Fox Hunt Report 19 July 2013

The night was dark and stormy and the street lights were ……………………….

Well not quite but it was wet as 3 of 4 teams assembled at VK3OW’s for the start of the nights fox hunts.

For the first hunt the 2 metre transmitter was hidden in a mature cypress tree in a small plantation about 800 metres from the start. I used an XG3 signal generator as the fox set at -33 Dbm output level. As nobody could hear this I generously increased the level to 0 Dbm. First in was Darian from the FAST team who found the fox after about 3 circumnavigations of the tree. Next was Bruce from the CI team. After first finding the decoy transmitter and than crawling around the base of the tree several times he decided to try higher up and found the fox, 6 minutes after Darian. I probably should have reduced Bruce’s score by a point for finding the decoy but I’m not good a complex maths when I’m wet. Next in was the MZ team, just outside time.

While the teams collected runners and moved to the meeting spot the BLN team arrived. We knew they were coming but unfortunately they didn’t make the start in time for the first hunt.

The next hunt was a distance based hunt, ie the hound who travelled the shortest distance to the fox was the winner. There was no particular time element to this hunt although if two teams had come in with the same distance we would probably have used time to separate them. As it turned out we didn’t need to. We also ran the hunt on 6 metres to add a degree of complexity. Actual points scores were determined as follows. The team with the shortest distance were awarded 0 points and the team with the longest distance the max 10. FAST, who were a close second got 2 points and BLN who were a long 3rd got 7. If we do this again perhaps we’ll try a point for each additional Km.

The MZ team won this one with the FAST team only 0.5Km longer. They were followed by the BLN and CI teams with rather longer distances. Perhaps the Subaru is a bit too fast David?!

The third hunt was in what is probably a power line easement and not shown in street directories. Stephen and I entered this via a gate in the back fence of Ernie VK3FMs and enjoyed a coffee with him while we waited for the hounds. Thanks Ernie. The throb of the BLN Subaru was soon heard out the front of Ernie’s and it paused briefly when the team discovered my car. Reasoning that the fox was close (it was) they were then heard investigating all the Courts in the general area and also the small park west of the easement. The actual “public’ access was 2-3 km away. In the meantime Darian arrived and found the fox. Next in was the MZ team closely followed by BLN. We stopped the clock at 15 minutes. Incidently the modulation on the TX was deliberate. The intention had been to AM modulate the carrier with a half hertz sinewave. The time available to achieve this however was very limited with the resulting waveform remotely resembling a lopsided peaky triangle.

The next hunt was run by Henk and Dianne. First in was the FAST team followed by CI, BLN and closely MZ.

The final hunt was a straight forward 2 metre hunt in Candlebark park. MZ were first in for this one, followed by CI, BLN and FAST, not being so fast for this one.

The hounds then retired for a well earned supper. My thanks to Jenelle for the soup and sandwidges, Dianne for the upside down cakes, icecream and caramel sauce and Henk for the party pies, cocktail franks etc.

The scores are as follows.

Team	Hunt 1	Hunt 2		Hunt 3	Hunt 4		Hunt 5		Hunt 6	Total	Place
VK3CI	6	21.5 km	10	15	10.49	3	11.24	3		37	3
VK3BLN	10	19.4 km	7	13	10.54	8	11.25	4		42	4
VK3MZ	10	11.3 km	0	12	10.55	9	11.21	0		31	2
VK3FAST	0	11.8 km	2	0	10.46	0	11.26	5		7	1

Hunts 1 and 3 were timed with a stop watch with hunts 4 and 5 using actual time.

Thanks to you all for coming on a not so pleasant night weather wise.

regards Ewen

July 14, 2013

Valley Reserve CombO and ARDF Sprint

Despite the prediction of rain this afternoon, and a quite threatening radar image, somehow the rain held off till 5pm, so 20 teams (about 26 people in all) enjoyed the combination Street-O (thanks to Greg Andrews of BK orienteering club for us piggybacking on their event) and 7 2m FoxOrs.

The map looked at first glance a small area, but the tricky placement of the FoxOr circles made it difficult to chose a route to cover all options. I’d also made the time limit only 1 hour rather than the more established 75 minutes, because I wanted some time and energy left over for first time trial of our 2m ARDF Sprint event, so as it turned out no-one cleared the course. In fact no-one got all 7 FoxOrs ! Well done to Ewen who managed to get 6 of the 7, plus quite a few orienteering controls too.

Paul’s Boy’s Brigade joined us for this event too. Have a read earlier in this blog about their first trial event a month or so ago. The boys were accompanied by adult leaders or parents, some going in a team. Considering this was their first try at a real event, I’m surprised how well they did. The team of 3 came equal first, so perhaps having more people searching for FoxOrs at once helps a little. Well done to Wesley, Samuel and Cape. Achieving the same final score by deliberately coming in a little late to get that last FoxOr (a still worthwhile 8-6=2pts extra) was the other Samuel. Apologies if I have the Sam’s the wrong way around in the results below; both score cards only had “Samuel” written on them ! Hope to see you all at the August events.

Coming in a very credible mid field were Max and Scott Pendlebury, very first timers at both RadiO, and even at orienteering. Hope you enjoyed yourselves !

Next event is an 80m full ARDF at Westerfolds Park along with the MelBushO there on 21st July. The next FoxOr events are 10th and 17th August with the Saturday CakeO’s.

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See below for ARDF Sprint event report. Here is today’s CombO map, followed by results for the CombO event.

Valley Reserve CombO Event 13 July 2013

Name	Junior	2 pt controls	3 pt controls	4 pt controls	5 pt controls	FoxOrs	Late penalty	Total	Order In	Place
Ewen Templeton		2	2	2	4	6		86	7	1
Ian Dodd		1	4	4	4	4		82	4	2
Pierre Brockner		2	2	2	3	5		73	1	3
Mark Besley		1	2	2	4	4		68	16	4
Lara Bell		1	3	2	3	5	-6	68	18	5
Mark Jarvis		2	2	3	3	3		61	9	6
Jenelle Templeton		1	2	2	3	4	-6	57	17	7
Hamish McDonald		3	1	2	1	3		46	5	8
Wesley Zagore	Yes	1	2	0	2	3		42	13	9
Samuel Stuckbery	Yes	1	2	0	2	3		42	14	10
Cape Goodridge	Yes	1	2	0	2	3		42	15	11
Samuel Ng	Yes	0	2	0	2	4	-6	42	19	12
Max Pendlebury	Yes	2	1	1	1	3		40	6	13
Ryan Vernay	Yes	1	2	0	3	2		39	12	14
Dennis Mews		2	0	0	2	3		38	8	15
Dianne Shalders		1	0	1	1	3		35	2	16
Henk DeJong		1	0	1	1	3		35	3	17
Christian Chan	Yes	0	1	1	3	5	-39	23	21	18
Paul Stuckbery		0	1	1	3	5	-39	23	22	19
Spencer Goodridge	Yes	1	2	0	1	0	-12	1	20	20

After the regular RadiO competitors had a short rest and a chance to weigh themselves down with the obligatory cake and yummy thingies provided by all at a Saturday afternoon “Cake-O”, we had a another treat for them ! Our first ARDF Sprint event. This is basically exactly the same as a normal ARDF event, except the whole transmitter cycle takes only 1 minute rather than 5. Instead of being On for 1 minute each, they whip around at only 12 seconds each, making it much more suitable for a small area, such as Valley Reserve. Unfortunately I couldn’t get our new transmitters working the way I wanted, with the Morse ID of each TX keying the TX on and off, rather than just turning on and off the FM modulation. Byon, the US manufacturer of the neat little TXs, despite being away on leave, managed to send me a new version of code that should allow the TX keying to much better suit our Whoopie sniffers . Unfortunately I couldn’t get the bootloader programming to work for me in the hour I had left to try, so we had to run today with the old version. Next time will be better ! Still, it allowed us to get a taste of what the event is like (Ewen and I had a go at this on 80m at the last World Championships in Croatia…and let’s just say we need more practice !) and to iron out the bugs.

