Sunday 12th August was the date of the 2007 Vic ARDF championships. This event was being held in conjunction with an Orienteering event on the new Dales Creek Map run by the Tuckonie Orienteering club.
The weather for the day included all 4 seasons but fortunately all competitors had finished before the hail arrived. The rain the night before had made for some very slippery tracks in some places and there were reports of the bush-land running being faster.
There were a total of 10 competitors entered over the 3 courses. The Open division saw 5 male and 1 female competitor try their luck against the course setter (Mark Diggins) and the clock. Two competitors tried the 3 Tx course and 2 competitors had some fun with tackling the closest Transmitter. Adam – overall Vic Champs winner! Marta and The Fitz finishing Ian finishing Gary at the second transmitter
Marta and Fitzel Busy at the finish table The open division line length was approximately 7.4Kms whilst the short course was about 3.7Kms. The transmitters were all able to be heard from the start, but only just for some receiver equipment. There was some localized confusion with bearings but no common deceptions, much to the organiser’s regret. Times for the Open division ranged from just over 1 hour to 2.5 hours.
Congratulations go to Adam Scammell, Bryan Ackerly and Bruce Paterson who were 1st 2nd and 3rd respectively in the Open Male division. Also winning this years championship was Marta Salek in the Open Female division.
A special mention also to Ian Chennell (VK3IDC) who was able to find all 3 Tx’s on his very first attempt at ARDF and return in quite a good time.
A big thank-you is given to Julie and Sean Sunley of the Tuckonie Orienteers as this event would not have been possible without their support.
A RadiO course was held on Sunday 20th May at the picturesque Hanging Rock park, made famous by the Aussie film Picnic at Hanging Rock. It was also part of the worldwide Foxhunting Week.
The course was a novel format designed to blend into an Orienteering Hageby event run bt Bayside Kangaroos orienteering club. A year or so ago Bryan Ackerly held an RadiO co-event with a Hageby using 3 legs, 80m and 2m FoxOr and a pure orienteering leg. This event built on this theme, using a FoxOr 2m leg, an 80m ARDF leg and 2 different length orienteering legs. This compared fovourably with the orienteering equivalent courses which had 4 orienteering legs.
The park is small, and only a 1:5000 scale, so the challenge is to offer interesting courses without too much risk of stumbling into ARDF controls while you’re on another leg ! I elected to be cunning and tricky on some FoxOr legs, but straightforward on the ARDF legs to ensure the ARDF wasn’t too daunting for those inexperienced in it’s complexities. One of the FoxOr controls, though on the map, was outside the fenced in park area; one way to increase the distance for a leg since you had to run the short distance back to the main gate. Another was behind a water tank that you had to negotiate a complex series of open gates to actually get to the side it was on (unles you’re Gary and thin enough to slip past the tank and the wall).
Apologies about all the slippery ash below one of the FoxOr controls. It was beyond my control ! It turns out there was an easy way track route into this control from both directions (not marked on the map), but I didn’t know this myself and also had to brave the slippery slope.
When planning the course I pencilled in am ARDF control on a dead tree beside a small lake, but on the morning, when I found the lake was largely empty due to the drought, I relocated it to a treed island.
The event itself was beset by persistant showers and occasional heavy rain, despite it being a fine day in Melbourne, so well done to all the competitors to brave the elements.
Three courses were offered and taken up by the 14 RadiO competitors:
RA had 4 loops; Two O loops (med & short), any 6 of 7 2m FoxOr and all 5 80m ARDFs. ~10km
RB had 4 loops. Two O loops (long & short), any 5 of 7 FoxOrs and 2 of 5 ARDFs. ~8km
RC was one loop, any 15/28 O controls and any 4/7 FoxOrs. For beginners ~3km
Others made up their own courses as suited them, a few doing just FoxOr after an full orienteering course or helping organising the events.
Course
Name
Club
Lap One
Lap Two
Lap Three
Total Time
RA
Marta Salek
AR
19.15
51.40
61.48
104.50
RA
Adam Scammell
AR
DNF
A
Adam Scammell
AR
18.38
31.55
43.10
60.10
RB
Gary Panter
AR
27.40
52.00
64.40
81.20
RB
Mark Besley
AR
11.19
48.05
84.29
114.51
RB
David Beard
AR
35.55
57.45
DNF
RC
Hogan/ Maclagan
113.00
RC
Darian Panter
AR
42.55
Fox7
Dianne Shalders
BK
77.00
Fox4
Ryordan Panter
AR
26.13
Fox4
Susanne OCallaghan
BK
30.00
Fox4
Pam King
DR
33.00
Fox1
Peter & Phillip Gossip
BK
20
Notes:
Hogan/Maclaglan had never tried RadiO before, but one had tracked possums, so this was an interesting exercise for them. The YNG sniffers were a lot easier to use than the AM gear she had used for the possums. They did a special course combining FoxOrs with the orienteering PW course (any 20).
