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Easter 3-Days, Day 1

Today was the 1st of the 3 day Easter Australian orienteering competition.The results from the races on the 3 days are added together, so you stuff upone of them your chances of doing well are almost dashed.
Nick Collins had a wonderful run in the rocky and subtly varying terrain, getting all the way to the top of the M16 running board. Younger brother Peter also did well in mid-field. Dad had an extra value day spending over 3 hours out with a 40 minute epic leg. Unfortunately for M17 Angus Robinson, a foot injury from yesterday was just too much and he decided to throw it in at his 3rd control. Mother Anne, however, battled it out with Phillippa Collins.

Mark Besley comments that he found the map lacking obvious features once you get away from the rocky areas. Also the plethora of finish punches for different courses caught out many assuming everyone would have the last contol. Very cleverly they all shared a similar control description, so heading to the wrong one could be quite convincing. Some of the vegetation seemed thicker than mapped, wheras other vegetation boundaries were very vague.
Ewen and Henk were both happy to not finish last, but finish, which bearing in mind it’sa 3 day race is important. Suzanne was very happy and proud ofher 6th place.

Sledge course is a fun course open to anyone who wants to be in it, any age or sex. This year there was quite a contingent of girls, myself, various ex-elites or couldabeens and a junior boy (another Neuman !). One Day 1, the tradition is a mass start for all sledgers all on the same course. This produces a very fast event with various packs forming, breaking and re-forming. I took video footage of the 1st few stages and basically hadn’t much of a clue where I was for much of the 1st leg, so had to follow the crowd as the pack got it wrong. I decided a bit more navigation was probably a priority, and in fact I was pretty convinced the pack had got it wrong on the 3rd control, and since I spotted it first I was leading sledge for much of the next leg. My routes were often different for many of the following legs, but I kept re-joining one of the packs as we closed in. However I lost them behind on the 2nd last leg and was on my own for the finish split, which I won with 8s. Overall 3rd in Sledge !

More Sledge:http://www.easter2012.com.au/sledge-competition.html

For winning the finish split I have to wear some green boxers tomorrow. Other possible sledge prizes are fastest downhill, uphill and shortest legs and slowest overall time. Recognising there are many girls doing sledge now, there is a mix of boxers and nighties for the various achievements, so one of the boys looks very fetching in the polka-dot nighty he’ll have to wear tomorrow.
My video is being (possibly?) edited by the carnival organisers andI’ll put a link here when I know.

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Easter 3 Days – Prologue

Today was the 1st day of competition as part of the whole orienteering carnival in Stanthorpe, Queensland.

Victorians arrrived by car from Vic, or plane & car from Brisbane mainly yesterday and today.

Waiting to start
ARDF/BK Tent

This first day is not really part of the 3-Days, more just a warm up.

 

The family relays had amongst them the Collins, Key and Wymer families, all who performed extremely well. Peter Collins bet he would finish the medium course before his Mum, Phillipa on the short course. Phillipa, howver, was having none of it, finishing minutes ahead of Peter, despite his very credible 22 minutes (11th overall on the medium course). Eddie Wymer did the best Long course time. Nick at spectator

Debbie at spectator

The rest of us chose from short, medium or long courses. It was an interseting map with large open areas interspersed with surprisingly tricky rocky outcrops and forested strips. It wasn’t overly hard, but had to be run at almost sprint course speeds to

Peter after spectator

do well, so you could think of it as a hard nav bush sprint. Map is shown here. Nearly everyone did something silly at some point along the course, so it’s not as easy as it might seem at first glance.

Prologue: Long course map

 

 

 

Just had a BBQ at the hotel here because nearly everything is shut here on Good Friday.

Tomorrow the 3 days starts in earnest, so I’m leaving Fred to use my bed,and annoy Mark & Ewen, and I’m moving out to a tent !