Well done to Ian D for the magnificent effort of 4 of the 5 Sprint transmitters, whilst ignoring the ire of wife Debbie who needed him to be at a DROC committee meeting “now!”. I’m sure that spurred him on. Apologies to both Dennis and Mark for throwing them in the deep end on this one; I knew it was going to be harder to DF than I wanted, due to the keying issues, but I didn’t know just how hard ! Also we either need to boost the power a little bit, or keep the area just slightly smaller than I used, if we want them all to be audible over most of the course area.

Also thanks to all those who helped picking up all the FoxOrs and ARDF Txs afterwards. Special thanks to Pierre and Suzanne, who between them found more ARDFs than any of the competitors, picking up all 5 for me. Their trick was to use 2 sniffers, one on whoopee to get the direction, and the other on FM to hear which one it is. This trick can also be done with stereo headphones on the one sniffer, but we didn’t have those available at the time.

ARDF Sprint Results

	Name	Time	Score	Gross Score
1	Ian Dodd	20:22	50	50
2	Ewen Templeton	29:30	30	30
2	Henk DeJong	46:38	30	30
	Mark Besley	DNF	0	0
	Dennis Mews	DNF	0	0

July 7, 2013

Wellington Chase 80m ARDF 7 July 2013

So on late Saturday afternoon it wasn’t looking too good. The weather forecast for Sunday was OK but dubious and it was pelting down rain at the time. One had pulled out due to ill health (something about a door, but I couldn’t get a handle on it) and the numbers were looking a bit miserly already.

Still, the day dawned clear and sunny (yes, I did actually have to see the dawn this morning) but cold with frost dampened grass and dripping fronds to increase my early morning enjoyment. I picked up the fixed-up antenna squid poles (thanks Gary) already running behind schedule, as per usual. Still, transmitter deployment went fairly smoothly, except at the end I had to retrace steps to TX#3 as it seemed to have somehow got itself out of sequence. Luckily it wasn’t far from the start and I detected the clash before I got back. I was surprised to come across grazing horses in the open paddock marked as ‘white’ (forest) on the map where I had planned to place TX#2, but with ARDF it’s easy to tweak things at the last moment and I found a suitably forested paddock (incidentally part coloured ‘orange’ (open ground) on the map) nearby. All TX’s can be heard from the start. Phew !

Ewen and Jack turned up early, so with only a moderate amount of faffing I was able to send them on their way, shortly followed by Henk. Now who else was going to show ? I certainly wasn’t expecting Peter yet, but figured he’d turn up sometime about midday (he actually beat that by 10 minutes). As it turns out I had 9 competitors, and 1 extra (Dennis M) who volunteered to pickup one of the transmitters afterwards.

The course, shown below, cunning arranged TX#3 and TX#2 to be in line from the start, and the same trick with TX#5 and TX#4, so the initial optimum order wasn’t obvious, and it was a bit more difficult for the full course competitors to get good cross bearings for the 2 distant transmitters. Short course competitors were told in advance the 2 distant transmitters (there was ‘even’ a way to memorise which ones), but were limited to 80 minutes, whereas the full course competitors had a 100 minute time limit. Late penalties applied rather then instant disqualification (so easier to use the simple OR program setup as a score event) with the penalties for the short course being much less severe.

There was also a fair bit of discussion about RadiO with quite a few orienteers doing the MelBushO, including an Amateur. Lets hope we see some giving it a try, at least, at a future event.

Results below !

Well done to Ian, a relative newcomer to ARDF, taking out the full ARDF course. Noone had enough time to fit in TX#4. Darian ran well to the physically challenging TX#5 (the map doesn’t do the ‘jungle’ terrain justice in this area, and the course setter had no idea how bad it was!) to take out the short course.

Results

ARDF Full (5 TX – 100 mins)

	Name	Club	Time	Score	Gross Score	Penalty
1	Ian Dodd	DR	93:03	50	50	0
1	Gary Panter	AR	95:23	50	50	0
3	Ewen Templeton	AR	109:20	0	50	100
4	Jack Bramham	AR	109:35	0	20	100

Note: Each TX, including Homing beacon, assigned 10 points. Penalty 10 pts/min

ARDF Short    (3 TX - 80 mins)

	Name	Club	Time	Score	Gross Score	Penalty
1	Darian Panter	AR	67:23	40	40	0
1	Dennis Haustorfer	AR	76:01	40	40	0
3	Henk DeJong	AR	75:05	30	30	0
3	Tim Hatley	BK	17:56	30	30	0
5	Peter Maloney	AR	86:39	9	30	21

Note: Each TX, including Homing beacon, assigned 10 points. Penalty 3 pts/min


Splits

ARDF Full

(33)

(32)

(31)

(35)

(Homing)

Ian Dodd

93:03

14:20

38:45

55:57

82:31

92:36

93:03

14:20

24:25

17:12

26:34

10:05

00:27

(33)

(32)

(31)

(35)

(Homing)

(90)

Gary Panter

95:23

08:26

30:27

55:30

82:21

94:52

95:23

91:47

08:26

22:01

25:03

26:51

12:31

00:31

*90

(33)

(32)

(31)

(35)

(Homing)

Ewen Templeton

109:20

22:17

47:12

67:14

93:39

108:50

109:20

22:17

24:55

20:02

26:25

15:11

00:30

(33)

(Homing)

(33)

Jack Bramham

109:35

18:17

109:03

109:35

18:20

18:17

90:46

00:32

*33

ARDF Short

(31)

(33)

(35)

(Homing)

Darian Panter

67:23

22:06

30:48

56:35

66:55

67:23

22:06

08:42

25:47

10:20

00:28

(33)

(31)

(35)

(Homing)

Dennis Haustorfer

76:01

20:59

36:46

60:37

75:32

76:01

20:59

15:47

23:51

14:55

00:29

(33)

(31)

(Homing)

Henk DeJong

75:05

19:50

36:44

75:05

19:50

16:54

38:21

00:00

(31)

(33)

(Homing)

Tim Hatley

17:56

05:56

13:17

17:28

17:56

05:56

07:21

04:11

00:28

(33)

(31)

(Homing)

Peter Maloney

86:39

13:56

43:13

86:09

86:39

13:56

29:17

42:56

00:30

June 25, 2013July 25, 2020

June 2013 Foxhunt

Hi everyone

Here are the scores for Friday's hunt:


Foxhunt 28 June 2013
SCORES


		FAST	HRL	OW	CI

H1		0	1	2	4
H2		0	2	1	3
H3		0	1	3	2
H4a		0	3	2	1
h4b		0	3	2	1

Placing		0	10	10	11

Congratulations on a convincing win, FAST.