Peter Gossip & son, Phillip, went out to try for 1 FoxOr to see what it was like after their orienteering. They enjoyed it so much that they may try a full RadiO event next time.
Di Shalders started off doing RC course after assisting with running the orienteering event, but changed it to 7/7 ForOrs since she was enjoying that more.
Darian Panter went out with Susanne for a couple of controls to help on her first ever RadiO event. Thanks Darian.
David was not feeling well after his 2nd leg and had to abort during the FoxOr. He’s fine now.
Adam was doing 4 legs for orienteering followed by the two RadiO legs to attempt to get a score for both.
We were originally scheduled to run the March hunt but this was cancelled due to lack of teams, despite moving the date forward a week to suit a number of teams.
The hunt started from the Pinewood Shopping Centre carpark in good weather.
Despite Bruce (TJN) racing out to the first hiding spot so we could commence shortly after the 8pm starting time, the VT team was running late and arrived at the start around 8:20 without their gear set up. They very quickly mounted everything and by soon after 8:25 we had 6 teams (YDF, BLN, VT, VR, TXO, HRL) ready to go.
For the first hunt Bruce was located in Norton’s park, which should be familiar to street orienteers. The lower power used had a few teams overestimating the distance. BLN was first to find him, followed within a minute by YDF and HRL. Yes, Roger (HRL) had quickly formed a team only a couple of days before, comprising him and a couple of inexperienced friends and he borrowed some of Bruce’s gear on the way to the start location. His success in finding the first fox within a minute of the first team was excellent but unfortunately this success was not to last the entire evening. TXO and VR arrived 4 minutes later. VT arrived too late and scored the maximum 10 points – this was caused by hasty gear assembly and not observing their “green to green” policy of antenna mounting – yes, you guessed it the yagi was put on backwards. Greg picked up on this eventually when the signal seemed to get weaker and weaker the “closer” they got to the fox.
The next hunt was two-legged with the first leg on 70cm. At the start Gary (TXO) reported that he didn’t have any 70cm gear (no receiver, beam or sniffer). Fortunately Bruce had brought a 70cm sniffer with him that Gary picked up from him at the first fox location so his team would be able to follow another hound into the area and then use Bruce’s sniffer to compete independently. Well, that was the theory – unfortunately Bruce’s 70cm sniffer was found to be faulty.
The first leg was located at the end of a road behind a very large, deep and dangerous quarry. This excellent spot was discovered by Steve when sightseeing in March (when we were originally to be fox). The bush covered peak could only be accessed via a 500m long track bounded by high cyclone fences on both sides for the entire length of the track. The hunt start was a little delayed when Bruce discovered that since last month a boom gate had been installed at the start of the track (just for vehicles, pedestrians fine) so the fox had to walk in too. A piece of dodgy coax (possibly aggravated by the walk in), and a question mark battery meant that the 70cm wasn’t as good as it might have been. The HRL team was by far first in the area, and had even dropped off Roger with a sniffer as BLN called numerous times from various locations, and VR called from Mt Dandenong claiming everyone else was with them (oh really ?). Despite the early presence of HRL, the YDF team found us shortly after (must have used that transmat beam on Mt Dandenong). BLN checked all sides of the quarry, but had problems hearing the fox. We were still some distance above the quarry though. TXO found the fox despite us lending them a non-functional sniffer (sorry guys! – another thing to fix, grrr). 4 of the 6 teams (YDF first, then HRL, VT, TXO) found Bruce, with BLN finding him 3 minutes after the time limit and VR giving up and going to have a coffee muttering something about the quarry being private land (except the fox wasn’t in there).
The second leg was on 2m located in bushland where Ian (YQN) and Peter were sitting at a picnic table at the top of a hill with lights in the distance visible through the full 360 degrees. First in was Adam (YDF) followed 2 minutes later by Doug (VT team) and then 7 minutes later Gary TXO and shortly afterwards Marta of the BLN team. HRL didn’t find it and the VR team were still off somewhere consuming caffeine.
The fox team had given up on having Steve with us for the night due to him being overseas but were surprised to find him turn up during hunt 2 having come straight from the airport to join us for the rest of the evening. The hunt was scored on the time difference between the legs and was won by YDF followed closely by VT, then a fair margin to the other teams.
Hunt 3 was supposed to be another 70cm/2m 2-legged event but due to problems with the signal in the previous hunt (and also that dodgy sniffer) we decided to make it 2 x 2m. The VR team returned to the event after a bex and a good lie down.
