Sun, 16 May, 2010

Perfect conditions greeted the competitors for the 2010 RadiO Hageby, despite the near freezing start for the organisers earlier in the morning. This event was held in conjunction, as in previous years, with the BK Bush-O event, sharing infrastructure and a Bush-O leg.

The event consisted of up to 4 loops. 2m FoxOr, Standard Bush Orienteering, 80m ARDF and a 5-in-5 2m ARDF course. Despite efforts by the organiser to set a shorter event than last year, the terrain was quite a bit tougher than it looked on the map (for the Bush-O competitors too), so times were similar. A few competitors took the option of skipping legs which was allowed this year. Some also (sometimes unintentionally) cut short some of the legs themselves.

A huge thanks must go to Greg Tamblyn who, having finished putting all the Bush-O controls out the previous day, offered to help put out some of the radiO controls on the cold Sunday morning. I doubt I’d have got them all out in time otherwise ! Suzanne O’Callaghan setup the start whilst I was out putting out controls and had everyone organised already with SI sticks. Also thanks the Henry Post who has got the dual event entry down pat now. I appreciate you bringing the big battery Ewen. It’s good to know it exists for the future.

I realised once I started turning on the 5-in-5 2m transmitters that, due to getting the FoxOrs only the Saturday afternoon following the Ringwood FoxOr and heading straight up to Daylesford, I’d completely forgotten the need to re-program the FoxOrs to a different frequency from the 145.3 MHz 2m ARDF transmitters. Ooops. I can’t have  those all going while people are trying to find the low powered FoxOrs !  I briefly contemplated going out and re-visiting every FoxOr to re-program, but that would have taken way too long, and besides, I didn’t know where Greg had hidden half of them. Instead elected to simply swap the 5-in-5 to be the last leg, and hoped everyone would have finished the 1st leg FoxOr before I had to start turning them on. Luckily this just about worked, except for poor Peter who had to contend with them beeping away while he was still trying to FoxOr. I figured it was mainly his own fault for starting late though. I managed to get them all turned on in 14 minutes or so by sprinting back and forth with the transmitters so as to not have to wait 4 minutes at every one to sync them up.

After all the RadiO controls were finally brought in (Thanks to just about eveyone), we met for coffee and post-event dicussions in Daylesford.

Recording loops splits using SI controls was a success, and after a fair bit of mucking about I’ve been able to piece together the results from those competitors who skipped loops or did them out of order. Here are the full results:

Name

SI

FoxOr

Transition

Bush-O

ARDF

1

2

3

4

5

5-in-5

Total

Notes

RD Short Course

Darian Panter

204028

00:26:44

00:00:26

00:16:26

00:48:22

00:10:54

00:12:20

00:13:26

00:14:15

00:20:23

00:21:53

01:53:51

Ry Panter

430992

00:34:04

00:00:19

00:18:51

00:55:26

00:00:37

00:01:45

00:02:44

00:03:32

00:05:20

00:06:29

01:55:09

Pierre Brockner

204260

00:34:01

00:00:25

00:18:44

00:55:29

00:00:43

00:01:55

00:02:54

00:03:48

00:05:29

00:07:01

01:55:40

Henk DeJong

204131

01:03:00

00:04:12

00:36:17

00:00:52

00:02:01

00:03:08

00:04:16

00:07:58

00:11:01

01:54:30

No ARDF

Suzanne O’Callaghan

253383

01:12:28

00:00:56

00:26:00

00:54:00

00:01:27

00:07:42

00:10:06

00:23:32

00:41:33

00:44:11

02:23:35

No ARDF

Peter Maloney

430844

01:47:05

00:14:00

01:01:21

00:06:42

00:14:19

00:17:16

01:01:46

03:59:34

No ARDF/3x5in5

Jack Bramham

430842

00:54:16

00:07:14

00:46:55

01:48:25

No 5in5/No Bush/4xARDF

Di Shalders

502927

01:31:44

00:04:15

00:44:23

02:20:22

No ARDF/No 5in5/3xFoxOrs

RB Long Course

Adam Scammell

1179179

00:30:47

00:00:07

00:23:26

00:58:42

00:00:40

00:01:39

00:02:37

00:03:25

00:05:00

00:05:59

01:59:01

Gary Panter

502929

00:34:40

00:00:55

00:37:20

01:17:52

00:00:42

00:01:30

00:02:39

00:03:44

00:05:02

00:05:52

02:36:39

Ewen Templeton

204155

00:47:31

00:02:13

00:38:05

01:19:11

00:00:40

00:01:57

00:18:26

00:20:41

00:23:07

03:10:07

4x5in5

Well done to Adam and Darian for taking out the honours in the Long and Short courses. I’m also particularly impressed by the results of the Pierre/Ryordan partnership, with times only a couple of minutes after Darian.

There was some feedback on the event, and some of my own observations, and all will be taken into account for the next RadiO Hageby.