Cheers

Marta

June 23, 2013

2M ARDF @ Eaglemont

A cold start to a day of good weather. With 13 competitors on the field we had a great turn out.

The location of some transmitters made for a challenging course, with obstacles like rivers and freeways,

competitors found them self’s on the wrong side trying to get around. Hope that all who competed had a great day 🙂

Results:

Last Name:

First Name:

Club

Call

Place

Run

Fox

Start

Finish

Scammel

Adam

1st

43’36

10:55:42

11:39:18

11:16:44

11:07:11

10:59:15

11:36:13

11:30:50

11:39:13

Ackerly

Bryan

VK3YNG

2nd

44’11

11:59:40

12:44:11

12:26:44

12:21:04

12:42:54

12:38:35

12:10:09

12:44:08

Paterson

Bruce

VK3TJN

3rd

61’39

10:34:34

11:36:13

11:21:32

11:05:11

10:37:18

10:52:20

11:32:09

11:36:10

Templeton

Ewen

VK3OW

4th

76’59

10:19:27

11:36:26

10:56:02

11:07:26

11:34:28

11:18:41

11:28:01

11:36:20

Maloney

Peter

VK3CPM

5th

90’07

11:29:42

12:59:49

12:12:56

11:34:21

11:53:21

12:45:24

12:59:44

Besley

Mark

VK3BES

6th

77’55

10:44:39

12:02:34

11:48:41

10:53:20

11:32:42

12:02:28

Haustorfor

Dennis

VK3BQZ

7th

84’24

11:04:42

12:29:06

12:01:06

12:23:02

11:30:08

12:28:58

Canning

Doug

VK3JDO

8th

91’03

10:15:15

11:46:18

11:17:08

11:31:03

11:02:39

11:46:12

McDonald

Hamish

9th

93’46

10:39:41

12:13:27

11:33:14

12:00:05

11:02:19

12:12:07

Hatley

Tim

10th

35’02

12:14:13

12:49:15

12:33:30

12:45:18

12:49:12

Brokner

Pierre

11th

60’30

10:19:49

11:20:19

11:00:13

11:10:27

11:20:12

Dejong

Henk

VK3BLI

12th

82’00

10:25:00

11:47:00

11:34:00

10:41:00

11:46:00

O’Callaghan

Suzanne

VK3FSZI

–

80’00

10:50:00

12:10:00

Course set by Darian Panter VK3FAST

June 23, 2013July 25, 2020

2M ARDF @ Eaglemont

Sun, 23 June, 2013

A cold start to a day of good weather. With 13 competitors on the field we had a great turn out.

The location of some transmitters made for a challenging course, with obstacles like rivers and freeways,

competitors found them self’s on the wrong side trying to get around. Hope that all who competed had a great day 🙂

Results:

Last Name:

First Name:

Club

Call

Place

Run

Fox

Start

Finish

Scammel

Adam

1st

43’36

10:55:42

11:39:18

11:16:44

11:07:11

10:59:15

11:36:13

11:30:50

11:39:13

Ackerly

Bryan

VK3YNG

2nd

44’11

11:59:40

12:44:11

12:26:44

12:21:04

12:42:54

12:38:35

12:10:09

12:44:08

Paterson

Bruce

VK3TJN

3rd

61’39

10:34:34

11:36:13

11:21:32

11:05:11

10:37:18

10:52:20

11:32:09

11:36:10

Templeton

Ewen

VK3OW

4th

76’59

10:19:27

11:36:26

10:56:02

11:07:26

11:34:28

11:18:41

11:28:01

11:36:20

Maloney

Peter

VK3CPM

5th

90’07

11:29:42

12:59:49

12:12:56

11:34:21

11:53:21

12:45:24

12:59:44

Besley

Mark

VK3BES

6th

77’55

10:44:39

12:02:34

11:48:41

10:53:20

11:32:42

12:02:28

Haustorfor

Dennis

VK3BQZ

7th

84’24

11:04:42

12:29:06

12:01:06

12:23:02

11:30:08

12:28:58

Canning

Doug

VK3JDO

8th

91’03

10:15:15

11:46:18

11:17:08

11:31:03

11:02:39

11:46:12

McDonald

Hamish

9th

93’46

10:39:41

12:13:27

11:33:14

12:00:05

11:02:19

12:12:07

Hatley

Tim

10th

35’02

12:14:13

12:49:15

12:33:30

12:45:18

12:49:12

Brokner

Pierre

11th

60’30

10:19:49

11:20:19

11:00:13

11:10:27

11:20:12

Dejong

Henk

VK3BLI

–

82’00

10:25:00

11:47:00

O’Callaghan

Suzanne

VK3FSZI

–

80’00

10:50:00

12:10:00

Course set by Darian Panter VK3FAST

May 27, 2013

Woodlands Park event

On Sunday 26 May 2013 Woodlands Historic Park was the venue for another exciting RadiO event.

7 competitors fought it out for top positions in the RadiO long and short courses, with Ian Dodd snaffling the lead over Bruce Paterson by 6 minutes. Thanks to Ewen who made time in a busy day to do the course. Peter and Hamish made a good run around the course and returned before their 90 minutes was up. Tim did some coaching for BK, then raced around to collect an impressive 150 points in under an hour. Dennis went out to collect all 6 foxOrs and returned in good time having found them all.

Welcome also to newbies Ian and Jenny and her father, who all set out to find 2 foxOrs after their orienteering course and found them without any difficulty. We hope you all enjoyed yourselves!

Competitors had asked course-setter Suzanne O’Callaghan to set a more challenging foxOr course, so she did them a favour and tested their sniffing skills with some interesting hidey holes – horizontal and low in a burnt out tree stump in the middle of a new growth eucalypt forest, inside a hollow tree, and behind a broken concrete remnant of an old weir.

Many thanks to Bruce Paterson, who set up the software for instant course results and manned the start while Suzanne was still out finding her interesting hidey holes. And to Bruce and Peter who collected controls.

Woodlands CombO results – 2m FoxOr and Orienteering

RadiO A – Long Course

	Name	Class	Club	Time	Score
1	Ian Dodd	M55	AR	75:05	196
1	Bruce Paterson	M45	AR	81:21	196
3	Ewen Templeton		AR	86:09	172
4	Peter Maloney		AR	87:45	143
5	Hamish McDonald		AR	82:54	129
6	Dennis Haustorfer		AR	77:13	60

RadiO B – Short Course

	Name	Class	Club	Time	Score
1	Tim Hatley		BK	59:21	150
2	Ian Dale		BK	23:54	20
2	Jenny Gray			61:37	20

SPLITS

Long

Stno

Name/club

Class

Time

(72)

(34)

(65)

(66)

(67)

(73)

(78)

(79)

(80)

(35)

(81)

(84)

(85)

(36)

(87)

Ian Dodd

M55

75:05

01:19

03:58

05:16

06:10

11:03

13:24

15:09

17:47

19:16

20:20

21:51

26:50

28:37

31:58

37:09

01:19

02:39

01:18

00:54

04:53

02:21

01:45

02:38

01:29

01:04

01:31

04:59

01:47

03:21

05:11

(69)

(88)

(82)

(71)

(70)

(74)

(31)

(32)

(75)

(33)

(83)

(76)