The first leg was run by Bruce who was located up a tree atop a hill (revenge on Marta) in Wellington Chase park. First in was Adam for YDF who took only a few passes under the tree before looking up followed by VR within a minute of them (the caffeine obviously worked). Next to arrive was Gary (TXO) who spend agonising minutes passing back and forth under the fox, occasionally disappearing off into the forest. David for BLN team saw me as soon as he approached. Under the tree (again) was Gary, and behind David were 2 runners from other teams. Despite Bruce desperately trying to communicate to David quietly that he was in, he insisted on blowing his advantage by loudly demanding a reply. He got it, and all 4 teams got the same score, including Gary who’d spent an embarrassing 8 minutes searching below. All teams found this fox.
For the second leg Peter & Ian were located behind an industrial area. We had expected that some teams might try and find a way through to the rear down factory drive-ways or other suspect means (i.e. via private property) before they found where we had managed to drive in. We didn’t however expect anyone to come in from the north which turned out to be quite amusing for Ian to watch from his hiding spot on top of a very large dirt mound as in order to get in that way hounds would have to cross a 3m or so wide creek. Several teams tried this with VT runners in particular running up and down the edge of the creek for ages trying to find a way across (unsuccessfully). The fox wasn’t particularly well hidden – just sitting on the ground. Despite this, it was amusing to watch from a distance as several runners each took a couple of minutes to find it, walked past it within 50cm several times, one even shining their torch onto it multiple times as they past it before finally finding it. First in was John (BLN) followed by Tim (YDF team) then a gap to Geoff and Ian (VR team). Ian was the exception to all the other runners – he came up the mound, walked in a direct line towards the fox and found it instantly. Right on the 20 minute time limit was VT and HRL – Roger was exhausted and couldn’t run up the mound despite the looming time limit, having been dropped off over a kilometre away. The distance he’d run was evident by the fact that it took his team mates around 10 minutes to drive to the meeting spot after it was announced. This hunt was scored as a mixture of the time into the first hunt and the differential time into the second fox. This resulted in the hunt being won by YDF, followed by VR, BLN, TXO, then VT and HRL.
The sudden unexpected presence of Steve was a bonus because he was able to run the supper hunt. To get it underway quickly, Bruce ran a fox from his car as he drove home and then Steve’s weaker signal took over once he was in position. Steve was hidden in a large cage full of tyres near an Australia Post processing centre. This quite good location was found by Bruce that evening on his way home from work. First in was YDF followed by 3 minutes later by BLN, VR, HRL and VT within seconds of one another, with TXO at the 10 minute mark.
Last time we were fox, the night progressed much faster than expected and we had to introduce another spontaneous hunt to fill in the time. This time we took no chances with running out of locations and that planning coupled with the late start & 70cm issues meant we ended up with 5 unused locations – almost enough for another entire evening. At least planning next time will be easier!
Supper was held at Bruce’s place in Ashwood.
Overall scores and placings were:
Team
Score
Place
YDF
2
1
BLN
27
2
VR
34
3
VT
35
4
TXO
40
5
HRL
41
6
Congratulations to the YDF team – that was huge winning margin.
From the point of view of course setting, 14th April was a perfect opportunity for me to offer my services. It was during the school holidays, so my normal Saturday “taxi” services taking my children to various activities would not be required. Croydon Hills is a great map to set as the network of winding streets leads to interesting courses virtually regardless of where controls are placed. I decided to set the normal Saturday afternoon “Cake-O” on behalf of Dandenong Ranges, and in addition to set radio courses on behalf of ARDF. As course setter for both, liaison problems would be minimised, and I could put out both the normal and the radio controls at the same time.
After the success of the “Combo” format offered by Ian Holland at Woodlands recently, I decided to offer this format of event for the Saturday. Five 2m Fox-Or transmitters were placed in suitable parkland areas (these abound on the Croydon Hills map) close to or between the normal orienteering controls. Additionally, there were standard Fox-Or courses offered for those who wanted to compete in the normal Street-O and do a radio course either beforehand or afterwards.
The Combo event was a 75-minute score format with normal 2/3/4/5 point scores for the orienteering controls and 10 points for each radio control. All competitors “got” all five of the Fox-Or controls. Both Bruce and Marta also got all 20 orienteering controls, and were separated by less than 30 seconds in total time. This was a very good effort when compared to the Street-O results where only two of the fastest “A” runners managed all 20 orienteering controls in the 60 minutes available for A course.
