Ashwood South Sprint ARDF Report

This Covid-safe event ran for over 3 weeks for 4 hours a day, stretching from Jack first out the gates on Thursday 22nd October, through to Henk & Di on Saturday 7th October. I suspect this may be the longest foxhunt we’ve ever run?! Perhaps longer even than the US election. Of course this renders it a bit pointless to include the traditional reference to the state of the weather at the event.

Kristian has just pipped Geoff for the fastest time just under the 3/4 hour mark, but note the impressive minimal distance Geoff managed it in. However, we should note that Kristian had some issues using MapRunG, and was forced to return to his car part way though his run, as well as locating 3 of his transmitters by sight. As the transmitters had been very carefully hidden, as they were going to be out in the wilds for quite some time, this would have been particularly difficult. He also didn’t take out a paper map, complicating things for himself.

Darian, Pierre & Cameron, I’m told, also somehow forgot to use MapRun (?), so also had to eyeball locate some of their transmitters. I’m not sure I completely understand that, but anyway, Darian-et-al’s track was loaded up retrospectively. Unfortunately they were over the 90min time limit, so I had to mark down as overtime, but all their results are still shown. A welcome to first-timer, Cameron.

Jack was so keen he decided to have multiple goes at the event, finding a different set of 4 transmitters each attempt. On his first attempt, he was never able to hear TX#3, so after that I decided to swap TX#3 and TX#5 positions, as the latter was a much stronger TX. Jack returned a second time to check the new TX configuration, and then yet again on a later weekend to post his 2nd result, which I’ve shown at the bottom as unofficial.

Rod notes the event was an excellent start to his weekend, and he & Monica liked the course layout. Their course length is also excellent, only 400m longer than Geoff’s. Di mentioned that she & Henk might well have found all 5 transmitters under the time limit, if Henk hadn’t wanted to actually see all the transmitters (see above!), but as they were running a bit short on time decided to cut out the one over the other side of the creek. Good to know all the transmitters are still working fine after 3 weeks, as they went for a stroll on Saturday 7th.

The first event upload to MapRun didn’t successfully set it up as a Score event as wanted, but unfortunately the second attempt didn’t seem to either. I’ve therefore extracted the results here, taking into account those who eyeball located some TXs, and the TX location swap. Beware that the Track files linked will have TX5 & TX3 swapped still. Many thanks to Geoff for promptly doing the MapRun submission – if you can prepare a (correct), MapRun compatible, kml file for him detailing the TX locations, this is a lot of the work required done.

Ashwood South Sprint ARDF Results

Name	Place	Txs	Track	Time	km	Age	When
Kris	1	*5: 5, 4, 1, 2, 3*	Track	00:43:37	5.75	M30-34	31/10/20
Geoff	2	*5: 2, 3, 1, 4, 5*	Track	00:45:48	3.78	M65-69	26/10/20
Ewen	3	*5: 2, 1, 4, 3, 5*	Track	48:18:00	5.35	M70-74	26/10/20
Monica & Uncle Rod	4	*5: 3, 2, 1, 4, 5*	Track	00:58:20	4.2	W25-29	31/10/20
Mark	5	*5: 4, 1, 3, 2, 5*	Track	01:03:23	5.52	M60-64	01/11/20
Jack	6	*4: 2, 1, 3, 4*	Track	00:59:18	5.18	M65-69	22/10/20
Doug	7	*4: 5, 2, 1, 4*	Track	01:14:57	5.79	M50-54	05/11/20
Jenelle	8	*4: 5, 2, 1, 4*	Track	01:16:52	6.11	W65-69	26/10/20
Henk & Di	9	*4: 5, 2, 3, 1*	Track	01:27:18	5.62	M70-74	07/11/20
Jack (unofficial)	N/A	*4: 5, 4, 1, 3*	Track	38:47:00	3.12	M65-69	01/11/20
Darian, Pierre & Cameron	O/T	*5: 3, 1, 4, 2, 5*	Track	01:39:29	5.49	M25-29	31/10/20

Here’s the actual transmitter locations:

October 21, 2020October 26, 2020

Sprint Ardf Training begins again!

Sprint training Covid style is available now in Ashwood South. 5TX 2m (on 145.300MHz). Each TX runs for 12s, so 5 TXs form a 1 minute cycle. There is a 90 minute event time limit.

Start location in in Harlequin Dve, at the main park sign. Off Power Ave., Ashwood South.

Transmitters run for 4 hours daily, 3-7pm. I’ll finish the event once everyone has had a chance to try who wants to.