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Radio Hageby @ Karkarook Park, 1st April 2012 – Marta and Pierre

Despite forecast showers, the weather was perfect for the first Sunday Special of the series – slightly overcast with the sun breaking out later in the afternoon. We set a hageby course on a brand new map (thanks to Adam Scammell from the ARDF group for producing this one!), providing two standard orienteering legs, one 2m Fox-Oring legs and one 80m ARDF. The orienteering legs, in particular, were designed for beginning orienteers, and this allowed the Thomas family kids to successfully navigate around the first orienteering leg without their dad’s help – well done, guys! Both kids and dad then successfully completed their Fox-Oring leg, their first foray into RadiO sport despite a long interest. It was great to see them enjoy themselves.

We had an exceptional turnout today – 37 people went out with control cards, and some of those were families. This was great to see, because the ARDF events often do not attract a large following. While some of the non-ARDF members enjoyed a normal orienteering run on our new map, several other brave souls forayed into the brand new world of RadiO orienteering, with great success! We’d like to mention in particular Steve Peacock and Jeff Hughes, who completed both Fox-Oring and ARDF legs! An excellent first attempt, and we look forward to seeing you again at future events. Bernie Shuttleworth also gave RadiO orienteering a go, completing an entire Fox-Oring leg as well as finding a couple of ARDF transmitters. Excellent effort, Bernie. And welcome back to Jun and Miki Okabe, as well, who ran both orienteering legs as well as completing a Fox-Oring course. Good to see you back out there. Also well done to the Diggins family, who successfully dealt with the ARDF leg despite an intensive workout earlier in the day at footy. Finally, a special mention to Chris from the Newbury Navigators, who joined us for a pleasant stroll around the lake. We hope you enjoyed yourself, Chris!

Congratulations to Bruce for completing the entire four-loop course in 1:10:13. This was closely followed by Gary and Darian, with 1:13:26 and 1:15:35. A special mention also to Denise and Peter, who despite completing their two orienteering legs in different order, both finished within 3 seconds of each other. (Well done, Denise; you pipped him at the post!) We always like a sprint finish.

Thanks to everyone for joining us out there today. Hope you had a good time, and hope to see you at more RadiO events later in the year. Results are below (and Simon Rouse, if you read this, you snuck in without us recording a finish time – if you recall what time you got in, please contact us.)

Competitor O1 O2 FoxOr ARDF Legs Time
Bruce Paterson 7 7 7 5 4 1:10:13
Gary Panter 7 7 7 5 4 1:13:26
Darian Panter 7 7 7 5 4 1:15:35
Ewen Templeton 7 7 7 5 4 1:23:37
Ian Dodd 7 7 7 5 4 1:28:22
Geoff Hudson 7 7 7 5 4 1:50:47
Kristian Ruuska & Orry Thomas 7 7 7 5 4 1:53:35
Mark Besley 7 7 7 5 4 1:55:04
Steve Peacock 7 7 7 5 4 2:01:30
Ryordan Panter 7 7 7 5 4 2:03:55
Jeff Hughes 7 7 7 5 4 2:11:25
Pam King 7 7 7 5 4 2:23:08
Henk de Jong 7 7 7 5 4 2:44:50
Greg Tamblyn 7 7 7 4 4 1:43:00
Mike Hubbert 7 7 7 4 4 2:26:30
Bernie Shuttleworth 7 7 7 2 4 2:25:45
Dianne Shalders 7 0 7 5 3 1:59:52
Mark Jarvis 7 0 6 5 3 1:36:10
Tim Hatley 7 7 7 0 3 0:44:14
Peter Dalwood 7 7 7 0 3 1:06:30
Miki and Jun Okabe 7 7 7 0 3 1:30:55
Ian Stirling 0 0 7 5 2 1:14:16
David Beard 0 0 7 5 2 1:40:26
Greg Williams 0 0 7 5 2 1:53:42
Suzanne O’Callaghan 0 0 3 5 2 1:35:20
Denise Pike 7 7 0 0 2 0:30:43
Peter Grover 7 7 0 0 2 0:30:46
Rosie Salvaris 7 7 0 0 2 0:43:47
Ian Baker 7 7 0 0 2 0:45:02
Schon Hudson 7 7 0 0 2 1:07:27
Simon Rouse 7 7 0 0 2 ??
Diggins family 0 0 0 5 1 0:35:19
Thomas family 0 0 7 0 1 1:06:45
Jacinta, Renee & Nathan Thomas 7 0 0 0 1 0:30:00
Wally and Caroline Cavill 7 0 0 0 1 0:33:50
Newbury Navigators 7 0 0 0 1 0:40:15

Click here for a spreadsheet with individual leg times.