I was very pleased with the way the whole event ran and it was good to see several orienteers have a go at the Fox-Or either before or after the main event. The only low point was the theft of the flag and punch (luckily not the transmitter) from radio control R1. I would also like to thank Marta for her helpful suggestions prior to the event plus the “surprises” at control 12. Thanks also to those who helped collect controls and others who helped out during the event. I think that this type of combined event should be successful in future and hope that we can do more when suitable event locations are available.
An introductory CombO event was held at Woodlands Historic Park (just North of Tullamarine airport) on 1st April in conjunction with the Tukonie Orienteering Club.
I e-mailed an invitation to a few friends to encourage potential newcomers to the sport and was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who said they would come. I therefore planned an event tailored for newcomers, especially families. This was done by setting courses that combined finding some Fox-Or transmitters with finding some of the Orienteering controls that lay between the transmitter sites, thereby giving the kids in particular something exciting and challenging to do every few minutes. The result – a CombO event. I also put out a few treats for the kids at some of the RadiO controls close to the start.
There were 26 Orienteering controls and 6 Fox-Or controls.
4 Orienteering/Fox-Or combination courses were available (but no separate RadiO-only course), covering a range of ability and experience. There were 3 courses based on time:
RA: All 6 Fox-Or + any 15 orienteering controls (approx length 10k)
RB: Any 5 Fox-Or + any 12 orienteering controls (approx length 7.5k)
RC: Any 3 Fox-Or + any 8 orienteering controls (approx length 4.5k) – specifically designed for beginner families
These courses didn’t have a time limit, other than when the Finish closed around 1:30pm.
The course lengths above are approximate and are between 0.5 and 1km higher than the calculated straight line distances to allow for out of bounds areas, fences, etc.
If the 10 km CombO course wasn’t challenging enough, there was also a score-based course (RD). The aim was get as many points as possible within a time limit of 80 minutes (orienteering controls scored between 5 and 15 points (depending on their location) and the 6 Fox-Or controls were each worth 20 points).
Registration opened at 9:30 and staggered starts were planned from 10 to 12 noon, although some experienced entrants were allowed to leave after this time.
The turnout to the event was an impressive 114 competitors (21 of these did the CombO courses), although the number of people attending was somewhat higher than this figure (especially for the CombO courses) as quite a few of the participants were family groups.
Deciding on the number and type of courses was challenging – there needed to be enough of them to span at least from beginner to advanced levels but not too many or there would end up being only one entrant in a course and therefore make scoring that course fairly meaningless. Fortunately with 21 RadiO entrants the choice of 4 courses resulted in at least 2 people doing each course, with most doing the course focussed on beginners (RC) as expected.
The weather on the day was close to perfect – it had been forecast all week as “Fine & 22” but on the morning of the event the forecast had changed to “Early drizzle, clearing in the afternoon, 22”. Fortunately no drizzle was encountered at the event even in the early morning while putting out the controls.
Everyone who attempted the RA, RB and RC courses managed to find all of the required controls and the kids managed to find a few lollies that were left with the 3 closest RadiO controls.
For those that are interested I’ve posted images of the routes I used to determine the course lengths for the RA, RB and RC courses at www.digitalideas.com.au/woodlands. I don’t guarantee these are the optimal courses and obviously the actual length on foot is somewhat more than the cartography software calculated as straight lines between the controls. This is especially true for the RA course because getting to the R3 control required navigating around an uncrossable fence to a gate.
Here are the summarised results by course (if you are not one of those mentioned but would like to know your time or place, let me know).
RA (2 entrants)
Marta Salek 75:58
Mark Besley 97:15
RB (5 entrants)
Won by Bryan Ackerly in a time of 51:38.
Other competitors times ranged from 71:44 to 114:48
It should be noted that Bryan’s time in this event is doubly impressive in that he
had just completed the 10km Run For the Kids event in the morning in a very fast time with a focus on bringing
extra sniffers to the Woodlands event as soon as possible, which he managed to
do just as the first lot of sniffers ran out (thanks Bryan).
Last across the line was Fitzel (Marta’s dog), closely followed by his companion David.
RC (11 entrants)
Won by Diane Shalders in a time of 42:56
Most beginners chose this course and treated it more as a learning/fun exercise
rather than as a competitive event.
All entrants, despite most never doing any form of orienteering before, managed not
only to get around their chosen route without getting lost but also to find all the required controls.
RD (timed event: 80min limit, 2 entrants)
Bruce Paterson, time 80:10, score of 325.
Catherine Sheahan, time 82:10, score of 150
When Bruce arrived at the finish, I was quite astonished at the level of perspiration
that was literally pouring off him.
He had clearly been running VERY hard for quite a while.
It wasn’t until I looked at his control card that I understood why.