• FoxOr still a bit long. I agree. This was partly imposed by the rugged and in parts green-ish terrain. The trick was to avoid the green, but sometimes there was a bit more than was mapped. Since I don’t think we should put FoxOrs any closer together than they were, potentially causing interference issues, I think instead 6 FoxOr circles would be plenty for the Hageby loop. This has the added advantage there are fewer to put out, which helps for the early morning scramble to get 3 sets of gear out.
• A number electing to skip loops. Again mostly terrain related. I’d set the course to roughly match the Bush-O loops in length, but of course you often travel quite a bit further for RadiO, so the loops need to be shorter than the corresponding Bush-O for the same category. Suggestion that we have a really easy course option (eg. RD much easier than I had, RC and RA course options). RD might only have to get a single pre-nominated ARDF TX and have only 2 or 3 FoxOrs.
• 5-in-5 shouldn’t have a barrier in the middle. I wanted to send competitors out in a new direction from the other loops and also didn’t want them stumbing across 5-in-5 TX’s whilst on earlier loops. The only way to go out in that direction was around the railway cutting barrier. I’m not sure if a barrier is such a bad thing anyway. The 5-in-5 is meant to be training exercise for ARDF close in to controls, and there is no guarantee there won’t be some sort of barrier in ARDF. Suspect a better solution is simply to have more 5-in-5 events at low key events. As they are short they’d make a good fit for post-O tryouts.
• TX-5 for 5-in-5 was too far. Possibly a little. It is meant to get harder as you go, and slipping only 5 minutes isn’t a big deal. I note those who had trouble on the 5-in-5 didn’t slip just 5 minutes, but many cycles, and not only on TX 5. Reflections (and brain fade) seem to have been more the problem, and this is just one of the things you have to practice in ARDF.
• The new 80m squid poles are fantastic. Thanks Gary. I used the pole, held high in my hand, to loop the wire over a branch or stub on a tree rather than actually holding up the wire full time. That way you can end up without excess vertical wire on the ground, and you don’t need to secure the squid pole.
• Some of the club 80m receivers seem deafer than others. We can check these out properly when we have the sniffer mod day. Since the distances on the 80m ARDF were shorter than a full ARDF, the receivers should have had no problems at all. There is also an extra mystery receiver in a plastic bag. Does it work OK ?
• Part of the map seems to be private property.  Yes. I even herad a rumour that the start location was on private propertly, but only discovered the day before ! This was not my fault. A competitor should assume anywhere the map says is OK to go they can go, but just beware the evil Mastiff and any unhinged shotgun wielders.
• The 5-in-5 transmitters have no O flags. They never have. A 50s walk between the TXs means you’d have a good chance of seeing the flag from the previous location. You also don’t want them to be found (too often) on earlier loops. Suzanne’s SI punch of 33 during an earlier loop caused me all sorts of confusion when formating the raw results from the sticks 🙂
• I didn’t notice the 5-in-5 transmitters had SI controls till I saw one on TX-3. Read the pre-event instructions ! No sympathy 🙂
• How many FoxOrs do I have to get ? Read the pre-event instructions and/or the map.
  

Deadman’s Flat 28^th June

Before the event I had 14 intendeds. Wow, if they all actually showed up it might even be a record attendance for one of our radiO events, perhaps challenged only by Ian’s super organised Woodlands event a while back, and of course eclipsed by the 2003 Region 3 championships (but not in number of local competitors).

The day dawned freezing as I crawled out of my tent equiped with multiple layers, beanie and gloves. However it promised to be a fine day and at times it turned out quite sunny. I’d taken the opportunity to string up the 80m antennas the afternoon before (with help from Jun & Greg). We really must get those poles sorted out now we have them though ! I’ve had enough of attempting to fling small rocks through high branches only to have the rock fall off the wire, or, more typically with my aim, miss altogether. I had only to put out the 7 FoxOrs, attach the 5 80m ARDF boxes (what happened to those “day before” timers we used to have?) and quickly place the 2m 5-in-5 course near the Start. This all took about 2 hours (driving, riding, running, clambering(!), gradually divesting all those layers of clothing), but I did have the fall back option of placing the 5-in-5 after competitors were already out on their 1^st leg.

For some reason bush-O competitors were still not in evidence at 10:25, a mere 5 minutes before their mass start, but a fair RadiO crowd was gathering. Turns out, though Peter predicatably wasn’t able to make it in time, we gained an extra 3 with Grant Jeffrey , Pierre Brockner and Douggie joining in the RadiO. 16 ! Grant had to choose between the RadiO and the Bush-O he’d come up to do, so despite the fairly lengthy Long course I hope he had a good time. People were still getting organised so I ducked off to fix an errant TX#4 in the 5-in-5 leg that didn’t seem to have come on.

The briefing outlined the 4 loops competitors had to do. There was some confusion about frequencies and which-leg-to-do-next for those who weren’t listening closely. The Long and Short had a different order in order to maximise the availablity of 80m sniffers. As it turned out this wasn’t a problem at all and I had a spare unit, plus my own left unused.