(90)

(77)

38:58

40:30

41:48

44:46

46:06

48:39

49:41

54:41

60:44

64:28

67:55

70:10

72:03

73:58

01:49

01:32

01:18

02:58

01:20

02:33

01:02

05:00

06:03

03:44

03:27

02:15

01:53

01:55

75:05

01:07

(72)

(34)

(65)

(71)

(70)

(66)

(82)

(67)

(73)

(78)

(79)

(80)

(35)

(81)

(84)

Bruce Paterson

M45

81:21

01:15

03:51

05:17

07:06

08:20

10:50

13:01

13:56

15:41

17:51

20:34

22:22

23:35

25:12

31:34

01:15

02:36

01:26

01:49

01:14

02:30

02:11

00:55

01:45

02:10

02:43

01:48

01:13

01:37

06:22

(85)

(36)

(88)

(87)

(69)

(31)

(74)

(32)

(75)

(33)

(83)

(76)

(90)

(77)

33:33

43:29

45:39

48:10

49:35

54:30

55:29

61:06

66:56

70:17

74:32

76:32

78:10

80:03

01:59

09:56

02:10

02:31

01:25

04:55

00:59

05:37

05:50

03:21

04:15

02:00

01:38

01:53

81:21

01:18

(77)

(90)

(83)

(33)

(76)

(75)

(32)

(31)

(74)

(70)

(71)

(88)

(36)

(85)

(84)

Ewen Templeton

86:09

01:33

04:30

09:47

15:43

19:06

22:42

30:57

37:19

38:21

41:29

43:35

47:23

51:07

53:53

58:30

01:33

02:57

05:17

05:56

03:23

03:36

08:15

06:22

01:02

03:08

02:06

03:48

03:44

02:46

04:37

(81)

(80)

(35)

(79)

(78)

(67)

(66)

(65)

(34)

(72)

64:03

66:06

66:57

68:58

72:07

75:39

78:18

79:17

80:55

84:47

05:33

02:03

00:51

02:01

03:09

03:32

02:39

00:59

01:38

03:52

86:09

01:22

(77)

(90)

(83)

(76)

(33)

(75)

(32)

(31)

(74)

(70)

(71)

(88)

(69)

(87)

(36)

Peter Maloney

87:45

01:17

03:58

09:48

12:51

16:38

24:35

32:04

39:45

41:08

44:51

47:00

51:35

54:06

63:00

70:39

01:17

02:41

05:50

03:03

03:47

07:57

07:29

07:41

01:23

03:43

02:09

04:35

02:31

08:54

07:39

(67)

(82)

(66)

(65)

(34)

(72)

75:53

77:05

79:21

80:30

83:16

86:16

05:14

01:12

02:16

01:09

02:46

03:00

87:45

01:29

(77)

(72)

(34)

(65)

(66)

(73)

(67)

(82)

(36)

(85)

(84)

(79)

(80)

(35)

(81)

Hamish McDonald

82:54

01:54

03:48

08:19

09:51

11:24

16:21

18:59

19:57

26:24

30:35

33:56

40:04

43:07

46:29

49:09

01:54

04:31

01:32

01:33

04:57

02:38

00:58

06:27

04:11

03:21

06:08

03:03

03:22

02:40

(88)

(69)

(87)

(31)

60:15

62:19

66:10

73:47

11:06

02:04

03:51

07:37

(82)

(72)

82:54

20:02

81:30

09:07

*82

*72

(34)

(35)

(36)

(31)

(32)

(33)

Dennis Haustorfer

77:13

06:39

22:45

35:04

48:36

55:32

68:02

06:39

16:06

12:19

13:32

06:56

12:30

77:13

09:11

Short

Stno

Name/club

Class

Time

(72)

(77)

(90)

(76)

(83)

(33)

(75)

(32)

(31)

(74)

(70)

(71)

(69)

(88)

(36)

Tim Hatley

59:21

01:22

02:49

04:51

06:26

09:11

12:21

15:20

22:13

27:16

30:04

32:22

33:57

36:36

38:09

41:11

01:22

01:27

02:02

01:35

02:45

03:10

02:59

06:53

05:03

02:48

02:18

01:35

02:39

01:33

03:02

(85)

(84)

(67)

(82)

(66)

(65)

(34)

47:21

48:57

51:07

51:55

53:56

54:46

55:49

06:10

01:36

02:10

00:48

02:01

00:50

01:03

59:21

03:32

(34)

(33)

Ian Dale

23:54

06:51

16:56

06:51

10:05

23:54

06:58

(33)

(34)

Jenny Gray

61:37

19:57

48:55

19:57

28:58

61:37

12:42

May 18, 2013

May Foxhunt Report

May Foxhunt Report The VK3CI team

The night dawned a bit damp, and the Fox team had some issues with missing hunt documentation at the last moment, but it didn’t damped the spirits of the 4 teams who rocked up to Clayton Railway Station for the May foxhunt.
The Fox VK3CI team would like to apologise for the slightly late start as we got ourselves organised.

All legs were single leg.

Hunt 1 [145.7] was meant to be where Bruce had once ended up trying to sniff in on a recent foxhunt (near Westall Road), which had turned out not to near there at all, but ‘what a good spot ! We’ll have to use that in our foxhunt’. Turns out that it was now a construction site, so the fox was placed nearby.
1st in was BLN, followed by FAST then FOX.

Hunt 2 [145.3]was near Kostas’ work unit near Keys Rd. The high up wall placement of the antenna caused some confusion in the alleyway with Adam from BLN who was first in the alleyway nearly forgo 1st place. Luckily he slipped in just ahead of FAST and OW who had both already arrived at the scene. A short while later the FOX team nearly drove up the alley.

Hunt 3 [439] was in a very muddy location behind the baffles of the new part of the Westall extension as it crosses Cheltenham Rd. FAST slopped into first place ahead of BLN then FOX. This placing will start to sound familiar.

Hunt 4 [145.3]was back in Braeside Park South. We were hoping some teams woukd drop runners in the North major entrance of the park, especially approaching from the east, but they weren’t to be fooled, with all teams choosing the more appropriate West entrance. FAST a big margin this time ahead of BLN with FOX right on their heels. OW just scraped in.

Hunt 5 [439] was back to Westall station, this time in the brand new overpass, with 1000’s of security cameras and guards. None took much interest in the suspicious package left behind from fleeing hoodie attired Fox team members and again FAST first with BLN and FOX in right behind and OW a little later. Apologies for announcing the wrong 70cm frequency (that was what we’d meant to have on the previous leg but didn’t due to loss of a fox antenna).

Hunt 6 [145.3] took teams to a wet grassy area between the Monash freeway and some new units. FAST were again well first in the area, but overshot the fox, letting Marta from BLN sneak in and spot the fox sitting in the tree. OW not too long after. This location had to be used as the surveying of this area earlier in the week (when it was also raining, incidentally) caused the demise of some carbon fibre bike forks and a very long trip home.

The final Hunt 7 [145.7] was back south of the Monash freeway near the ex Monash Seecondary college grounds. FAST again got the honours followed by BLN, then OW, with FOX getting in on the somewhat elongated 9th minute.

Supper was magnificently catered by Olga, and the hot soup and mulled wine just perfect for the conditions.
Thanks to all teams who came along.

