About a year and a half ago, I stumbled upon a new (to me) sport that combined trail running, ham radio, and orienteering (navigating by map and compass): Amateur Radio Direction Finding, or ARDF. Although scarcely known in the US, ARDF has been popular for decades in other parts of the world (particularly eastern Europe): competition rules were formalized during the 1950s, and international competitions have been held biennially (more or less) since 1980. Today, there are four different ARDF "styles" and 12 age/gender categories; each country can field up to three competitors in each category for each style (although commonly the same people will compete in all four styles).
But I knew nothing of this when I first read about the sport in a ham radio magazine; all I knew was that it sounded fun and challenging, and that there was an open competition coming up relatively nearby (Michigan), with low-cost equipment rentals and a training class beforehand for absolute beginners like me. That competition, however, turned out to be the 2024 US Championship; it, and the 2025 championship in North Carolina (which I also participated in), were the qualifiers for Team USA. The selection committee assured me that they were pleased with my performance (I had picked up three bronzes during the two US championships combined) … but in truth, enough of the more experienced US orienteers couldn't make World Champs this year that the team had an empty berth to fill in the M50 (males age 50 or over) category. So, I packed my bags and spent a week during mid-August in Birštonas, Lithuania. I felt like I had made it to the Olympics … but on the Jamaican bobsled team
The Team USA uniform (left), and the "tools of the trade" (right). The larger radio receiver (with the unwieldy antenna elements) is for 2 m; the smaller for 80 m. Coming from a running background, I found it particularly challenging to juggle all of the necessary equipment while on the move.
The six-day schedule called for a day of "training" (which was actually just testing/calibrating our radio receivers against some sample transmitters), followed by one competition per day, with a day off in the middle … and plenty of ceremonies. Twenty-six countries sent teams, ranging in size from one to 41 competitors (Team USA numbered 20), for a total of well over 300 … which, I was told, was actually a bit on the small side, since Russia and China were boycotting the competition for political reasons.
We learned some Lithuanian folk dances (or tried to) at Opening Ceremonies.
Day 1 was Classics. In a classic ARDF competition, five radio transmitters (often called "foxes") are hidden in a large wooded area. These "foxes" take turns broadcasting short identifiers in Morse code — one minute on and four minutes off — on a shared frequency. (A beacon near the finish line broadcasts continuously on a different frequency.) Competitors know the frequencies and are given detailed orienteering maps of the area, with the start and finish marked but nothing else. Each competition category is assigned either all five "foxes" or a specific subset, which competitors must find (in any order) and then reach the finish before their allotted time runs out. Competitors carry "finger sticks" with electronic memories, which they insert into a module near each "fox" to record the time at which they visited it. To minimize congestion (and prevent competitors from following one another), starting times are staggered, and two different wavelengths are used (2 m and 80 m), with half of the categories assigned to each.
Left: Each starting wave went through several stages: clearing and verifying our memory sticks; picking up our radios; and picking up our maps. Right: To prevent competitors from listening for "foxes" before their official race times (which is considered cheating), all radio receivers had to be impounded before the transmitters were turned on. We were allowed to pick our radios up (but not turn them on) five minutes before we started.
But the 2m Classic proved to be my worst event of the week. My category (M50) was assigned four foxes on 2 m, with a time limit of 150 minutes. The ground was soft and spongy, with too much undergrowth to be able to really run off-trail. I found the first fox in 27 minutes, which wasn't bad, but the second took almost twice as long, and I floundered with the last two, eventually giving up on them … but not soon enough, as it turned out. I arrived at the finish three minutes late, so nothing I did counted: the equivalent of a DNF in running. In retrospect, I made plenty of rookie mistakes — switching foxes too often, leaving the trails too soon, underestimating distances — but enough other Team USA members overtimed as well that I can lay at least part of the blame on the course itself (and on the crazy radio echoes that make 2 m events so difficult to begin with).
Left: A typical "control". (In some events, the hidden foxes had the orange-and-white flags shown above; in others, there were no flags, but the support poles had candy-cane striping.) Right: A competitor "punches" a control to register his presence, and the time that he was there. (At the finish, all of his "punches" were read from the memory stick on his finger.)
Day 2 was Sprint. The venue — a pair of city parks — was much more runnable (and much smaller), but Sprint competitions are more complicated. There are two sets of five foxes (on two different frequencies, mercifully), and you must find all of your assigned foxes in one group first, then navigate to the midpoint beacon, and then find the other group, and then finish … all in just one hour. Also, instead of the foxes rotating who is broadcasting every minute, they change every 12 seconds! Sprint was my weakest event at US Champs, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found all seven of my assigned foxes (and both beacons) and finished in a comfortable 39 minutes. But this was Worlds, so even that performance only got me 33rd place (out of 38). The shorter time and smaller competition area meant that I saw a lot more of the other competitors than at the other events, and it was frankly humbling to see people running through the underbrush at speeds that I would be terrified to attempt, and making beelines for foxes that I had had to cast about for.
One of the referees took a lot of pictures, including these three of me during the Fox-O (left), 2m Classic (middle), and Sprint (right) events. No charge for race photos here!
Day 3 (really day 4, because of our day off) was "Fox-O", the most unusual ADRF style. Our maps actually had approximate locations of the foxes marked " but the transmitters themselves were so low-powered that they couldn't be heard until you were very close to them. (The idea is that if you navigate to the spot marked on the map, the fox won't actually be there, but you will be close enough to pick it up on your radio.) Because the transmitters couldn't be heard from the start or from one another, they ran continuously (instead of taking turns), and we were spared the requirement (imposed on other events) that our receivers be "impounded" until just before we started. Route planning is crucial in Fox-O, and I think I did a fairly good job " but I struggled finding a couple of foxes early on, and around the midpoint I had to change my route to bypass one fox, in order to avoid overtiming again. I succeeded (finishing seven minutes under my allotted two hours), but with only seven of my eight assigned foxes found, I was lucky even to place 26th (out of 33) in M50.
The Fox-O finish area, up close (left) and from above (right). Notwithstanding all of the high-tech ham radio gear, the finish areas (and to some extent the entire events) had a distinct trail race vibe.
The final day was Classics again, with the assigned wavelengths swapped from the first day, so I was on 80 m. This time I took careful bearings, planned my route and fox sequence strategically, and didn't let myself get distracted (much) when I thought I heard a closer fox. It also helped that the woods were a little more runnable, the map was *ahem* a little more accurate, and there was a nice broad trail to the finish that I could really open up on. But of course all of these factors helped the other competitors as well, and even though I found all five foxes, and finished in 132 minutes (out of 150 allowed), I still placed only 33rd out of 38.
Team USA won an individual silver medal (left) and a team bronze (right) in the 80m Classic (neither of which I contributed to). Two medals may sound puny compared to the dozens won by powerhouses like Czechia and Ukraine, but we were certainly happy.
Mind you, I'm not accustomed to finishing so far toward the back of the pack in any race … but I don't regret doing so this time. This was a chance to step outside my comfort zone; to challenge my mind and body at the same time; and to actually compete (no matter how slowly) on an international stage. I was proud to be on Team USA, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Team USA!
This article was originally published in Fondy Footnotes, the newsletter of the Fond du Lac Running Club.