Use MapRunF to register at the controls. Event name is under Victoria/RunFree/ARDF/Ashwood_south_ARDF_Use_this_one_ScoreV90, or “Events Near Me” should have it top of the list if you use that near the Start. Please avoid cheating by looking at the map on the phone, even though it’ll be mostly purple.

PDF version: https://www.ardf.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Ashwood_south_ARDF_Score90-2.pdf

You can currently train on this event in Melbourne if you live within this 25km circle:

January 25, 2020July 25, 2020

Jan 2020 Foxhunt

Congratulations to the VK3MZ team for a job well done in taking out the January hunts results were as follows. Many thanks to Kristian and Megan for opening their home and providing supper. Also thanks to Tom, Brendan and Greg for running the hunts. The formating looks great on my scree lets see what happens to it through the list!!

Greg VK3VT for the VK3FOX team

Hunt	MZ	FAST	OW	CI	BLN
1A	0	3	4	9	10
1B	1\|1	1\|4	9\|13	0\|9	1\|11
2A	1\|2	2\|6	7\|20	0\|9	4\|15
2B	2\|4	0\|6	10\|30	3\|12	1\|16
3A	1\|5	0\|6	8\|38	1\|13	3\|16
3B	3\|8	7\|13	10\|48	0\|13	1\|17
4	0\|8	1\|14	9\|57	1\|14	3\|20

Place	1	2	5	2	4

December 22, 2019July 25, 2020

Vic ARDF Christmas Party

Thanks to all those who made to the Vic ARDF Christmas Party.

The weather turned out perfect, considering the scorcher only 1 day earlier.

The results from the two fun 2m events have been unearthed and are below. Thanks to Darian for working them out. A couple of the 2m FoxOrs had somehow ended up on low power (?), and unfortunately they were some of the more distant ones. One was in constant carrier mode, which was a bit confusing with so much other RF noise around.

2m Sprint Course (~1.5km) 4 TX (something went wrong with TX#4 on the day, but it seems to work fine now!)

Darian 22mins 4TX
Monica 39mins 4TX

2m FoxOr Course (~5km) 9 TX on different frequencies

Bryan 70mins 9TX
Darian 50mins 8TX
Adam 57Mins 8TX
Jack 56mins 6TX
Monica 53mins 4TX
Henk & Di 78mins 4TX
Suzanne 80mins 4TX

Ewen also presented us all with an intriguing ARDF word puzzle that was quite a challenge. No-one got all the words, with I believe the closest being Monica with 15 ARDF words. Other placings went to Mark, Bruce and Henk.

Nibblies and BBQ followed, then we viewed the Legend of Burnout Barry, featuring the well known Invermay Drive in Monbulk. Many also stayed for the feature, chosen by a popular vote of 2 Vs 1, of Jasper Jones.

April 8, 2019July 25, 2020

Both AR relays teams place at Vic Relays

The AR club only entered two teams in the Mixed category (Short,Long,Medium) of the Victorian Orienteering Club Relays, but they placed 2nd and 3rd, so everyone competing got a certificate. Dry and warm autumn conditions at Eppalock.

April 4, 2019July 25, 2020

Vic ARDF scoop at Street-O presentations

The small AR club had an impressively high placings hit rate at the Street-O Monday/Wednesday Summer series presentations on 3rd April.
We even had the 1st/2nd/3rd tri-fector in one of the Power Walking categories !

Congrats to Bruce, Suzanne, Mark, Dianne, Henk, Jenelle, Ewen and Ian (not in picture – he had to head off home earlier).

February 25, 2019July 25, 2020

Feb 2019 Foxhunt


Team	Hunt 1	Hunt 2	Hunt 3	Hunt 4	Hunt 5	Hunt 6	Total	Place
	80 M			10M
VK3CI	Err:522	9	0	2	3	2	16	1
VK3BLN	10	10	10	1	0	0	31	3
VK3FAST	10	10	10	0	2	4	36	4
VK3FOX	4	0	6	3	1	3	17	2

February 23, 2019July 25, 2020

February 2019 fox hunt report

The February fox hunt was run by the VK3OW team. The hounds were VK3CI, VK3BLN, VK3FAST and VK3FOX.