Scores

Team:	FOX	BLN	OW	FAST
Hunt 1	4	0	10	2
Hunt 2	5	0	1	1
Hunt 3	2	1	10	0
Hunt 4	5	5	9	0
Hunt 5	1	1	4	0
Hunt 6	10	0	3	1
Hunt 7	9	1	4	0
Totals	35	8	41	4
Placing	3	2	4	1

May 12, 2013

Mothers Day RadiO Hageby – Sunday 12th May 2013

Mother’s Day dawned windy and overcast. The BOM forecast rain only in the evening… And of course we BELIEVE them without question, but perhaps we can be forgiven for being a little worried. But by the time we arrived at Koomba Park just before 8am to put out RadiO controls (all street O controls were out the night before), the wind had settled nicely and the sun was coming out.

We had everything out in short order and had adjourned back at the northern Koomba car park at around 9:10 AM for a quick listen of the ARDF transmitters. For those non-RadiO people, these are five quite high-powered transmitters which are on for one minute, then off for four minutes. If you turn them all on at the same time, they are supposed to nicely cycle through so one and only one is on at any given minute. Well, all was going swimmingly until #4 failed to transmit. Uh oh… We definitely turned them on in unison (give or take a second). We hustled down towards it, noting a double set of transmission during #5s cycle. When we got there, we turned it off, then waited an endless few minutes for the next five minute mark to roll around. Then on again, and another 3 minute wait to make sure it actually came on when it was supposed to. It did – all good, and the oddity filed away for our club tech geniuses to think about. Even better, we kept the sniffer on and the rest of them turned on when they were supposed to.

The two course setters then separated to their respective starting areas (the walk between these was probably closer to 700m than 500m, despite what I told you guys – but I didn’t want you to get discouraged before you’d even started J). And then the turnout happened! Very rare for any ARDF run events to attract such crowds, even if they have orienteering components. Last year’s Hageby certainly wasn’t that popular, and on Mother’s Day, besides! Anyway, we had sufficient maps and the two orienteering legs seemed to proceed with minimal complaints – good to see a lot of familiar faces but also a few newer families, as well!

The RadiO legs proved to be a little more exciting… Tim Hatley was one of the earliest runners to attempt the 80m ARDF leg, and he came home having found them all (and without further destroying his already injured arm). All good… But not afterwards. Reports came filtering in – Fox-Oring transmitter G couldn’t be found. ARDF TX #1 had also gone silent. Even more interestingly, those two transmitters were pretty close together, either side of the same major path. Hmmm… Well, batteries do go flat (but Bruce had charged the big ARDF ones, and the ‘faulty’ one had just received a new battery, beside; he had also tested and replaced any failing Fox-Or batteries). We had sniffers to check the Fox-Ors as we put them out and are pretty sure all had ended up ON, on the right frequency and on high power… But I guess it’s possible one got missed and left off/on low power/off frequency. Bit odd, though.

We persevered, and despite the blackberries and thorny bushes and recalcitrant transmitters, people seemed to enjoy themselves.

Then control collection time came around. Thanks to everyone who helped pick up street O plates – much appreciated! And to Lara for having to do her sprint leg with a course setter and the dog following behind and picking up each control that she found J. The course setters then headed out to get the RadiO controls. We left the two dodgy ones till last. First attempt was the 2m Fox-Or, with the rest of them safely in the car and turned off (or so we thought). We actually caught a sniff of signal and got a bit excited… But when we got to the track where the transmitter was put out (and I distinctly remember the track, reaching a dead end and thinking ‘no point bush-bashing there – the squashed wandering jew will give it away), turning around and wandering a short distance in the other direction and hanging it reasonably high in a tree), the signals made no sense. In fact, they seemed to be pointing back to the cars… Hmmm… We wandered around for a little bit, with increasingly shrill assertions that the control HAD to be in this clump of trees, and perhaps it had fallen, because surely the flag had been visible from the track (if you knew where to look)… But nothing, so we headed off to get the 80m ARDF transmitter instead. No sniffer, because if it was flat, it was flat. And the flags for those are big anyway, and though it was off in a reasonably deserted area of the park, the flag had, as per convention, not been hidden at all.

It took longer to find the flag than expected. We were getting a little worried, I do admit. But then there it was. Except it was on the ground. And there were no wires running out in all directions… We looked more closely. Squid pole (used to sling one of the antennas high in the air, as this transmitter needs) still where it was, but no wire attached. A bit further away, a few metres of grey wire. No sign of the transmitter or the blue and black wire, though. We looked more closely. Blue and black wire eventually found in a tangle some metres away. Transmitter box also found after some searching, slung into the bushes somewhere. Wires clearly ripped out of it. Still turned on (who knows what that did to the circuitry…).

We turned it off, put it back in the car, turned off the stray 2m Fox-Or still on in there (d’oh!) and headed back for another go at the Fox-Or. But it didn’t turn up. We checked a few frequencies, wandered further away than it should have been, and no trace of it. We gave up and returned to the car and had a look at the start list. At about the time that Tim Hatley got into ARDF #1 (and he was the only one that found it, so presumably there were people loitering around who followed him in and broke it), a pair of newcomers might have been attempting to find Fox-Or G on the other side of the track. It wasn’t the easiest location for a newbie, so they might have had some trouble and wandered back out. But someone watching could have easily followed the track in and if they were observant, spotted the flag hanging in the scrub. It wasn’t THAT overgrown.

So there you have it. A disappointing end to what had looked like a good turn out and enjoyable day. We hope people enjoyed the courses nonetheless, and a special welcome to all the newcomers who graced us with their presence!

The results follow (bearing in mind on the RadiO legs that many people lost a lot of time looking for transmitters that weren’t there! Sorry!). Please post a comment here if we’ve got the number of controls you found or whether you were walking or running wrong.

Thanks for coming! Marta and Pierre

2m Fox-or loop

Competitor	#Tx	Start time	Finish time	Time taken
Bryan Ackerley	6	10:55:26	11:41:09	0:45:43
Kristian Ruuska	6	11:07:00	11:54:11	0:47:11
Mark Besley	6	12:09:00	12:58:00	0:49:00
Gary Panter	6	12:13:00	13:06:00	0:53:00
Simo Ruuska	6	11:07:00	12:00:00	0:53:00
Dennis Mews	6	11:04:00	12:01:00	0:57:00
Bruce Paterson	6	11:00:22	11:58:00	0:57:38
David Beard	6	12:03:57	13:04:59	1:01:02
Ian Davies	6	11:01:35	12:04:00	1:02:25
Ewen Templeton	6	11:48:00	12:54:27	1:06:27
Dennis Haustorfer	6	10:41:22	12:04:00	1:22:38
Ian Stirling	6	10:50:37	12:15:00	1:24:23
Henk de Jong	6	10:56:00	12:35:00	1:39:00
Peter Maloney	4	11:25:00	11:57:31	0:32:31
Mike Hubbert	4	11:13:00	12:26:29	1:13:29
Nick Wong and Pam Chang	4	10:20:00	11:37:21	1:17:21
Darian Panter	3	11:06:34	11:34:26	0:27:52
Debbie Dodd	3	11:47:26	12:30:47	0:43:21
Denise Pike	3	11:47:26	12:30:47	0:43:21
Peter Grover	3	11:47:26	12:30:47	0:43:21
Lara Bell	3	10:18:00	11:07:00	0:49:00
Dianne Shalders	3	10:56:00	11:57:00	1:01:00
Bernadette Murray	1	12:00:00	12:29:59	0:29:59

