the finish; try to make some sort of judgement about signal strength and make your decision. What you want to avoid is going to a Fox near the finish and then have to return, in the direction of the start, to find another Fox that you need.
Choice of Receiver
The ideal radio is small, light, an AM receiver with accurate frequency setting. It should possess a very wide range gain control. In reality you will get as close as you can to this ideal. Here are some of the possibilities:
Use a commercial hand held rig. For 144MHz this will almost inevitably be an FM receiver with a built in limiter. This feature makes DFing harder but far from impossible as evidenced by the hundreds of Club DFers up and down the country.
Use a commercial AM rig. Even if you find one it will probably be too heavy to cart round.
Build one of the kits available. See the home page of this site for details of UK sourced kits and ready built receivers.
'Roll your own', probably to a published design.
Multi-path on 144 MHz
In well contoured areas, multi path propagation at vhf has to be overcome by a successful DFer. Here is an account by David Williams of how he overcame the multi path at Transmitter #3 at an event at Eymore.
 David came from the East (right of the map) and took his first bearing (nearly due north) from the top of a NW facing slope. The top of this slope ran NE to SW and TX #3 was located near the top of the slope but away to the SW. Instead of getting a good bearing to the transmitter, because the direct path through trees and around irregularities in the face of the slope, a much better signal was reflected from the south facing slope on the far bank of the stream running W to E.
Moving down the path gave a bearing skewed a bit more NW via a similar mechanism. Plunging down to the stream (not a good place to take bearings on 144MHz) the reflections now appeared to be coming from well down the stream. David charged off through the grot only to find the bearing rotated through 90 degrees when the TX next fired up. By this time the direct signal was quite good, only disturbed by the screening in the immediate vicinity of the stream.
Moving south westwards David reached the path for the next transmission only to find the TX was to his left, behind and up. He was now close enough to the transmitter that even an attenuated direct signal was stronger than the reflections and he moved up the slope and into the TX.
The moral of the tale - be aware of potential reflectors and be prepared to react to 'illogical' changes of direction.
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