Sat, 22 November, 2014

Well the Night-RadiO was an unexpected success.

It wasn’t officially on our event calender till recently, but without the healthy number of 10 RadiO competitors, the Night-O champs would have looked a bit lean, with only 25 Bush-O-only competitors (including two visiting Czech competitors who turned up very late).

The weather presented mild temperatures, but with periodic rain showers, and a particularly heavy shower just before the 12 midnight deadline. This caught a couple of competitors out, and Dennis, who could no longer read his map, made a call back to base for directions home !

The RadiO event consisted of 4 2m ARDF transmitters on 145.3MHz, and 6 2m FoxOrs on 145.7Mhz. The FoxOr circles were not marked on the map, except the competitors were alerted that at 6 of the normal Bush-O controls, a FoxOr could be heard. I just didn’t say which 6 !

There were 33 Bush-O controls, but I wasn’t cruel, and all but one of the FoxOrs were near Bush-O controls near the start, many inside the ARDF 750m exclusion circle.

The Bush-O controls scored between 20 and 80 points each in the 3 hour score event, the FoxOrs 100 points each, and each ARDF Tx 150 points.

The time was 3 hours, and started on-time at 9pm.

Originally I had intended there to be 5 of each ARDF and FoxOrs, but unfortunately the battery in TX#4 was terminally dead. I deduced this was due to a key-switch which had become loose, and therefore the TX possibly wasn’t turned off after an event sometime. All fixed now, but a lot of stuffing about on the night to determine it was not gonna be a goer. I also had issues with the internally soldered connections in the TX#2 turnstile antenna, but was able to make a temporary repair for the night. Also fixed now. Due to the lack of one of the ARDF’s I added in another FoxOr.

Thanks to all those who went out again after midnight to pick up a couple of RadiO controls each !

Thanks also to Henk & Di for the lunch on Sunday of pancakes with strawberries and maple syrup. Yum !

Here are the results:

http://eventor.orienteering.asn.au/Events/ResultList?eventId=1348&groupBy=EventClass

The RadiO results are under Junior Male for some weirdo Eventor reason (might even be changed to RadiO by the time you view them).

Congrats to Kristian, the winner of the chocolate bar, even beating Simon’s Bush-O score (but then, the RadiO scoring was a bit biassed!). Also specials mentions to Grant and Mark taking out the minor placings with commendable scores. It was interesting to note the different score gathering strategies, with different balances of the 3 options (ARDF, FoxOr and the higher-scoring Bush-O’s).

People seemed to enjoy the event format, despite the plethora of things to do and keep in mind. Discussions afterwards indicated it was really good practice for keeping map contact, or relocating again if you lost it, as you had to know where you were to find the Bush-O controls. This is a good idea for ARDF, allowing your bearings to have an accurate start point. In normal ARDF you can normally muddle through if you don’t keep map contact, but this event didn’t allow you to do that (too much….).

Oh, and the two Czech competitors who went out to try some Night-O (with borrowed head-light and southern hemisphere compasses) ? They knew all about Radio orienteering of course. “There are a whole group of them in the next town over from where we live; they often participate in normal orienteering events with us too”.

Note for next night event … get some more reflective tape to replace the missing strips.

Father’s Day 2014 dawned crisp and blue and sunny, with not a breath of wind and not a cloud in the sky. On any other day, we would have anticipated a huge turnout, particularly as Wattle Park is in a prime location in the Eastern Suburbs, but given it was Father’s Day with all those associated family commitments, we weren’t really expecting large numbers.

Well. Were we mistaken. As the last competitor (Peter Maloney) showed up just before midday and got handed a non-cardboard score card and sprint course hastily hand-drawn on a blank map, we looked down at our attendance sheet and noticed that we’d had more than 50 competitors (some with families) turn up!

Luckily it was just the one map and control card that we were short, and Peter is a regular ARDF competitor so took it all in his stride.