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November 2011 Foxhunt

Here are the results if the hunt held last night.

Seven teams turned out for this event on a beautiful evening for foxhunting the weather was perfect. Scoring was the usual 10 minute rule.

The first hunt was in Bundoora and most of the hounds found it reasonably quickly with VK3YQN leading the pack. The VK3BLN team did have some problems and did not trouble the scorer.

Second hunt found Ian VK3FFLY riding his bike down the Plenty River bike path and this proved to be a difficult fox to catch Once again VK3YQN was first in followed by VK3FAST, VK3TXO and VK3OW. VK3BLN, VK3MZ and VK3FVXN did not trouble the scorer on this event.

The third and final hunt of the evening was located in Yandell Reserve, not far from the supper location and very close to the home of Ewen VK3OW, who happened to be first in; all the other hounds found this fox within the 10 minutes. This hunt was conducted on 2M and 70CM.

After the third hunt it was decided to end the evening and the hounds gathered at the home of Greg VK3VT for supper of prawns, sandwiches, sausages rolls, roast chicken wings, cakes, fruit, tea, coffee and a selection of cordials. The following results were announced and some discussion was held on running 70CM hunts seriously, rather than as dual bands. No consensus was forthcoming. Most of the teams were on their way home by 11:30 pm and all were gone before the bewitching hour.

Many thanks to Mike VK3KMJ, Ian VK3FFLY and Kristian for assisting with the running of this hunt and to Kate for assisting with supper.

Team Hunt 1 Hunt 2 Hunt3 Total Place
YQN 0 0 6 6 1
FAST 1 6 1 8 2
OW 3 9 0 12 3
MZ 1 10 3 14 =4
TXO 1 9 4 14 =4
FVXN 2 10 8 18 5
BLN 10 10 1 21 6

This result shows that Bruce’s super powers have not been affected by his trip to Croatia and that he and Subi are a formidable team.

The December hunt will be held on Friday 10th December and the fox will be Jack VK3WWW. This hunt will have a couple of presenters and a film crew from Norway along for the ride with two teams and looks like it might be a real spectacle. Stay tuned to this list for more exciting details.

73
Greg VK3VT
from the VK3FOX team

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Region 3 ARDF – 80m event tomorrow

The Region 3 ARDF competition finishes up tomorrow with the 80m event. Stay tuned for more information, and check out the results of earlier events by going to http://r3.ardf.org.au and selecting the Results and Start Lists menu option.

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Region 3 ARDF – Tour Day

Participants were afforded a sleep in this morning with breakfast served at the more sensible 8am. The agenda today would see competitors and officials enjoying a Steam Train ride from Maldon to Castlemaine, followed by an underground tour at the Central Deborah Gold Mine. Lunch was a BBQ  complete with Aussie favorites Kangaroo steaks, Lamingtons and Anzac Biscuits.

A walk to the train station got the day started where some of the competitors were treated to the opportunity to push the loco around on the turntable.  After some shuffling of locos and carriages, we were soon on our way.

The trip was quite relaxing with a team even enjoying a animated game of poker (Chinese style). Every imaginable camera was working overtime as the train rattled down the tracks towards Castlemaine.

The trip to Bendigo was made on 2 buses and we were soon arriving at the Central Deborah Gold Mine for our BBQ lunch and underground mine tour. This Mine was origionaly dug to a depth of more than 400m, however today we were only taken to a depth of 65m. The tour lasted 45minutes and our great host Laurie kept us entertained with rock drilling, fools gold, real gold, pretend blasting and drop bears.