The first event was a two legged hunt with the first leg being somewhat unusually on 80 meters with the second leg being on 2 meters. Both transmitters were in Plenty George Park Melway map 10 . 80m on a knoll at ref E7 and 2m in the bush at about J5. The two foxes were a 1.5 Km run or a 10 Km drive apart. The 80M fox gave, as it turned out, rather too cryptic comments suggesting the the hounds should bring a 2m sniffer when hunting the 80m fox. Or was it my rather rusty CW too difficult to read? The FOX team found both foxes within the time limit. The CI team found both foxes and although strictly over time for the 2m leg were given a point for actually finding the fox. Bruce in fact found the 80M fox first with Kristian 4 minutes later. Kristian was however first into the 2m fox, I suspect because the FOX team were better organised getting a 2m sniffer to Kristian. There appeared to be harsh words spoken in the CI team! The BLN team gave themselves somewhat of a penalty by starting from Doncaster or there abouts rather than Greeensborough. The hunts were run by VK3OW (80m) and VK3SLH (2m)

The next hunt was on 2m with the fox located in Cherry Street Grasslands, Melway map 20 A6. CI were first in followed by the FOX team sometime later. The BLN team arrived in good time but then tried to drive in and ended up getting their antenna tangled in a tree which slowed progress considerably. The hunt was run by VK3AI and VK3FVXN.

The next hunt was on 10m with the fox located in Price Park, Melway 20F11. The hunt started after a delay due to an air gap in the fox antenna system and the FAST team finally lived up to their name arriving quickly with BLN a minute later, followed by CI a minute after that with another minute gap to the FOX team. Hunt was run by VK3OW and VK3SLH. We were sitting at a picnic table in what we thought was a fairly plain view but all the hounds ran wide of us, finally spiralling in after running past.

The next hunt was on 2m with the fox located in Lenister Farm Melway 21J11 As we were runnning later than we wanted to be the fox was turned on while Stephen was still mobile. To ensure a good signal he “mounted’ the antenna in the sun roof. We had also planned to hide the transmitter but decided to leave it in the car. First in was the BLN team followed by the FOX team and then the FAST team who would have done better if Monica had seen the fox antenna on the roof of the car before running around it more than once. The CI team arrived a minute later.

The final hunt, on 2m, was located in Finns reserve Map 33D2 where VK’s 3AI, FVXN and FJTE were preparing supper. First in was the BLN team, followed by the CI team then FOX and FAST.

My thanks to the hounds for participating, and not lynching me for the 80M hunt. Also to Dianne, Jenelle and Henk for organising and preparing supper with a big thanks to Jenelle for the unexpected birthday cake.

Final results were CI the winners on 16 points, followed by the FOX team on 17 points, then The BLN team, 31 points, and the FAST team on 36 points.

Posted: 24 February 2019, Ewen Templeton

September 22, 2018July 25, 2020

2m Sprint-TX test practice

Today was a lovely sunny spring day here in Melbourne, a perfect opportunity to test the new set of 2m Sprint transmitters, following a Street orienteering (Cake-O) event in the far eastern suburb of Chirnside Park. This was also a brand new map, the first time a street-O has been run in Chirnside. The Start/Finish location was the beautiful and manicured Delemere Reserve.

A number of ARDF regulars decided to make the trek to dabble in a bit of Sprint practice, as well as most also competing in the orienteering event prior (which wasn’t quite as hilly as I’d expected beforehand).

The results for the Sprint TX testing appears below too.

Rough Results

Competitors self-timed, as this was only an informal practice, but for the heck, here are the recorded results. You’ll note for both Jack and Jenelle I’ve only awarded 4 TXs. Perhaps Jenelle forgot to get TX#3 ? There’s no punch there anyway. In Jack’s case, he has the wrong punch mark for TX#5. Now I don’t know quite how he managed this, as there was only one punch at each TX. I can only assume he has punched at some random orienteering control, or perhaps at the grey practice FoxOr, instead (in the big tree just near the start) !?!

Name	#TXs	Time	Place
Kris Ruuska	5	10:14.00	1
Monica Lo Presti	5	30:30.00	2
Ewen Templeton	5	33:00.00	3
Jack Bramham	4	26:00.00	4
Jenelle Templeton	4	35:00.00	5
Uncle Rod	1+	?	6

TX #3 in the middle of the roundabout (shrubs are a bit bigger than pictured here). Jenelle missed this one.

TX #4 in a different little park well to the south

TX #5 near the tennis courts. Jack didn’t punch at this one.

Testing, Testing…

Another reason was to test the new sprint transmitters in the field for the first time.

Successes:

They all turned on at 2:30pm that afternoon, as programmed to 2 days before, and the transmit sequence was perfect, with no overlap between transmitters.
Battery voltage tests afterwards show all transmitter batteries had barely discharged at all, after running for a couple of hours (and 2 days sleeping). Even the Homing Beacon, which has the highest duty cycle, the LiIon cell was still above 4V. Lowest was 3.77V on the test FoxOr transmitter.