We hope everyone enjoyed themselves – certainly all the kids were smiling, and there weren’t too many grumbles (that the course setters heard, anyway) about control placement, which is always a relief when you’re setting multiple loops. Also all the equipment behaved and no transmitters were stolen, so basically, I’d call this a successful day.

Thanks to Geoff for the use of his maps, to Pierre, for co-setting and running this one and putting out transmitters with me this morning, and also to my long-suffering partner David who programmed up and battery-checked all the Fox-Ors and helped me put out plate controls on Saturday evening. Also to Fitzel, because he has fleas.

OK. Enough waffle. Here are some results.

Sprint Loop

This was a short (about 2.2km straight line distance) line course set in the eastern end of Wattle Park. Ian Dodd pointed out that there was an easy cheat’s way to shorten one’s distance on this one, given we weren’t using SI controls. In my naivete, I didn’t even think that this would be a problem, and I’d like to think that given the relaxed nature of the day and the cheerfulness of the competitors, this didn’t happen.

Name	Start	Finish	Time
Tim Hatley	11:08:30	11:23:30	0:15:00
Stephen Bird	10:16:20	10:31:30	0:15:10
Kristian Ruuska	10:25:05	10:43:20	0:18:15
Orry Thomas	10:25:05	10:43:20	0:18:15
Ian Dodd	12:25:30	12:44:15	0:18:45
Peter Maloney	12:43:45	13:04:20	0:20:35
Geoff Armstrong	10:34:10	10:54:50	0:20:40
Peter Grover	11:17	11:39:24	0:22:24
Deb Sutherland	11:16	11:38:30	0:22:30
Greg Tamblyn	11:15:30	11:39:35	0:24:05
Mark Besley	11:55:38	12:21:19	0:25:41
Dennis Mews	10:35:45	11:01:50	0:26:05
Pat Mews	10:36:45	11:04:10	0:27:25
Merv Bendle	10:53:45	11:21:20	0:27:35
John Sheahan	12:00	12:28:30	0:28:30
Debbie Dodd	11:57	12:25:45	0:28:45
Janet Johnson	10:39:30	11:09:08	0:29:38
Lara Bell	12:55:00	13:25:30	0:30:30
Pam Braithwaite	10:49:30	11:20:45	0:31:15
Bernadette Murray	10:00	10:33	0:33:00
Denise Pike	10:50:40	11:23:50	0:33:10
Pat Miller	11:11:20	11:45	0:33:40
Lauris Stirling	10:33	11:07:20	0:34:20
Andrew Francis	10:17:45	10:55:55	0:38:10
Liz Hatley	10:39	11:18	0:39:00
Kevin Maloney	10:12	10:55:15	0:43:15
Suzanne O’Callaghan	11:49:15	12:33:20	0:44:05
Rosie Salvaris	10:00:45	10:47	0:46:15
Des Gregory	10:00:45	10:47	0:46:15
Mike Hubbert	9:35:00	10:23	0:48:00
Alan Miller	11:01:30	11:50	0:48:30
Adams Family	11:25:15	12:14:15	0:49:00
Zoe Davies + Family	10:24:30	11:15:55	0:51:25
Amber Lecluyse + Family	10:24:30	11:44:30	1:20:00
Burr Family	10:24:45	11:45	1:20:15
Ardern Family	10:24:30	11:45	1:20:30
McGill Family	10:24:24	11:45	1:20:36
Thomas Pritchett + Family	10:24:30	11:45:55	1:21:25
Chris Jeffries	10:40	12:01:40	1:21:40

Scatter Loop

We used the usual Wattle Park street map for this loop, scaled it down to be the same as the sprint map and hacked off a small corner to create a scatter course which was not too long. It’s surprisingly difficult to create interesting, short scatter courses! Hope we succeeded. Competitors had the choice of doing all 12 controls for a distance that I measured at 3.3km, or 6 out of the 12 controls for a distance of about 2km.