He had managed to find all of the Fox-Or controls except
R4 (the one furthest south) AND all but one of the 26 orienteering controls!
According to his stopwatch he had managed to get back within the last minute of the 80
minute limit, but according to the official timer, he was 10 seconds over the limit!
Thanks
As I hadn’t done orienteering (other than at school – that’s MANY years ago) and this was the first RadiO course I’d set I had a steep learning curve in a number of areas. A very big thank you is due to the following people:
My brother John for helping me extensively tour the park to find suitable control locations and deploy & collect the controls on the day;
Huge thanks to Bruce Paterson for coping with endless e-mails of questions from me, lending me one of his bikes, going back out to pick up 2 of the controls after doing the hardest course (RD) and for handing out sniffers and training people when John and I were overdue back at the Registration tent (it took a LONG time in the field untangling the pile of control flags and punches – should have checked that box of items more thoroughly before the event);
The TK orienteering club, in particular Julie Sunley, Janetta Davis & Lindsay Thomas.
Without these people’s help this RadiO event would not have been anywhere near as successful.
Thanks also to Marta and Adam and all the newcomers I invited who took up the challenge and turned up to try something quite different from the average Sunday outing.
Thanks to everyone who went out of their way to tell me they enjoyed it; that made all the effort very worthwhile.
VK3YDF and team ran the final foxhunt for 2006 in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne on a lovely Summer night. Five teams assembled at Blackburn Railway Carpark at 8pm and the first hunt started shortly after.
Adam made good use of a small area between a carpark and office shop front to hide himself and a fox.
The second hunt was a 2 leg affair that saw teams challenged by closed roads due to rail and roadworks at Laburnum train station. Hounds (after 10minutes) found their ways up onto the platform where they found Bryan and Darian and some random drunk guy. (yep, you guessed it, a lot of teams thought it was the bum).. Teams then flew off in search of the second leg that was found by a drain reserve not far from Canterbury Road Blackburn Road Cnr’s.
We thought we’d throw a bit of everything in, so this time we employed the 10minute drive off rule and drove ourselves to a laneway between houses and vacant land in Mont Albert. Teams disappeared as quickly as they arrived owing mostly to the fact that this too was a 2 legged hunt. The teams next found themselves at the big bustop carpark near Doncaster Road.
Next up was another single legger to a large open canal drain near Bulleen road and an impromptu hunt the foxhunting Fox were Adam sneakily followed more than one team around.. (to the confusement of all)..
An adjurnment allowed for cold drinks to be served. Teams were soon off again for the final hunt for the night a 3 TX hidden in reserves that adjoined the Yarra in the Bulleen / Templestowe area. Hounds found Adam and Darrian on an Island, Steve in a carpark that was sort of locked (VT?), and Bryan near the Bike track (yes, with a bike)..
All teams and hounds arrived at the Supper location by 11.30pm where BBQ and Supper was provided (thanks Dianne).
On a cloudy day, a small group of intrepid RadiO orienteers gathered at the Lion’s Den in Emerald Lake Park. Attendance was low, both for the RadiO event and the BK normal orienteering event being held in conjunction with ours – this was set by one of our members, Dianne. Nonetheless, every event on offer was tried by at least one person, with mixed results.
A 2m ARDF course was on offer – this was tried by Bruce. Unfortunately, over 2 hours after beginning, he returned rather disgruntled, and informed us that the event was an ARDF course, not a fox hunt! Excessive paranoia relating to stolen transmitters, coupled with bushland much thicker than we had anticipated, meant that the transmitters had been placed in locations that were really too obscure for an ARDF event, leading to a lot of time spent standing around near the transmitter locations, waiting for them to turn on again. A good point was made by Mike Hubbert – should we be really worried about people pinching our equipment, then we could continue to hide the transmitters thoroughly, and just place the flags high up and further away from the transmitter location, so they can easily be seen.
More successful were the FoxOr and CombO courses. Seven 2m FoxOr-ing controls had been placed around the lake, with four of the ARDF transmitters positioned “in-between” these controls. Those doing the CombO course had the option of finding any two of the ARDF transmitters, as well as the FoxOring controls. Gary and Henk completed the FoxOr without too much difficulty (except perhaps for control 2, which had been placed in fairly thick scrub), while Bryan, Mark and Mike had a shot at the CombO event. All three of the latter people found the ARDF controls, and seemed satisfied with the course, which was a bit of a relief after the ARDF debacle! Credit to Mike and Mark for heading out after already completing an orienteering circuit; especially as the heavens opened halfway through their events, drenching all those out there for a good half hour or so! Full marks to Bryan, also, for competing despite still recovering from foot problems following the marathon he had completed the previous week.