Room for improvement:

Some had difficulty DFing and IDing the transmitters at the same time. This may be because the CW is achieved by turning the final off and on, but the exciter stays on during the whole 12s. This means in practice, in whoopee mode, the sniffers alternate between a high and low tone, rather than being a definite OFF between the CW pulses, and this is harder for the brain to figure out. Another test version of firmware from Byon turns on and off the entire transmitter, but this suffers from a slow PLL re-lock time, making the pulse ‘soft’ and too short (the lock time was nearly as long as a dit). Perhaps a new special version that pre-turns on the PLL before each final stage pulse could help. Alternatively, something kludgey that shorts the exciter output during the OFF might improve things.
There is currently no modulation on the transmitters. Only FM modulation is available, and this seems to spread the power available over a wider frequency band, reducing the range of the transmitters significantly (liatening on whoopee, the exciter alone produces a higher whoopee tone than the modulated FM with final on, effectively inverting the morse, making it very hard to read!). Jack had problems with the Nick Roethe 2m sniffer, as it only engages whoopee when close-in, and with no modulation not much could be heard on AM. No easy solution to this one.
Perhaps the dits could be a bit longer. This can be manipulated somewhat in the MicroFox programming, but any changes would then need to be re-cal’d on all transmitters so the on-time window is correct for an integral number of morse words.
The Homing Beacon seemed to be down on power at the end. The battery was not the cause of this. Needs investigation. Is the PA getting warm ?
Feedback on anything else ?

August 11, 2018July 25, 2020

Sprint Training

With the forecast wind and hail, 9 brave souls attempted the ARDF Sprint training held in and around Deakin Uni. A couple also did some of the Enduro controls, which was an orienteering event starting from the same spot.

The format of the event was a Five-in-Five 2m event, which in theory is possible to complete in about 6.5 minutes, followed immediately by an 80m Sprint ARDF event. Five-in-Five uses classic 5 minute cycle (1 minute each) ARDF transmitters spaced close enough that it should be possible, walking, to get to each transmitter as it comes on first time (for you). Only Jack WWW managed to get the transmitters in under 10 minutes (2 cycles). Good effort, Jack ! He admits he had a bit of luck, with earlier competitors just leaving transmitters as he approached, helping to lead him in. The time limit for this part of the event was set to 30 minutes. The transmitters were all in parkland, just off a track. In you look at the splits, below, you’ll also see Jack was the only one to do the transmitters in order, with everyone else going from #1 to #5, and then to others. Perhaps some just happened across #5 by accident ?

Mark, Suzanne & Rodney elected to only do the Five-in-Five course, with Mark the winner amongst those. Suzanne suffered some late penalties (problems with #1), but still beat out Rodney for second place. Looking at the splits at control 6 (236), Jack was clearly the fastest at this part of the event, followed with an impressive 11 minutes by Jenelle.

An ARDF sprint event has a 1 minute complete cycle, with each transmitter only on for 12s each. This was set in an area with both complex buildings, the university, and parkland around Gardiners Creek. TX #5 and #4 were in amongst the buildings and this proved too much for Jack and Peter, but not so Kris and Jennelle, who both managed those with ease. Monica liked #5 so much she punched it twice (see splits below) ! Clearly after being so flustered by those two tricky TX’s, Jack and Peter both also forgot to punch the Finish Beacon (which you are required to do at international events).

And TX #1 in the uni accommodation area ? Well, it had to be there didn’t it 🙂 Can’t make it too easy ! Generally competitors had to plan and DF carefully in this event, as it could be easy to end up the wrong side of the creek. Competitors doing both events had an un-timed (up to a 10min limit) transition leg between 2m and 80m, to get their 80m gear in order. I’m happy to say the software handled this perfectly, and I didn’t have to adjust the times it published at all.

Yep, we got that hail, and the heavy rain, but luckily both were only for short bursts, being perfect running conditions otherwise. Monica says the hail even helped her spot TX#5, as she sought shelter under cover. Besides, it’s good practice and testing for your gear, as sometimes weather can be quite unpredictable at international events. Torrential downpours are not uncommon. Thanks to Ewen for the new 80m Sprint TXs. Proto TX#1 for the 2m set has now been completed (and works), so soon we’ll have a 6-TX set on both bands.

Thank you to everyone who helped pick up the transmitters afterwards, just before the rain came (again). Apologies to Monica for not giving her a key on her first attempt.

Here’s the map, with TX locations shown. I’ve used A->E for the 80m TX, and 1->5 for 2m TX. BB was the location of both 2m and 80m beacons.

Here’s the full results:

Name

Callsign

Course

#TX

Score

Late Penalty

Time

Place

Time

Mark

VK3BES

FiveInFive