Name	# Controls	Start	Finish	Time
Tim Hatley	12	10:51:25	11:08:15	0:16:50
Ian Dodd	12	12:44:30	13:05:00	0:20:30
Kristian Ruuska	12	11:00:40	11:22:45	0:22:05
Orry Thomas	12	11:00:40	11:22:45	0:22:05
Geoff Armstrong	12	11:02:20	11:24:50	0:22:30
Denise Pike	12	11:41:30	12:07:10	0:25:40
Deb Sutherland	12	10:33:50	10:59:30	0:25:40
Greg Tamblyn	12	11:55:30	12:21:55	0:26:25
Pam Braithwaite	12	11:25	11:52:32	0:27:32
Pat Mews	12	11:20:40	11:48:40	0:28:00
Dennis Mews	12	11:19:40	11:48:40	0:29:00
Janet Johnson	12	11:12:50	11:42:30	0:29:40
Mark Besley	12	10:51:45	11:22:25	0:30:40
Bernadette Murray	12	10:35:30	11:06:50	0:31:20
Peter Maloney	12	13:35:00	14:07	0:32:00
Lauris Stirling	12	11:12	11:45:15	0:33:15
Geoff Adams	12	12:15:05	12:49	0:33:55
Andrew Francis	12	11:00	11:35:20	0:35:20
Christine Parker and Peter Berry	12	10:32:05	11:09:05	0:37:00
Sandy Burgoyne	12	10:27:30	11:05:40	0:38:10
Murray Hanna	12	9:55:30	10:35:10	0:39:40
Ian Stirling	12	10:30:15	11:11:40	0:41:25
Pat Miller	12	10:12:45	10:57:15	0:44:30
Liz Hatley	12	9:51	10:36:20	0:45:20
Ian Baker	12	10:38	11:23:50	0:45:50
Dorothy Adams	12	11:15:30	12:04	0:48:30
Alan Miller	12	10:12:45	11:06	0:53:15
Gray Family	12	10:23	11:30:40	1:07:40
Peter Grover	6	10:52:45	11:09	0:16:15
Debbie Dodd	6	11:34:20	11:51:25	0:17:05
Stephen Bird	6	10:39:45	10:57	0:17:15
Merv Bendle	6	11:26:30	11:45	0:18:30
Henk de Jong	6	10:11:15	10:40:50	0:29:35
Dianne Shalders	6	10:11:15	10:40:50	0:29:35
Mike Hubbert	6	10:25	10:59	0:34:00
Julie Wood	6	10:23:35	11:05:10	0:41:35

Fox-Or Loop

The Fox-Or loop took in the western part of the park, with all those lovely hills. Straight line distance for the lot was about 1.7km. It was predominantly our regulars who tried this loop, but we roped in a few newcomers as well. Congratulations to Deb for finding her chosen 3 transmitters, and to Sandy who said she’d give it a try, and came back in good time with all Txs under her belt!

Name	# Txs	Start	Finish	Time
Tim Hatley	6	10:37:20	10:51	0:13:40
Kristian Ruuska	6	10:44:30	10:59	0:15:00
Orry Thomas	6	10:44:30	10:59	0:15:00
Ian Dodd	6	11:28	11:46	0:18:00
Peter Maloney	6	13:06	13:25:00	0:19:00
Suzanne O’Callaghan	6	11:25	11:45	0:20:00
Mark Besley	6	10:30	10:50:50	0:20:50
Greg Tamblyn	6	9:57:10	10:20:15	0:23:05
Henk de Jong	6	10:49:30	11:21	0:31:30
Dianne Shalders	6	10:49:30	11:21	0:31:30
Lara Bell and Paul Elliott	6	11:25	11:59	0:34:00
Mike Hubbert	6	11:00:20	11:36:20	0:36:00
Sandy Burgoyne	6	11:21	12:05:10	0:44:10
Debbie Dodd	3	12:29:15	12:47:15	0:18:00