An 80m 5-in-5 course was also available, although only a couple of people had a shot at this – I think the rather unpleasant turn in the weather meant that most people wanted to dry off and head home once they returned, and weren’t as keen to give the RadiO courses a try. There seemed to be fewer of our regulars around as well, which didn’t help matters. Nonetheless, I put the controls out, vigorously flinging red cable up into the trees and then hiding in panic as both the wire and various overhanging branches rained back down on me! David then went out to give the course a shot. A few problems made themselves apparent. First, the thickness of the bush meant that cutting through forest to get between controls was not a viable option – you really had to run along tracks and dive off once you got close. I had provided blank maps of the general area to make this slightly less painful, but I’m not sure how easy it is to navigate while having 1 minute to get between controls! I actually had to put controls somewhat closer together than I had planned because of this little problem, and also because, just as I started putting transmitters out, some park rangers decided to close off a bridge I had planned to use! Secondly, David found that stopping to punch the control (given that they were generally located amongst fairly thick shrubbery), meant that there was no chance of getting to the next control within its cycle period. We therefore decided that it was OK to just sight the flag; punching was not required. We should perhaps adopt this method for future 5-in-5 events… Bryan had a go before this new rule was introduced, but independently decided not to physically approach the controls anyway, mainly because he was using a new 80m transmittter in which the sense antenna wasn’t working. Bruce went out afterwards, and had a successful run – he didn’t quite get to the first control in the first minute because he was a couple of seconds late starting, but found the rest within the second cycle period, which is pleasing.
All in all, the FoxOr and CombO events went quite well, as did the 5-in-5 once the non-punching rule was implemented. Best not to say anything further about the ARDF course! A few more people giving the event a go would have been nice, but you can’t do much about the weather, I guess…
The hounds met at the Pinewood Shopping Centre and were set off from there by Neale Banks (thanks for helping out Neale).
The night was run by Ian VK3YQN, Bruce VK3TJN, Roger VK3HRL and Peter and consisted of a mixture of single and two-leg hunts with a 70cm leg thrown in as well.
Hunt 1 Leg A We were worried that the 70cm signal on this first hunt of the night might be a bit weak way back at the Pinewood start location, but it turned out the hounds had a good signal all the way. The fox used was Ian MZ’s 70cm intermittent unit that put out a good signal on the 3 element beam in the tree beside the creek, at the back of Greaves Reserve, Noble Park. All hounds had difficulty with overloaded 70cm sniffers and a fair delay till they looked upwards into the tree. VK3YDF took the longest time dithering around, but BLN and MZ teams were also experienced considerable frustration. MZ was in first followed 3 minutes later by YDF and OW with BLN arriving 6 minutes after them.
Hunt 1 Leg B This 2m fox-or transmitter was located by Peter a short run from the first leg (provided you knew where the bridge was) in a drain pipe on the Eastlink construction area. First in was MZ followed by YDF, OW and finally BLN with similar timing to the first leg.
Hunt 2 Leg A Ian (and his brother John) hid this transmitter in bushes at the East side of the lake in Karkarook park. First on the scene was Adam YDF followed a minute later by Geoff and BLN 3 minutes after that. OW arrived 4 minutes after that.
Hunt 2 Leg B Though physically not more than 300m from the 1st leg location, this 2nd leg was meant to be a real bastard. Shortly after we heard that teams were in on the 1st leg, we could here car doors slamming in the industrial estate off Warrigal Road….so near, yet simply no access in from there, except perhaps over nasty looking security fences with alarm systems. The BLN team happened to know someone who knew someone who’s dog knew about the spot we were hidden, but they were the last to find their way in from the South, off the end of Henry St. YDF was first, followed by MZ with OW narrowly beating BLN for third place. Most took some time to actually find the fox hidden under some discarded polystyrene foam halfway up (down ?) a steep embankment. Somehow the MZ team got a runner in from the North, through the trotting track, even though we thought we’d discounted this possibility pretty thoroughly in our explorations the weekend prior. Something mumbled about “easy to squeeze past gates”….hmmm, well we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. We’d considered hiding the fox within the ex-tip right beside our secluded laneway, but thought that this might create too many objections about not-particularly-accessible-property, despite the nice hole in the fence nearby. As it turns out one runner (another MZ one I think!) did come into our location via the tip….more mumblings about “no fences the way I came”, where we knew this to be patently impossible.
Hunt 3 Peter was located in the “Urban Forest” off Waverley Road. This was a fairly easy location and not surprisingly all teams arrived within 3 minutes of one another – YDF then MZ and OW together and finally BLN.