Lunch was served by about 8 orienteering volunteers who had cooked up a feast. Six or so salads, cold drinks and deserts were also well received. An impromptu lesson was given “Having a BBQ Aussie style” Class 1 was how to eat a sausage in bread, this was mostly due to us running out of plates. The Kangaroo sample steaks went down a treat and proved very popular. After lunch we enjoyed activities such as quoits, horse shoe tossing, gold panning, and various machinery and static displays. At departure time we discovered that that we had lost 2 Chinese team members. A quick run around the small area revealed that they had disappeared to the local bank (5 blocks away) to exchange currency. We were soon all back on the bus returning to the camp.

 

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Region 3 ARDF – Equipment test and Opening Ceremony

The day started early with selection of cooked or continental breakfast on a cold morning. We were soon filling onto the two buses for the short drive to the Model Event. The model event serves as an opportunity to test out receiving equipment as well as familiarity with both the mapping style and the terrain. The full compliment of 5TX and homing beacons were available on both bands HF and VHF. This event was set on the Blowmine Map. Maps were handed out and after some initial testing the competitors headed out to test their receivers. Competitors were allowed 2 hours for this testing which allowed plenty of time to adjust and calibrate their equipment for the Australian Forrest. Many Kangaroos were seen on the course, which was a highlight for the international competitors, for many of them this would have been the first first time they would have seen one in the wild.

Lunch was next on the agenda, a smorgasbord of cold meats, salads, fruits, cake and drinks. Shortly after lunch was the Combo Street Orienteering and Fox-or-ing. Street Orienteering is a navigation activity where the points are marked accurately on the map. Fox-Or-Ing on the other hand is a combination of Radio Direction finding and Orienteering skills, The control circles for fox-or define an area of 300m diameter, whereas the orienteering is marked as a precise location. The locals thought that the gold rush with soo many people racing around with Gold Detecting (look alike) equipment.

The opening ceremony was soon after which was held in the local community hall, MC Robert VK3DN setup a PA in the hall so everyone could hear the speech by IARU Region 3 Chairman and WIA President Michsaael Owen VK3KI. Michael greeted guests and welcomed them to Australia and then officially opened the competition, wishing everyone well in the championships. Jack Bramham VK3WWW WIA ARDF Coordinator also welcomed competitors to Australia. Everyone then grouped outside for a participants group photo. Many cameras were working overtime not to miss any of the action.

The Team Leader meeting was held were team leaders and international referees were given the time line of the first competition which would be held early tomorrow on VHF. Rule changes were queried and last minute questions were answered. All competitors were tucked into bed early in preparation for an early start in the morning.

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Region 3 ARDF – Maldon, Arrival Day

Well the big day is finaly here and the last bus load of overseas competitors has just arrived in Maldon at the Blue Light Camp. These competitors have traveled from as far afield places as USA, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, China and Malaysia. The overseas competitors combined with the Aussie team bring the total competitor count to around 100. Those who were lucky to arrive earlier today have enjoyed their first Aussie roast meal. Having oriented themselves with the surounds of Maldon they are now mostly tucked into bed. Although a few JA’s can be heard downstairs working a Morse dogpile on HF.

Tomorrows activities begin with breakfast at 7am, this is followed by an equipment try out soon after which allows them to familiarise themselves with the Aussie bush and mapping style. Later in the day is a combo radio and orienteering around the streets and lanes of Maldon. At 5.30pm all competitors and officials will convene to the town hall for the official opening ceremony. The first competition will be on VHF on Sunday not too far from Maldon. The actual location and map is kept secret until the buses arrive at the quarantine area. Monday is a sightseeing and recovery day which will start with a Steam Train trip to Castlemaine, and conclude with an Aussie BBQ at Bendigo. The final competition on 80M will be on Tuesday, the last official activity will be closing and awards ceremony nearby on Tuesday night.

Stay tuned for more news as it comes to hand..