ARDF Loop

In a park as small and open as this one, we weren’t able to have the flags as visible as we would have liked, but despite this, the only complaint we got was that the flags did not match the Tx numbers. Whoops… Yes, we did notice this as we were putting them out. But then we decided we couldn’t be bothered going back and changing the flags over. (Come on, early on a Sunday morning…)

We saw a bit of a change in the results for this leg; where previously speedsters Tim and Ian were vying for winning places, in this leg our more experienced ARDFers demanded a bite of the action. Congratulations to Kristian for winning this loop (despite the dodgy flag numbering), although it was a bit mean of you to give your mate Orry the slip so close to the end! Particular credit, also, to David and Peter who, despite walking, found all five controls with minimal fuss, and only a couple of minutes more slowly than Kristian had. Sometimes accuracy beats running ability – excellent effort, boys! Good work also to Greg, who found three Txs, and Lara and Paul who gave it a go and picked up two.

Name	# Txs	Start	Finish	Time
Kristian Ruuska	5	11:25	12:03:20	0:38:20
David Beard	5	12:00	12:39:55	0:39:55
Peter Maloney	5	12:00	12:39:55	0:39:55
Orry Thomas	5	11:25	12:05:15	0:40:15
Tim Hatley	5	9:50:00	10:36:50	0:46:50
Ian Dodd	5	11:46	12:44:50	0:58:50
Henk de Jong	5	12:10	13:11	1:01:00
Dianne Shalders	5	12:10	13:11	1:01:00
Mark Besley	3	11:25	11:54	0:29:00
Greg Tamblyn	3	10:25	11:15:10	0:50:10
Lara Bell and Paul Elliott	2	12:00	12:38:15	0:38:15

The Battlers

The beauty of this CombO course is that people can come and try whatever loops they want – I think that’s what makes it such a popular event with both orienteers and ARDFers alike. But a special mention, I think, is absolutely necessary for those people who put in the effort to try every single leg. So without further ado, here are those brave souls who took on all four loops on offer. (Particular credit to Mark who, every time he came back, informed us that he needed to go home to get to a Father’s Day event… and then proceeded to go and try the next leg anyway!)

Name	# Scatter controls	# Fox Ors	# ARDF Txs	Total time
Tim Hatley	12	6	5	1:32:20
Kristian Ruuska	12	6	5	1:33:40
Orry Thomas	12	6	5	1:35:35
Peter Maloney	12	6	5	1:51:30
Ian Dodd	12	6	5	1:56:05
Mark Besley	12	6	3	1:46:11
Greg Tamblyn	12	6	3	2:03:45

Congratulations to Tim Hatley, our overall winner!

PS. Kudos to this nice online Excel-to-HTML converter, which produces clean HTML tables without all the crappy formatting stuff Excel tries to stick in when you save as HTML from it: ~link~

Results of the RadiO CombO Score event held at Pound Bend:

1. Bruce Paterson 330 points

2. Ian Dodd 330

3. Ewen Templeton 300

4. Peter Maloney 250

5. Greg Williams 230

6. Suzanne O’Callaghan 190

7. Jack Bramham 180

8. Tim Hatley 90

9. Jenelle Templeton 0

We have plenty of maps left over, so if you want to run a training event there sometime (using virtual controls), let Mike Hubbert know.

A fairly unofficial ARDF sprint event on 2m was held this  morning, after the night orienteering events at the You Yangs. It was set around the delightful camping area.

I had problems with TX#3 behaving oddly and crapping over other cycles, so I left it out of this event. I think I may have mis-programmed it (some time ago) somehow !

5 hardy souls had a go, with Dennis H coming in from nearby (apologies about the locked gate!) just for the event. Congrats to Suzanne, who I imagine will be surprised she won overall.

 

Here are the results:

Name	Time	Txs found	Ranking
Suzanne OC	25 mins	5	1
Dennis H	30 mins	5	2
Rex N	37 mins	5	3
Peter M	42 mins	5	4
Dennis M	14 mins	2	5

 

A few things to improve on:

• We could try 20 sec on time (1:40 cycle time) to phase people into the shorter cycles
• More work needs to be done on TX clock sync adjustment. I had problems with TXs drifting their timeslot and encroaching on others.
• Better packaging. I think one reset itself by being bumped.

