WMMTBO Veszprem arrival !

OK, so lets stare at the elephant in the room right off !  Yep, this bit of the blog has nothing to do with ARDF. …

It will though, eventually, as this time I’m taking part in the World Masters mountain bike orienteering in Hungary, on-the-way to Serbia. Other things also make it a little more relevant, such as the help I’ve received from our good Hungarian friend, Gyrui.

So yes, I have arrived in Veszprem.

It’s hot.

Did I say it’s hot ?  Well coming straight from the Auzzie snowfields to here is a bit of a shock, with temperatures in the high 30’s.  Gyuri likens it to Death Valley. It’s been that way since I got to Vienna yesterday. The 2-part train journey from there was actually quite pleasant. The last part as you approach Veszprem from Gyor was spectacular, with pitch dark tunnels through mountains (the old MAV diesel train didn’t appear to have operational lighting) shooting you out onto high bridges over gorges.

Room in Hotel Congress, Vienna
Heaps of wind farms in Austria… both sides of the railway

Murry picked me up at the train station (we are sharing a hire car), then left me to it as he wanted to see his son, Karl, finish in the Juniors sprint race (he did well, actually). I assembled my bike in the University accommodation we’re sharing (luckily on the less sunny side of the building, and only on the 1st floor,so cooler). The odometer sender mount was the only casualty of the air transport (or perhaps even the Bruce transport), but I’ve managed to rig up something with cable ties that appears to work fine.

Murray returned a bit later to give Carolyn J and myself a lift to our model event, held on the sprint map the Open (World MTBO) and juniors (JWMTBO) rode on earlier today. Murray has also scored a free bike for himself to loan from one of the organisers (!), so we could all go for a ride.

A cloud came over just as we started, so the heat wasn’t too oppressive, and I quite enjoyed the ride. The sprint event was effectively a foot-O event on bikes, as there is no requirement to stick to the tracks here, and in fact many of the sprint controls weren’t even placed on a track !  The other bit of good news is that it seems I am able to ride, after a bit of a snowboarding accident last week. Detaching the left hand foot from the pedal isn’t easy though, so I’ll have to avoid falling on that side !

The Aussie Worlds team opening march

 

Opening ceremony…what can I say ?  I escaped before the traditional dancers got going as the masters aren’t required there.

There is a blog for the offcial team here: http://ausmtboteam.blogspot.hu

Tomorrow is the first real event for Masters;  Middle Distance champs. I’m taking lots of water 🙂

Cheers, Bruce

Easter Carnival: Harding’s Paddock and The Sprints

This blog covers he last 3 days – for the much diminished group remaining.

Thursday was a low key event on Harding’s Paddock (which was in fact mostly bush) a little south of Ipswich. The map is in the gallery below. A tricky course that lulled you into a false sense of security. A few of us had trouble even on control 1. The other trick was finding the way through the deep green Lantana around the creek. I ended used the dry sandy blue creeks themselves because I couldn’t find the secret path shown to the far west that was harder to find than it looks ! Ewen had a really good event, coming close to my time despite a lower speed. Sausages & drinks after were part of the deal. Still quite warm.

Apparently there is a group of retirees who run events every Thursday for themselves, and others such as Uni students & proffessors also occasionally make an appearance. Rod of this group gave Suzanne and myself a lift to Brisbane when Ewen went back to Stanthorpe to rescue Henk (who is feeling better by the way).

Suzanne & I clambered around Mt Coutha on Friday after being dropped off at the top cafe by Ian, my brother on his way into work. Birthday dinner in Toowong joined by Henk & Ewen.

Today the sprint events were a lot of fun. They were the tricky navigational universitycampus types that really keep you thinking hard the whole way. Apologies in advance for the dodgy map quality in my photos. For a start they were fairly hard to read anyway, but the morning event at the Kelvin Grove QUT campus on Pretex was a lot better than the afternoon, very dark printing, map on plastic bagged paper UQ St Lucia campus.

In the morning we competed in our normal age groups, and I managed a 4th, almost a 3rd place, but for a 30 sec error I made punching a later control 11 on my way to 9 (I have a bit of an unfortunate  habit of this). Suzanne had a good run against a very competitive field who would probably do very well against the Elites. A hard, but very brief tropical rain shower doused her just after she started. Ewen had a ‘mp’ which he was a bit bamboozeld by, till he got the map and realised he’d just missed 8 altogether.