80m ARDF loop

Competitor	#Tx	Start time	Finish time	Time taken
Tim Hatley	5	10:54:00	12:00:48	1:06:48
Bruce Paterson	4	12:08:00	12:49:10	0:41:10
Kristian Ruuska	4	11:59:00	12:43:00	0:44:00
Dennis Haustorfer	4	12:10:00	13:09:44	0:59:44
Gary Panter	4	11:05:00	12:11:00	1:06:00
Peter Maloney	4	12:06:00	13:15:42	1:09:42
Greg Williams	4	11:32:00	13:06:00	1:34:00
Darian Panter	2	12:05:00	12:25:00	0:20:00
Henk de Jong	2	12:44:00	13:19:00	0:35:00
Dianne Shalders	2	12:01:00	13:10:48	1:09:48
Lara Bell	2	11:14:20	12:35:21	1:21:01
Dennis Mews	0	10:46:00	11:02:00	0:16:00

Sprint loop

Competitor	Run/Walk	Start time	Finish time	Time taken
Henk de Jong	W	10:23:21	10:38:30	0:15:09
Dianne Shalders	W	10:23:21	10:38:30	0:15:09
Tim Hatley	W	10:25:00	10:42:55	0:17:55
Jenelle Templeton	W	11:39:05	11:58:35	0:19:30
Ian Baker	W	10:46:20	11:07:50	0:21:30
Sue Healy	W	10:05:00	10:26:50	0:21:50
The Liau family	W	10:03:00	10:25:30	0:22:30
The Tan family	W	10:03:00	10:26:25	0:23:25
The Cheah family	W	10:03:00	10:28:15	0:25:15
The Tong family	W	10:31:00	11:27:39	0:56:39
Peter Hobbs	R	10:13:00	10:21:38	0:08:38
Simon Rouse	R	10:35:00	10:44:54	0:09:54
Ian Davies	R	10:15:00	10:25:54	0:10:54
Bruce Paterson	R	10:25:15	10:36:17	0:11:02
Tim Jackson	R	10:15:00	10:26:35	0:11:35
Dennis Mews	R	10:07:00	10:20:20	0:13:20
Peter Grover	R	10:46:00	11:02:20	0:16:20
Denise Pike	R	10:44:00	11:00:50	0:16:50
Debbie Dodd	R	10:05:00	10:22:07	0:17:07
Bernadette Murray	R	10:43:00	11:01:05	0:18:05
Pat Mews	R	10:08:50	10:29:20	0:20:30
Lara Bell	R	13:02:00	13:26:00	0:24:00
Brooke and Max Murray	R	10:01:00	10:26:08	0:25:08
Mike Hubbert	R	10:02:00	10:28:45	0:26:45

Scatter loop

Competitor	Run/Walk	# Controls	Start time	Finish time	Time taken
The Fleming family	W	10	10:05:00	10:54:20	0:49:20
Wally Cavill	W	10	10:23:00	11:24:15	1:01:15
Tim Hatley	W	6	12:11:45	12:27:55	0:16:10
The Liau family	W	6	10:35:00	10:54:40	0:19:40
The Tan family	W	6	10:35:00	10:54:50	0:19:50
The Cheah family	W	6	10:35:00	10:55:50	0:20:50
Ian Baker	W	6	11:12:15	11:39:05	0:26:50
Sue Healy	W	6	10:29:00	11:01:05	0:32:05
Peter Hobbs	R	12	10:34:00	10:53:45	0:19:45
Ian Davies	R	12	10:29:00	10:52:02	0:23:02
Peter Kempster	R	12	10:35:00	11:07:50	0:32:50
Bernadette Murray	R	12	10:00:00	10:37:00	0:37:00
Simon Rouse	R	10	10:51:00	11:07:40	0:16:40
Debbie Dodd	R	10	10:32:00	10:54:00	0:22:00
Denise Pike	R	10	11:09:10	11:33:40	0:24:30
Merv Bendle	R	10	10:30:00	10:54:40	0:24:40
Mark Besley	R	10	11:27:35	11:53:35	0:26:00
Ian Stirling	R	10	10:00:00	10:27:20	0:27:20
Pat Mews	R	10	10:40:00	11:14:06	0:34:06
John and Jackie Dempster	R	10	10:00:00	10:46:30	0:46:30
Brooke and Max Murray	R	8	11:25:35	12:35:30	1:09:55
Peter Grover	R	6	11:13:00	11:27:39	0:14:39
Mike Hubbert	R	6	10:28:50	10:57:35	0:28:45
Kristian Ruuska	R	1	Dunno, but love the leaf control card!

May 7, 2013

28th WIA Victorian Fox Hunting Championships – Saturday May 4th 2013

A report by Roger, VK3 HRL

Please may I start by thanking Ian Stirling, Jack Bramham, John Van Bree, Mark Diggins and Dennis Haustorfer for their help with planning and execution, and for all the assistance with food and equipment preparation that ensured a successful event.

Cool and inclement weather greeted the six teams as they assembled at Thorpe St Newport, just in time to realise that setting up their equipment required more than the available time. The first hunt started a bit later than planned, and events ran later than expected during the afternoon, but by dinner time we were back on schedule. Dinner was a barbecue of chicken, lamb and beef, with salads and desserts provided by wifey and members of the fox team.

Scoring:

Fixed order hunts: One point for first place through to six points for last, points awarded for each leg. Scores based on leg time, so that if a given team did poorly on one leg it would not ruin the entire hunt.

Any order hunt: like ARDF – number of foxes found then time taken. Three points per fox (ie first team for hunt scores 3 points, last team 18 points – to give Hunt 3 appropriate weighting vs the other hunts)

Sniffer hunt: individual winner, no contribution to championship aggregate.

Hunt 1 Foxhunt 3.585 MHz, 1296.1 MHz, sniff 1296 MHz. Fixed order.

Jack VK3WWW on 80m at 40G4 near Buckingham Reserve, then Ian VK3MZ with the Driftmaster 23cm hand-held near Altona Gate 41A12 and John VK3TVB a short sniff away.

Hunt 2 Foxhunt 28.450 MHz, 438.850 MHz, 52.100 MHz, Fixed order

Dennis VK3BQZ found a good nook in a Williamstown laneway for a tricky 10m leg (56E11 area), followed by Roger VK3HRL on 70cm near the Italian Social Club at 41C11, and John VK3TVB on 6m near The Pines (ugh!)

Afternoon Tea / repairs

VK3CI required a tubular mast to be straightened after a collision with a tree; VK3OW needed the services of a soldering iron. The Assorted Creams disappeared in short order.

Hunt 3 Foxhunt 3.585 MHz, 1296 MHz, 28.450 MH z, 145.700 MHz, 438.850 MHz, hunt in any order. The foxes were turned off at 18:10.

Jack VK3WWW on 80m was in a small dead-end near the Brooklyn abattoir, 41B8. Ian VK3MZ with 23cm between the Spotswood football oval and the railway line, 41K11. Mark VK3MD ran 10m from a laneway near the Nosh coffee shop at 55K4 (good coffee!). Dennis VK3BQZ on 2m found a small vehicle track into the Newport Lakes golf course off Ross Rd Altona North, 55D7. John VK3TVB put 70cm up near Seaworks in Williamstown.