Hunt4 Leg A Bruce dropped Roger out of the car near Darling Station on his way to supper for a spontaneously created extra leg on this hunt to pad the night out to the correct length due to the hounds finding some of the trickier spots faster than anticipated. Roger was on foot on the east side of Monash Fwy near Darling Railway Station transmitting intermittently on the T7H. Most teams were observed before alighting from their vehicles so Roger took every opportunity to confuse them. The YDF team’s beam-swinger seemed to stop the beam at 12 o’clock every time, and as Roger was at his 3 o’clock he would transmit until he saw the beam start to turn, then turn off as the beam went past 1 o’clock. Nasty! MZ saw him before he could hide properly and were in first, followed by BLN, YDF and eventually OW.
Hunt4 Leg B The fox was located up an embankment on the side of the Anniversary Trail near Winton Rd. Easiest entry was via a lane near the corner of Nicholas street. Having arrived at the spot and turned on the transmitter Ian realised he probably should have the clipboard to record the score and, given that the first team had just found Roger, thought he could make a quick dash to the car and back before hounds arrived. Unfortunately just as he was locking the car, the MZ car arrived so he ran back, managing to get ahead of Geoff and out of site up the embankment before runners came after him. First in was Geoff followed very quickly by 3 other MZ runners coming from different directions. A couple minutes later Adam YDF arrived followed by BLN another 2 minutes after him. OW arrived just over time.
Hunt 5 This was the supper hunt and was handled by Peter. It was located in the new estate on the site of the old Arnott Factory near a fence at the end of a drain extending beyond the west end of Cox Lane. The location was found by Bruce when creating the “Hashwood” map. Similarly to Hunt 3 all teams found this within 3 minutes of each other with MZ first, followed by OW, YDF and finally BLN.
Final scores are slightly different from those announced on the night due to double checking however the placings are unaltered: 1st MZ 6 pts 2nd YDF 8 pts 3rd OW 18 pts 4th BLN 27 pts
On Saturday 6th May, after a week of pretty wet weather, it luckily cleared for a day of intense foxhunting activity.
Four teams VK3BLN, VK3TVB, VK3OW and VK3YDF competed for glory, and to test out rarely used equipment prior to the up coming National Championships in June.
None of the teams were in their normal Friday night member or car configurations, so anything was possible !
The Program had 5 hunts in various configurations and scoring methods. We ended up only having to cancel one 2m leg, and that was due to the whole thing starting � late due to the slow team arrival (well done to VK3TVB who were the only ones ready on time !).
Roger VK3HRL ran a short simple 70cm leg to get the day rolling and shake out the gear/maps and so on. This was scored using the normal 10minute timing. VK3TVB won this one comfortably with VK3OW just making it in before the 10 minutes was up. VK3YDF hadn�t yet arrived and VK3BLN didn�t quite make it to the fox in time.
The next hunt proved to be the most challenging of the day. It was 4 legs, hunt any order. The scored was based first on number of TX found, then if the same, time into the last TX found. The stopped exactly 1.5hours after starting. This format is great for spreading teams out as many elect to go for different legs first.
To make things interesting, there were two 23cm legs, a 10m and a 6m. No-one found the 23cm leg on Mt Wilson, but two teams were on the scent when the hunt ended. The 6m leg proved more challenging than intended, due to the odd things trees do to 6m, and only one team found this, and only as the fox was driving out at the end of the hunt. Two other teams spent much of their hunt time fruitlessly searching for the 6m fox.
Well done to the two teams who found two legs; VK3TVB won this hunt from VK3OW based on their 2nd TX time.
A Fox-or hunt with 7 transmitters scattered about the forest around the Barry�s Reef starting location was time limted to 20minutes. 4 frequencies were used, which meant that 3 transmitters shared frequencies with 3 others, just to add some complication.
As many could enter individually as you wanted, and we took the best score of a teams entrants to count towards the overall total. Also a welcome to Bevin, VK5TV who competed in this hunt, all the way from South Australia.
Adam, VK3YDF took out this one easily, finding all 7 in under the required time. Special mention also to Marta, who though was helping the fox the rest of the day, competed in the fox-or for her normal VK3BLN team getting a 2nd place for them here.
The two legged 80m/2m hunt was cut to just 80m due to timing constraints. We had planned to use an antenna mount for this hunt that ended up back in Melbourne due to a YQN team member being unable to make it at the last moment. A temporary mount was fashioned up with bits of coax and metal, so apologies for the dodgy signal on this leg.
Strangely the only team who could hear the signal at the start didn�t end up finding the fox, but VK3YDF did, 6 minutes ahead of VK3BLN.
Dinner was supplied pre-ordered at the Blackwood pub, and very good it was too. Though a little more expensive than self-catering for the event, it certainly made it easier for the fox team who had zero time to spare as it was !