In the afternoon we all did a Sunley. Doing a Sunley entails entering Elites in a sprint, even though hopelessly outclassed, just to get a decent run. However, we also took the precaution of entering in disguise. Suzanne (Ingrid, lisped with an outrageous scandanavian accent) had flowing golden locks, Ewen made a pretty below par attempt at Elvis impersonation, and my super-sized afro bore an unintentional but convincing resemblance to a certain Elite called David Sheppard. The other thing you should also note when doing a Sunley is whether the 2 sprints on the 1 day are actually part of the same event (ooops), so they ended up putting us at the end of the chasing starts, after all the morning mp Elites. We also had a very minature Warren Key in Elites (Warren had mp’d in the morning so gave Ashton a go in the afternoon instead; and lil-Warren beat me, as it turns out).

I actually made a pretty good bash at this event, and had I not been tricked by a ‘switch’ control to go direct 7 -> 8/12 -> 13 (the map was very dark and 8/12 -> were in a direct line so an understandable mistake in retrospect, that others also made on my 1b varient), I wouldn’t actually have been last. Oh well, missing out 9,10,11,12 loop is a definite mp. Lil Warren (Ashton) did M21E in 32 minutes, and he is only 10 or something ! Ingrid had the same ‘switch’ control, but was more cautious and finished the W21E sprint properly, complete with the aforementioned much admired golden plaits swinging about. Elvis took his 50 minutes cautiously, but also left the building with an M21E under his ample belt.

Henk was picked up by his sister, and we now have a hire car, picked up with some jiggery pokery at midday today. At least it means we can get to the last event tomorrow. Why they didn’t have the Brisbane sprints on Sunday I have no idea !?

Here’s an edited video of Day 1 Sledge mass start. Unfortunately still quite jerky (David Stratten would be unimpressed), but the raw footage is far worse!). http://youtu.be/dR1_elwgwuA

 

Easter Carnival: The Cascades

Rest day yesterday, and most of us needed it after the 4 days of rock & seeds.

Yesterday, many went to visit the Girraween National park a few km south of Stanthorpe, followed by a relaxed lunch at the Stage Coach Cafe, then a quick Winery visit to Symphony Hill. We’d tried the earlier nights winnings and decided not to visit Summit wines, but Robert Channon winery might also be worth a visit, which we did after the event today.

Some pictures of the National Park are in the gallery.

Take a peek at the Cascades map from this morning. Wow, what an inticate masterpiece ! There were mixed O results today, ranging from “I’ll never go here again”, to “that was really quite fun”. My own experience was more in the latter category. There weren’t any age groups today; people had just entered whatever course length and navigational difficulty they thought they would like to do. Like street-O. I’ve had a belief for quite a while that Vic State Series events should all be like this. You compete against people of all ages, but similar abilitites. It avoids small age groupings with only a handful (or just one !) person.

Most courses featured one or two long hard legs in them (see map below), which tripped up some, but everyone finished their course, despite some being of the epic variety. There was lots of grey that was mapped so well it was a bit like street orieteering in Kensington, till you had to cross the shrubbery barriers !  The white was fairly thick in places, but not as seedy as other days, so it was great to not have to spend the hours de-seeding various bits of clothing today.

Given the high class of those finishing above me in Red 3, such as Nick Dent, and many notable names below me, such as Isabelle Wymer (2nd over Easter 3 days), the ever average Russell Blatchford, Easter Day 2 course setter David Firman, and John Scown (who caught me on the 1st control), I was quite happy with my 4th place. Suzanne did well on her super long 4th leg in Red 5, but was too tired to navigate properly for the next few controls. Still, she still beat John Sheahan who started well but had some grief on the long leg. Mark Besley had the same long leg as Suzanne, but did a commendable multi-faceted noodle on arrival near the control circle. Very picturesque !

The afternoon in the sun, a bit cooler today, was spent at a winery, a cheese factory and a berry farm place called the The Bramble Patch (yummy raspberry and boisenberry ice cream mixed on the spot).

Most of us leave Stanthorpe tomorrow and head north to near Ipswich. Mark heads home towards Melbourne carting the very valuable grape based cargo.

Easter 3 Days, Day 3

Last day of Easter 3 Days, the final day of reckoning of the cummulative event.

At least we weren’t to be blessed with Lantana-land today, but instead much more prickly and persistant grass seeds Probably a bit hillier than Day 1, with lots of rocky outcrops. It was located north of Stanthorpe, but not as far as the Warwick event yesterday. Again the weather was hot, high 20’s, as it has been for all of Easter so far.

So what happened of note today ?