Dinner at Thorpe St

While everyone was out hunting, Roger (with the help of family + Eleisha and Sue Diggins) fired up the barbecue and cooked for the army. The brazier was lit and provided some warmth for those who needed it. All seemed well fed and the wine and beer supplies dipped dramatically (fortunately there was plenty on hand). Thanks to the fox team members for the variety of salads and desserts, there was certainly no lack of choice. Scarlett the Koolie and Otto the Greyhound got plenty of attention and scraps, although Otto felt additional pats would have been nice. I found the forgotten veggie burgers in the fridge this morning – I guess there were no vegetarians because no one complained.

Hunt 4 Sniffer Hunt, 145.700 MHz.

Mark VK3MD placed three ARDF-style TXs in the neighbourhood and hounds tested their intestinal fortitude by sprinting on a full stomach. Well done to Darian and Gary, and commiserations to Ewen’s nose (which met its sorry fate on the playground equipment at the Loft Reserve, 55F4). Mars Bars to the victors, and Suzanne who just wanted Mars Bars.

Hunt 5 Foxhunt 145.700 MHz, 438.850 MHz, 28.450 MHz, 52.100 MHz, 144.250MHz, hunt in fixed order

Ian VK3MZ put 2m up from an industrial estate in Truganina, 360H10. This was a bit of a procession but thankfully the following legs were more challenging. Then Mark VK3MD put up 70cm from Ralph Ct Pt Cook, 208F4. Jack VK3WWW ran 10m from Law Crt Sunshine West, 40D6, followed John VK3TVB on 6m in a paddock near Fulton Dve Derrimut 39E7 (proved a challenge for some). Finally Dennis VK3BQZ and Eleisha ran 2m from a cleanfill pile in Altona North 54J2, which required some deal of sniffing.

Supper

All teams returned to base for debrief and cocktails. More beer and wine was consumed, along with cakes and hot food (traditional foxhunt supper). Tall tales became taller while Roger tallied the scores. Announcements were made, then following a protest the scores and times were checked and re-calculated. The VK3FAST team was pronounced the winner (confirmed), and after re-checking the scores the placings were confirmed as shown in the table below.

Team	Hunt 1	Hunt 2	Hunt 3	Hunt 5	Total	Place
VK3FAST	3+2+1=6	6+3+1=10	9	2+5+4+2+2=15	40	1
VK3OW	6+3+2=11	3+6+6=15	18	5+3+1+6+5=20	64	6
VK3CI	2+4+3=9	5+2+5=12	12	3+2+6+1+1=13	46	4
VK3BLN	4+6+1=11	4+1+3=8	3	4+4+3+5+4=20	42	=2
VK3TXO	5+1+2=8	1+5+2=8	6	6+6+2+3+3=20	42	=2
VK3FOX	1+5+3=9	2+4+4=10	15	1+1+5+4+6=17	51	5

Well done to the VK3FAST team! Good luck to all for Mt Gambier in only five weeks’ time.

May 2, 2013

Templestowe Valley – 27 April 2013

Radi-O: 2m ARDF “Templestowe Valley” April 27, 2013

Thanks to Geoff for setting an interesting 2m ARDF in Westerfolds Park. Here are the results:

*First Name*	*Surname*	*No of Tx*	*Time (mins)*	*Position*
Adam	Scammell	5	33	1
Kristian & Simo	Ruuska	5	36	2
Bryan	Ackerly	5	48	3
Matt	Heritage	5	70	4
Becky	Stuchbery	5	71	5
Paul	Stuchbery	5	74	6
David	Beard	5	77	7
James & Jenelle	Templeton	5	80	8
Dennis	Haustorfer	5	107	9
Henk	de Jong	4	80	10
Dianne	Shalders	4	80	11
Mark	Jarvis	1	44	12
Keith	Anker	0	84	13

April 25, 2013

Navy Cadets navigational exercise

Today 4 members of the Vic ARDF Group ran a simple navigation training exercise for the Australian Navy Cadet unit in Hampton Park.

The cadets are based at Hampton Park Secondary college. Adam put a lot of effort into making a map suitable for detailed navigation. The idea was to hold the exercise in just part of the school grounds, so emphasis was on fine detail and navigating by features, rather than distance and compass work.

We arrived in time to efficiently put out all of the controls ahead of a 4:30pm start. First was a quick briefing on map reading and identifying some of the features on the map, then cadets were paired up, and 3 groups were sent off every 2 minutes, with a different compulsory 1st control to spread them out a bit.

Here’s today’s map, run as a simple 30 minute score event. All controls had equal score, unlike the more complicated street-O ‘row’scoring.

As you can see from the very large scale of 1:1000, things appeared remarkably quickly, even at walking pace. The quite complex area amongst the school buildings still presented a challenge though, with some teams, including the winning team, the Giant Killers, stumbling upon some of the controls more by accident than good navigation. A line course would have made the navigation more critical, but it also would have got more crowded in such a small area.

The range of finish times showed that the event time was set about right, with the winning team blitzing it in 12 minutes and a couple of the teams not finding all of the 20 controls before the 30 minutes was up. Besides, they had to get back for some last minute marching practice for the Anzac service early tomorrow morning !

22 cadets took part in 8 teams or 2 or more. The 2 leaders, Lieutenant Silesteam and Petty Officer Hine, plus club members Dianne and Pierre, roamed the grounds making sure all was well, and just as well, because the school caretakers started to shut the gates to the Southern Oval area, which would have stranded cadets both sides of the boundary.

The rain held off for the event, despite the earlier heavy rain showers that threatened us on the way there, and most of the cadets seemed to really enjoy the exercise.

Petty Officer Hine had first contacted the club last year through this website about the possibility of some basic navigational training, followed by some Radio orienteering training, which could be useful in general for Navy cadet exercises. We therefore plan to run a RadiO event with them sometime in the near future. This will probably be a FoxOr style event, so the navigational exercise today will be a helpful skill for that. For descriptions of the different styles of RadiO events (FoxOr, Sprint, ARDF and 5-in-5), have a poke around this website.

However, cadets who really enjoyed themselves today don’t have to wait for the cadet event next month, but can take themselves (even drag parents along too) to any of this club’s events shown on the calender of this website, throughout the year. If you contact us before the event to let us you might be coming we can make sure someone is on hand for instruction/training.

A huge thanks to club members Adam (for the great map on short notice), Pierre and Dianne for managing to get there during normal working hours to help stage the event. We’d have been hard pressed to do in in the time with fewer than the four.

Here are the results: (apologies in advance for name mis-spellings or incomplete data). Feedback welcome.

Ranking	Team Name	Time (minutes)	Number of controls
1st	Giant Killers	12	20
2nd	Kara Turner	20	20
3rd	Squiggles	21	20
4th	Lewis / Pearman / Crouch	23	20
= 5th	Bakhshayeshi / Lutz	25	20
= 5th	Reece / Suttie / Englemner	25	20
6th	Walter O’Reilly	28	20
7th	Rice / Legris	29	16
8th	Kennedy et al (with flat batteries)	30++	? 18 ?