Full Course

Brue Paterson                   5/5Tx         57 min

Ian Dodd                             4*/5Tx         112min

Dianne Shalder                 4*/5Tx         118min

(* identified  Tx off map)

Short Course

Peter Maloney                  3/3Tx         61min

Suzanne O’Callaghan      3/3tx          73min

Will Krincevski                  2/3Tx         74min

Jeff Hughes                        0/3Tx         68min

This event was run in conjunction with an Orienteering event set by Ewen Templeton in neighboring Candle Bark Park and sharing the same finish zone in Westerfolds Park.

The day started with a misfire of Tx3. After setting all TX’s in position, I returned to the start tent to find that Tx3 had gone out of sync. A quick bike ride back to reset it and we were ready to start.

 

Bruce P. was the first to head out and returned in very good time. Quick to inform me that TX4 was off the map. I checked the GPS readings and yes, it was well off the map. I should have twigged when I rode over a foot bridge with lots of water under it. My apologies to the full course hunters.

Ian D. set out much later and also discovered my foe-par. This resulted in an extended search time, because he did not believe TX4 could be off the map.

Dianne S. had a successful day. Returning with 5Tx’s on her score card, after experiencing some technical difficulties at the start with battery issues.

Suzanne O. was keen to get going. Returning with successfully finding all 3tx’s in time.

Peter M. had a false start, returning with equipment failure early. This was quickly rectified with a new battery and Peter set off again. This time he returned triumphant with all 3 TX’s on the card.

Will Krincevski, approached the course with a lot of enthusiasm and after a little coaching from Bruce, set of solo to locate Tx3. “Will” returned with lots of co-ordinates marked on his map, which were all very close to the location TX3. Well done “Will”. Hope to see you out there again.

Jeff H. had some exercise walking around the park. Unfortunately the score card did not reflect the effort spent. Better luck next time Jeff.

Doug C. turned up with Birthday cake in hand as we were dismantling the course. Thanks for retrieving TX1 & Tx3.

Thanks to all who assisted with the day’s event.

Dennis Haustorfer (vk3bqz)

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.

Subscribe to the AR email list at http://lists.id.oz.au/wws/subrequest/melb-ardf

Like us on Facebook for event updates and reminders here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/VicARDF/

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	Penalty	Bonus
1	Ian Dodd	20:22	50	50	0	0
2	Ewen Templeton	29:30	30	30	0	0
2	Henk DeJong	46:38	30	30	0	0
	Mark Besley	DNF	0	0	0	0
	Dennis Mews	DNF	0	0	0	0

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

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

ARDF Short    (3 TX - 80 mins)

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

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

Splits

ARDF Full           

(33)

(32)

(31)

(35)

(Homing)

F

1

4

Ian Dodd

93:03

14:20

38:45

55:57

82:31

92:36

93:03

DR

14:20

24:25

17:12

26:34

10:05

00:27

(33)

(32)

(31)

(35)

(Homing)

F

(90)

1

6

Gary Panter

95:23

08:26

30:27

55:30

82:21

94:52

95:23

91:47

AR

08:26

22:01

25:03

26:51

12:31

00:31

*90

(33)

(32)

(31)

(35)

(Homing)

F

3

3

Ewen Templeton

109:20

22:17

47:12

67:14

93:39

108:50

109:20

AR

22:17

24:55

20:02

26:25

15:11

00:30

(33)

(Homing)

F

(33)

4

1

Jack Bramham

109:35

18:17

109:03

109:35

18:20

AR

18:17

90:46

00:32

*33

ARDF Short           

(31)

(33)

(35)

(Homing)

F

1

5

Darian Panter

67:23

22:06

30:48

56:35

66:55

67:23

AR

22:06

08:42

25:47

10:20

00:28

(33)