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Banyule RadiO

     

Sat, 3 September, 2011

BANYULE RADI-O COMBO 3 SEPTEMBER 2011 – RESULTS
 Time2 points3 points4 points5 points10 pointsPenaltyTotal
Bruce Paterson1:09545560127
Kristian Ruuska1:1625556-3121
Mark Besley1:0931435090
Ewen Templeton1:1021435088
Bryan Ackerley1:1321225075
Mike Hubbert1:1321315074
James Templeton0:5500006060
Dennis Haustorfer1:0601005053
Darian Panter0:3410203040
Ryordan panter1:0610103036
Tim Hatley0:2410112031
Dianne shalders0:201000002
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Nortons Park Radio

Sat, 27 August, 2011

NORTON’S PARK RADI-O 27 AUGUST 2011 – RESULTS
 Finish time2 points3 points4 points5 points10 pointsPenaltyTotal
Bryan akerley3:12 PM2 223052
Clifford heath3:18 PM12347-1298
Darian panter3:12 PM2 213047
Dianne shalders3:12 PM1 234065
Ewen templeton3:08 PM4 335085
Gary panter3:11 PM42454095
Henk deJong3:09 PM1 234065
Ian dodd3:16 PM35435-696
Keith anker3:20 PM12323-1842
Mark besley3:12 PM23435094
Pam king3:15 PM12224-363
Pierre brokner3:11 PM1 125066
Ryordan panter3:11 PM1 125066
Suzanne o’callaghan3:14 PM11123049
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Plenty River 2m ARDF 24 July 2011

An ARDF event was held on 2 metres in conjunction with the Melbourne Bush O Series event on 24 July. Despite the inclement weather, eight competitors went out hunting transmitters and everyone found some.  Five people found all five transmitters.

A map showing the approximate transmitter locations and full results are below.  Thanks to everyone who helped with various aspects of making this event happen and particularly to the Dodds who organised registration and supplied maps for us in addition to their duties running the orienteering event there at short notice.

Mark Besley VK3BES

Transmitter Locations

Plenty South ARDF 24 Jul 2011
Competition: 24/07/2011 from 10.00
Band/Limit: 2-m-band / 120 min
Competitors: Com +Hlp
8 =8 =8

 

C a t e g o r y
8 Com +++ Foxes 1 2 3 4 5
Place Name, First name Club Call Run time Fox RLL
1. Paterson, Bruce AR VK3TJN 49’07 6 7
2. Panter, Gary AR VK3TXO 59’51 6 9
3. Panter, Darian AR VK3FAST 83’05 6 10
4. Dodd, Ian 86’59 6 2
5. Templeton, Ewen AR VK3OW 116’34 6 11
6. Shalders, Dianne AR VK3FVXN 115’09 4 8
7. Tamblyn, Greg 88’12 3 6
aL. Maloney, Peter AR 135’03 3 12

 

Sorted by sequence of score
StNo Name Sequence Run times (min) Run times since start (min:sec)
Category
7 Paterson, Bruce S-2-5-1-3-4-B-F 06+09+11+07+07+09+00 0—6’04–14’48–25’49–33’09–39’55–48’57–49’07
9 Panter, Gary S-2-5-1-3-4-B-F 11+05+11+14+08+10+00 0–11’10–16’36–27’13–41’03–49’16–59’39–59’51
10 Panter, Darian S-2-5-1-3-4-B-F 12+17+27+11+06+09+00 0–12’23–29’27–56’16–67’42–73’41–82’57–83’05
2 Dodd, Ian S-2-5-1-3-4-B-F 29+13+11+12+13+08+00 0–28’59–42’05–52’53–64’55–78’23–86’47–86’59
11 Templeton, Ewen S-2-5-1-3-4#B-F 19+28+11+21+15+21+00 0–19’23–47’00–58’21–79’27–94’43-116’05-116’34
8 Shalders, Dianne S-3-1-5-B-F 49+34+18+14+00 0–48’39–82’59-101’11-114’41-115’09
6 Tamblyn, Greg S-5-1-B-F 10+51+27+00 0—9’50–60’30–87’50–88’12
12 Maloney, Peter S-3-4-B-F 31+57+47+00 0–31’21–88’09-135’00-135’03


 

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July 2011 Foxhunt

FOX HUNT RESULTS  –  July, 2001

Competition on the night was very tight and 
further scrutiny of the interim results (& a recount) 
revealed the following: 
  