March 25, 2013July 25, 2020

March 2013 Foxhunt

Thanks you and thank everyone for coming and i hope you enjoyed most of it 🙂 Here are the scores

Team:	Hunt 1	Hunt 2	Hunt 3	Hunt 4	Hunt 5	Hunt 6	Total:	Position

TXO	0	4	4	2	3	3	16	4th
OW	3	1	2	1	1	2	10	3rd
CI	1	0	1	0	2	0	4	1st
BLN	2	2	0	3	0	1	8	2nd

DarianVK3FAST

February 23, 2013

January Fox Hunt report

Well, better late then never… Right??

Hunt 1:

The Tx was set up adjacent to a railway bridge – on one pylon, while the fox sat on the other. The fox and Tx were both below the level of the train, and both fox members had an excellent view of the sunset as we waited for the first team to show up. It took a while, but eventually TXO pulled up with teh screech of gravel, on the wrong side of the creek. They spotted the fox straight away and got across without even getting their feet wet. MZ joined the fox shortly afterwards and Roger crossed the creek and found the Tx without incident. FOX approached from the same side as the fox had driven in, but Greg opted to send Kristian out for exercise so he ran in to find us. It wouldn’t be the last time he’d be out hiking tonight…

Hunt 2:

The Tx was set high up on a hill, near a transmission tower. Too near. After complaints from the previous leg that the signal couldn’t be heard, the fox made rapid adjustments and put the beam in a tree, instead. First in was Kristian. On foot. (Do we see a theme?) His car arrived shortly after. Ryordan from TXO powered in shortly after and then MZ; a line of torches spread evenly across the hillside. They all found it within a short time of each other.

Hunt 3:

The fox made his way to a small reserve. As he skulked his way through the bushes, he thought ‘Gee, I look suspicious.’ And the dog he’d brought along for cover didn’t really help much. And indeed, neighbours accosted him soon after to ask what he was doing. With neighbours pacified and Tx finally placed, wedged in a tree not too far in with beam pointing west, the fox settled down to wait amongst razor grass and mosquitoes. Teams needed directions to get on the fox’s scent, but then MZ and FOX arrived very close together and TXO a few minutes later.

Hunt 4:

The fox had quite a long drive from the first leg but despite that, they had a long wait. After driving up a very overgrown, dry and rutty bush-track, the fox negotiated at 137-point-turn (but who’s counting? Anyway, the gender of the fox makes the fact that any 4WD happened at all worthy of general praise), plonked the fox up on a gate with the beam pointing west and settled down. There was lots of fox activities – car engines on the road, stopping, reversing, u-turning; and then disappearing. Torch light from adjacent hills. Many complaints on the radio. The fox calmly advised all teams that it was possible to drive in. Despite that, no-one seemed convinced. After what seemed like centuries, Kristian for the FOX team continued his exercise routine, strolled up to bid the fox goodnight, and then strolled back out the other direction. About ten minutes later, TXO finally deigned to join the FOX team and drove up with many complaints about the use of a beam. The fox nodded sympathetically. They didn’t snigger at all. Well, not much. MZ drove in not long afterwards. Cue much synchronised u-turning, and everyone finally got back out onto the road and gathered for the supper hunt.

Hunt 5 (supper hunt):

Plan A was aborted (after the discontent of hounds following Hunt 4, we decided the poor little mites really couldn’t handle what the fox had planned for Hunt 5; but don’t worry, boys – maybe next time!) and Plan B began a mobile hunt towards supper in Monbulk. Driving 10-20kph below the speed limit, the fox expected to be caught quickly, but as Monbulk approached, they realised they’d better go to ground instead. Frantic searching of Google Maps revealed a small park off David Hill Road. TXO was first and found it quickly. MZ conducted a thorough inspection of the fox’s tail shaft and undercarriage. They found the Tx eventually. And declared the vehicle roadworthy at the same time. The fox would like to thank them for their free service. FOX came shortly afterwards and found it without any trouble.

Everyone then adjourned for supper (MZ with a flat tyre which was reinflated with some good ol’ Monbulk air).

And the results are:

Hunt	TXO	FOX	MZ
1	0	2	1
2	1	0	2
3	2	0	1
4	1	0	2
5	0	2	1
Total	4	4	7
Placing	1	1	2

Well done, TXO and FOX! Equal first.

February 10, 2013

TTT – Surviving the Drake Passage

Monday 28 January

At sea. Conditions deteriorating. Lots of napping. Some eating and meds.

If you bought a ticket to support the eradication of the rats on South Georgia island you were entered in a raffle for a beautifully illustrated chart of our Spirit of Shackleton trip. No such luck. But I did managed to outbid Ian from Qld for a book on Whaling in South Georgia which Ewen really wanted. Last second bid but managed to secure it. Must have been all that practice on Ebay.

Another dinner holding onto the table as we sailed down the Bransfield Strait.

Tuesday 29 January

Very rough overnight. No early morning wake up call, but now confined to cabins.

Report at 9,45am. Winds 60 knots. Gusting to 89 knots. Waves 8-9 metres.

Breakfast in bed. Yoghurt, apple, bun and cake. Delivered by Kirsten the assistant Expedition leader

A little later Sam dropped by with water bottles. Good left hand catch pitched from the door way.

We had a visit from Dmitri and Josephine , the most visitors we have had all trip. Lunch duly arrived about 12.30, wait for it, meat pattie in bun with lettuce and cucumber, cheese sandwich, and cold chips plus a can of drink. We were lucky to be on the third level which meant at least we could watch the waves as they rose and then sprayed against the side of the ship. More entertainment for us than those on the deck below who had their metal covers placed on their port holes. All in all a very relaxing day, and about 3pm when we eventually got in the lee of the Cape of Horn we could venture out and relieve the symptoms of cabin fever.

Wednesday 30 January

Disembarkment today. We spent most of the morning saying goodbye to new friends, at breakfast, on the bus to the airport, at the coffee shop, in the departure lounge, even on the flight back to Buenos Aires. We were hoping to meet up with a couple from London for dinner, but Ewen succumbed to a migraine. I expect it was the result of another case of inflight food of chocolate biscuits and apple juice.

We actually met up with the “Odd Man In” team downtown in Buenos Aires when we eventually stepped out for a quick bite to eat later that night. We were quite hungry by then.

PS Need to call it a night. Early morning flight to Lima

Valley Reserve CombO Event 13 July 2013

ARDF Sprint Results

Results

Woodlands CombO results – 2m FoxOr and Orienteering

RadiO A – Long Course

RadiO B – Short Course

SPLITS

2m Fox-or loop

80m ARDF loop

Sprint loop

Scatter loop

Scoring:

Hunt 1 Foxhunt 3.585 MHz, 1296.1 MHz, sniff 1296 MHz. Fixed order.

Hunt 2 Foxhunt 28.450 MHz, 438.850 MHz, 52.100 MHz, Fixed order

Afternoon Tea / repairs

Hunt 3 Foxhunt 3.585 MHz, 1296 MHz, 28.450 MH z, 145.700 MHz, 438.850 MHz, hunt in any order. The foxes were turned off at 18:10.

Dinner at Thorpe St

Hunt 4 Sniffer Hunt, 145.700 MHz.

Hunt 5 Foxhunt 145.700 MHz, 438.850 MHz, 28.450 MHz, 52.100 MHz, 144.250MHz, hunt in fixed order

Supper

Hunt

TXO

FOX

MZ

Total

Placing