(31)

(35)

(Homing)

F

1

7

Dennis Haustorfer

76:01

20:59

36:46

60:37

75:32

76:01

AR

20:59

15:47

23:51

14:55

00:29

(33)

(31)

(Homing)

F

3

2

Henk DeJong

75:05

19:50

36:44

75:05

75:05

AR

19:50

16:54

38:21

00:00

(31)

(33)

(Homing)

F

3

8

Tim Hatley

17:56

05:56

13:17

17:28

17:56

BK

05:56

07:21

04:11

00:28

(33)

(31)

(Homing)

F

5

9

Peter Maloney

86:39

13:56

43:13

86:09

86:39

AR

13:56

29:17

42:56

00:30

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

F1

F2

F3

F4

F5

HB

Scammel

Adam

AR

1st

43’36

6

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

AR

VK3YNG

2nd

44’11

6

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

AR

VK3TJN

3rd

61’39

6

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

AR

VK3OW

4th

76’59

6

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

AR

VK3CPM

5th

90’07

5

11:29:42

12:59:49

12:12:56

11:34:21

11:53:21

12:45:24

12:59:44

Besley

Mark

AR

VK3BES

6th

77’55

4

10:44:39

12:02:34

11:48:41

10:53:20

11:32:42

12:02:28

Haustorfor

Dennis

AR

VK3BQZ

7th

84’24

4

11:04:42

12:29:06

12:01:06

12:23:02

11:30:08

12:28:58

Canning

Doug

AR

VK3JDO

8th

91’03

4

10:15:15

11:46:18

11:17:08

11:31:03

11:02:39

11:46:12

McDonald

Hamish

AR

9th

93’46

4

10:39:41

12:13:27

11:33:14

12:00:05

11:02:19

12:12:07

Hatley

Tim

BK

10th

35’02

3

12:14:13

12:49:15

12:33:30

12:45:18

12:49:12

Brokner

Pierre

AR

11th

60’30

3

10:19:49

11:20:19

11:00:13

11:10:27

11:20:12

Dejong

Henk

AR

VK3BLI

12th

82’00

3

10:25:00

11:47:00

11:34:00

10:41:00

11:46:00

O’Callaghan

Suzanne

AR

VK3FSZI

–

80’00

0

10:50:00

12:10:00

Course set by Darian Panter VK3FAST

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

F1

F2

F3

F4

F5

HB

Scammel

Adam

AR

1st

43’36

6

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

AR

VK3YNG

2nd

44’11

6

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

AR

VK3TJN

3rd

61’39

6

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

AR

VK3OW

4th

76’59

6

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

AR

VK3CPM

5th

90’07

5

11:29:42

12:59:49

12:12:56

11:34:21

11:53:21

12:45:24

12:59:44

Besley

Mark

AR

VK3BES

6th

77’55

4

10:44:39

12:02:34

11:48:41

10:53:20

11:32:42

12:02:28

Haustorfor

Dennis

AR

VK3BQZ

7th

84’24

4

11:04:42

12:29:06

12:01:06

12:23:02

11:30:08

12:28:58

Canning

Doug

AR

VK3JDO

8th

91’03

4

10:15:15

11:46:18

11:17:08

11:31:03

11:02:39

11:46:12

McDonald

Hamish

AR

9th

93’46

4

10:39:41

12:13:27

11:33:14

12:00:05

11:02:19

12:12:07

Hatley

Tim

BK

10th

35’02

3

12:14:13

12:49:15

12:33:30

12:45:18

12:49:12

Brokner

Pierre

AR

11th

60’30

3

10:19:49

11:20:19

11:00:13

11:10:27

11:20:12

Dejong

Henk

AR

VK3BLI

–

82’00

0

10:25:00

11:47:00

O’Callaghan

Suzanne

AR

VK3FSZI

–

80’00

0

10:50:00

12:10:00

Course set by Darian Panter VK3FAST

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!

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

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 ?