FoxOr

The FoxOr on 2m consisted of Long: 6 out of 7 or Short: 4 out of 7 FoxOr circles. Some thought had gone into the placement so that the best ones to do were not immediately obvious due to terrain, rather than just distance.

Unfortunately we had some problems with signal strength on some of the legs. All were set on low power, but it seems this differs somewhat between units. There also appears to be a noticeable difference in sniffer sensitivity, with Mk4 LCD > Mk4 LED > Ultra making it harder for some. David has now taken all the FoxOrs and will perform some comparative tests to figure out what is going on.

This made what was probably a bit too long a loop even longer. I had made this loop for Long roughly the same length as one of the Bush-O A course loops, worried that the 5-in-5 would make the total too short. Well in line distance it did seem on the short side, but the map is quite deceptive ! I should not have worried about course length being too short as it turned out. Next Hageby the FoxOr loop will be shorter. Promise !

ARDF

Most enjoyed the 80m ARDF. Short course had to get any 3 of the 5, and Long all 5. They were spaced closer than International rules to make the loop short. With the terrain involved many would consider this quite long enough, thankyou. Again the quickest loop was possibly not the shortest. A couple of Txs were right near the Finish/Assembly to keep in tune with the Hageby concept (so near yet so far…). Well done to Grant tackling a full 5 ARDF for the first time.

5 in 5

We’ve only had a couple of these in the past, but I thought it’d make an ideal short Hageby loop. I placed the course fairly simply by walking in a line for about 50s and plonking done a 2m ARDF transmitter, then on to the next (I couldn’t carry them all so a couple of trips back to the Start to pick up more). I was careful to not make a circle, but instead have the course cross over itself.

Each TX was equipped also with a SportIdent control for quick punching, and the homing beacon at the Start has the Finish punch. The Start punch on the changeover table was later used to calculate the amount of time to deduct from each competitors total as the 5in5 has to be started on TX1 time, not when a competitor arrives from a prior loop. Good idea Adam.

I think next time we won’t bother with the homing beacon, instead competitors can just navigate back. It interferes a bit with comptitors heading off from the Start.

Adam proved the 5-in-5 was do-able, completing the loop in just over 6 minutes. He said he had to run fairly hard though, so perhaps a 50s fast walk is a bit far considering the overhead of punching and Dfing. No-one else managed it in 5. Ewen claims sniffer beam issues mid course, and others had a truly dreadful time, in some cases taking longer than their entire 80m ARDF leg ! Not sure why there were so many reflections because each TX would have been line-of-sight to the next, except perhaps the final leg TX#5.

I also later discovered the reason for the recalcitrant Finish punch. For some reason I had managed to reprogram it as a Start control (which is weird because it was definitely a “wired” finish at the recent MTBO event). Hence the Cleared punches I had on the table all beeped when tested… a Start was what they were expecting, but anyone who’d done the course didn’t beep (already ‘Start’ed). All makes sense now, so we don’t have to blame new fangled SI sticks or the Homing Beacon causing EMC.

Bush-O

Most headed off with (tired) relief on the final Bush-O leg to the finish. Not everyone had a great time on this one though. Greg was sighted waving from the wrong side of a chasm on a couple of occasions and admits he really should have read the map a bit better. We all know that feeling ! I’ve also heard rumours that Loiuse was so annoyed she managed to miss the Finish altogether and was overheard blowtorching the surrounding bushland with deep felt profanity when the Registration tent simply refused to metamorphise into a Finish tent.

In map image:
151->155 is the 80m ARDF leg
1->7 is the 2m FoxOr leg
5-in-5 is not shown
Bush-O legs for Short and Long Orange and Green

Results

I hope everyone had a good time, despite the Long course being a bit long (but that line distance is indeed correct). The DNF’s below unfortunately do not show the successful good legs these competitors did. Might be worth keeping a rough record of the stage times in the future. Hope Marta is feeling better.

Special mention to Greg Williams for (mostly) completing his course entirely walking in one of his rare bush appearances (hopefully we’ll see more of him, and Douggie). Very well done to Grant for completing a Long course in his first major radiO event.

PS: Where did Douggie go ? He never made it back to the Start on one of thelegs.

Radio Long

1 Gary Panter AR 129.10

2 Ewen Templeton AR 173.57

3 Grant Jeffrey BK 175.50

Louise Hall DR DNF

David Beard AR DNF

Marta Salek AR DNF

Radio Short

1 Adam Scammell AR 76.53

2 Darrian Panter AR 122.55

3 Mark Besley AR 149.42

4 Suzanne OCallaghan AR 153.28

5 Greg Williams AR 175.59

6 Clifford Heath AR 183.58

Pierre Brockner BK DNF

Doug Canning AR DNF

Dianne Shalders AR DNF