Hunt        BLN    FOX     OW    TXO    YQN

      1      0      1      10     6      1
      2      10     6      0      1      6
      3      6      6      6      6      0
      4      1      1      5      8      0
      5      6      1      0      1      5
      6a     0      2      4      1      3
      6b     1      4      10     0      4

TOTAL        24    21      35     23     19

 
So the official record is: 

 1st 	VK3  YQN
 2nd 	VK3  FOX
 3rd	VK3  TXO
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StreetO + RadiO = CombO @ Yarran Dheran

With good  attendance (66 streetO and 10 RadiO ) and a nice map what else could go wrong?

Well after some late nights trying to battle ocad to get the map fixed and the weather man on the tv telling us it would rain. It looked like a lot could go wrong. After waking up and looking out my window i noticed blue sky and sun, What a perfect day for an event.

The resualts:

Name Total Place
Ian Dodd 115 pts 1st
Bruce Paterson 112 pts 2nd
Ewen Templton 108 pts 3rd
Mark Besley 93 pts 4th
Adam Scammell 79 pts 5th
Pam King 78 pts 6th
Greg Tambyln 65 pts 7th
Ryordan/Pierre 57 pts 8th
Nathan Diggins 36 pts 9th
Dianne Shaldes 36 pts 10th

 

*Please note R2 was removed from the scores because it stopped working mid event.

 

 

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Victorian ARDF Champs 2011

Well the VicChamps was originally going to be held near Lake Eppalock, but since noone was likely to stay over for the State Series orienteering event the next day in the same area, there seemed little point in holding it so far from Melbourne.

So it moved to Macedon Forest, only a short drive north of the city. Though we have had an ARDF combo event on this map quite some time ago, the start was from a completely different part of the map, and the course ended up very challenging indeed, even on the usually less troublesome 80m band.

The intent had been to set 3 controls of moderate distance from the start, 1 a bit further to stretch the adventurous, and 1 quite a way to provide a challenge for the more seasoned ARDFers.

The map bisected by both a freeway and a railway line provided extra route choice challenge.

Luckily the day ended up fairly windy, but quite sunny; perfect running conditions.

All was going well till, shortly after I started Adam ,the final starter, I turned on the finish beacon. Adam returned some 1/2 hour later much befuddled, having terrible problems with his sniffer. “All I can hear is the damm beacon” he complained. Turned off the Beacon again so as to test another sniffer (the beacon was close to the start/finish). Since it was a club sniffer he’d taken out initially, I allowed him to start from scratch again. A few minutes after his anewed departure, I was about to strike up the beacon again when I noticed it had 3.580Mhz written on it. But, isn’t that the fox frequency ?? I’m sure that’s wrong !

I cannot fathom why we have an 80m Homing Beacon in our kit on the same frequency as the foxes, but it seems we do !  It has now been labelled with a warning; we’ll need to get a new crystal for this rogue ‘spare’ for September.

I believe this caused some of the competitors in the field quite a degree of confusion ! It didn’t worry those on the other side of the map too much, or poor Greg, who couldn’t hear any foxes unless he was within 200m of one, but I have subtracted 20 minutes from the times of all affected competitors as at least some compensation. Sorry about that. Needless to say, the Beacon remained off after this discovery.

It seems everyone had trouble with something today. Adam’s neck pains, Darian having fence and ankle trouble, Dennis stuck on the wrong side of the tracks, Gary having trouble with new 4WD tracks, Di deflected by the dodgy homing beacon and traffic noise issues near the freeway, Greg unable to hear any fox unless nearly on top of it (tuned too high in pitch) and Grant with a debilitating cold. Still everyone made an effort and those who perservered won the day.

Here is the map showing the TX locations. Results are below.

Vic Champs 80m

The results are divided a bit arbitrarily into “Elite” and normal categories, where Elite is those who are ARDF experienced and would normally be expected to find all 5 in the time. There are all sorts of ‘interesting’ stats to pore over after the main results.

Results

Stats & Splits