Teams had to forgo dessert because soon afterwards was to follow the gruelling 4 legged night hunt. These are always meant to be difficult, to test team�s patience and perseverance. It is rare a team will breeze through easily on all legs, and again this proved to be the case. VK3TVB had difficulty with the first 2m leg, putting them well back in the field to start off with. Marta was the 2m fox located on a walking track to the North East of the start, deep in the Wombat State forest. VK3YDF and VK3BLN swapped places for the 70cm leg run by Roger from a track not shown on the map to the North West of the start. VK3BLN maintained their lead into the 10m fox operated by Ian, well to the East again at a hastily found new location (the earlier planned location was scrubbed due to a road closure). The final 6m leg run by Bruce turned out to be the un-doing of both VK3BLN and VK3YDF. It was located to the South of the start again in what was not meant to be that difficult a location. The two teams spent nearly an hour within about 3km of the 6m fox, not ever quite narrowing in. Meantime VK3TVB is making up lost ground and have found 10m. Unfortunately VK3TVB also waste their time, but in their case searching grotty dirt tracks over 6km away from the fox so were unable to capitalise on the misfortune of the leaders. Suffering grotty track overload they gave up in disgust (at themselves I hope !).
Finally VK3YDF find the 6m fox after an exhaustive grid search. They have to head off to Melbourne from there due to two members running the a �beat the train Puffing Billy fun run� the next day. About 10 minutes later VK3BLN turn up from an unexpected direction�yes I can see your headlights this time, John ! The 6m fox wasn�t far at all from the first road they�d turned down an hour earlier, and turned away as the signal dropped.
I�ll attempt to create a map picture of the event locations.
The night finished up with supper back at Roger�s grandparents house in Barry�s Reef, near Blackwood. Thanks to Roger for use of the great venue, and supper organisers Roger and Rhonda. VK3YDF are the overall winners, which implies they are running the Vic Champs next year ?….or perhaps someone new wants to give it a go.
Here are the results of the March fox hunt run on Friday 24th March 2006.
Old fashioned scoring was used – (time of arrival, point per minute, max 10, lowest score wins) . Leg times used on the 2 legged hunt 2.
Team
Hunt 1
Hunt 2a
Hunt 2b
Hunt 3
Hunt 4
Hunt 5
Hunt 6
Place
VR/MZ/TVB
7
0/7
1/8
1/9
3/12
1/13
1/14
1
BLN
0
7/7
0/7
2/9
7/16
2/18
5/23
2
YQN
7
1/8
7/15
0/15
0/15
2/17
9/26
3
YDF
10
9/19
10/29
5/34
2/36
0/36
0/36
4
TXO
10
5/15
10/25
2/27
10/37
3/40
2/42
5
Our thanks to those who participated, to Ian VK3MZ for the use of his fox, and to Sandra, YF of VK3CHR, for the excellent supper – I am told the quiches were delicious – pity the hordes had consumed them before I got there!!!!.
Cheers Greg on behalf of the the fox team: VK3VT, VK3CHR & VK3JDO
Twelve competitors gave RadiO a go today at the Bush Orienteering season opener near Daylesford. Despite some early drizzle in Melbourne the weather at the event was perfect.
Unfortunately not many attempted the full scale 5 transmitter ARDF event, but a few gave the novel Combo (Fox-or+) course a try . The line distance for the ARDF was 7km, but the quite hilly terrain made for a challenging event. Noone found all 5 within the 120 minute time limit.
The Combo course (do the Fox-or but also try to find any two ARDF transmitters) was an attempt to give a gradual introduction to ARDF to those already reasonably proficient at Fox-or style events. In the future a Combo course could be rolled into the standard Fox-or, but with bonuses for finding any ARDF transmitters as well.
The hilly terrain also meant many that attempted to do both a Bush-O and a RadiO were just too exhausted. There are two possible future options here. Those attempting both should be actively encouraged to do a shorter bush-O than normal (to have any real chance at the RadiO at all), or we attempt to always offer a Bush+RadiO course that incorporates a suitably short Bush-O only leg (Hageby style). The latter would require allowing Bush+RadiO starts from the same time as Bush-O (10:00am).
A few small issues:
There seem to be only 3 mini flags + punches in the Fox-or bag. Had make do with some Medals as flags.
Fox-or #1 started fine, but when it came back it was no longer flashing; it was stil producing a weak carrier. Some people found this one a bit weak. (Unit marked �Dodgy� with duct tape.)
The new LCD sniffers can’t really be lent out yet. A competitor who had one came back saying it didn’t work (for Fox-or) as it was too insensitive.