W45AS: Phillippa Collins made up her 13s behind, and a bit more, and ended up leading her field by about 30s overall for the 3 days. Anne Robinson also had a good day to end up mid field 9th overall. Suzanne O’Callaghan continued her consistant and reliable navigation, especially today, to end up 5th overall.

M16: Remarkably, after his 30 minute epic control yesterday, Nick Collins had a near perfect run today to regain 2nd place overall. Peter Collins was also happy with his run and ended up mid-field. The Collins will probably be reading this blog as they trek home tomorrow to Parkes then Melbourne, and will no doubt leave a comment.

Sledge: I had a pretty average day. After a good start with safe navigation, I ended up catching a number of other Sledgers. This is generally not a good thing because they aren’t always accurate ! I was sure they were heading the wrong way up a spur to #5, but I also wasn’t sufficiently confident to stay my own coures in the very vague rocks, so half-way in between wasn’t much use 🙂 Another mistaken trak on the way to #9 also lost me a few more minutes. Even didn’t come near on the finish split, despite really trying hard on the downhill chute: 27s > 22s winner. Ended up 8th overall, which was exactly middleof the Sledge field. The Perfect Sledger ?

The Sledge presentations were the most amusing, with much celebratory bubbly drink spurted over the various division winners for today. See map below. Who is going to coordinate Sledge within BG at Easter 2013 ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac-IylCy3PI&feature=youtu.be

M45AS: Mark Besley considered the 1st control so hard that if the rest of the course was liike that he’d be out there for 3 hour. Couple of nav errors but he finished the course in about half  his predicted time. Unfortuanely for Stephen Collins, he did take just under 3 hours on a challenging adventure.

W Open B: Tina Smith took out this division. Now she can have her knee operation (but after the Aust. Rogaine champs !).

Wymer Family: Every member won a place in their division!  See photos.

W70A:  Helen Alexander finally coming good with a much more pleasing 3rd place today, but unfortunately not good enough to help much for her overall result.

 

A pretty well organised and challenging carnival from the Queensland clubs.

Tim leaves us today, and the Collins head off tomorrow in their brand new Skoda. For the rest, we have some more adventures to come. The mysteriously named “Cascades”….

 

PS: Leave a comment if you have enjoyed reading these blogs.

Previous Days:

https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/easter-3-days-prologue/

https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/easter-3-days-day-1/

https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/easter-3-days-day-2/

Easter 3 Days, Day 2

All trekked north past Warwick for today’s event. The rocks were ditched, but replaced by the even less pleasant Lantana (and other weeds). Even prickly pears made an appearance.

At first it all seemed much easier than yesterdy, and most of the earlier legs were faster running. Perhaps those oreinteers we’d seen returning from early runs covered in sticky seeds has just all taken really poor route choices ? This was all to lull us into  false sense of security as the  lack of easier discerned features and the weed took their toll.

Nick Collins was going great guns till his control 4, which turned into a 30 minute nightmare excursion into Lantana-land. David Knight took a different route chice to that same control, and was deeply scared he would lose contact with the map. Luckily the D.Knight magic compass came to the rescue and he went over the spur was praying would be there, along a subtle border between nearly inpenetrable and completely inpenetrable Lantana to nail the control. Peter Collins fared better than both Nick and Dad, and managed to soundly beat them both with a good overall result. Incidentally, this same zone was the downfall of Warren Key, who, hard to believe, actually admits being “completely lost; no idea where I was”. Perhaps Rowdy Flat has to demoted the second most technically challenging map in Australia ?

Helen Alexander fared better than yesterday, but still lags the ultra competitive W70 field. Phillippa Collins also fared very well today, pushing up to be only 13s from the leader. I, on the other hand, plummetted from 3rd to 7th in Sledge, after 2 consecutive poor legs wandering around subtle parallel features wasting many minutes. Ewen Templeton mucked up his usual 1 control on his course, so remains happy with his event.

The Elites were all coming in very late, having experienced a gruelling Lantana laden epic.

There was no Sledge presentation today; perhaps the organisers were just worn out after the extra heat and tiredness of the returning Elites. I know the fastest finish split was 16s, way below my 24s (my excuse is someone got in the way!).

Tomorrow is back in the Stanthorpe area, after the O dinner tonight.

Sledge Day 2 (4 & 5 I mucked up)

Easter 3-Days, Day 1

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

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

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

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

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

Easter 3 Days – Prologue

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

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

Waiting to start
ARDF/BK Tent

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

 

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

Debbie at spectator

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

Peter after spectator

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

Prologue: Long course map

 

 

 

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

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

Banyule RadiO

     

Sat, 3 September, 2011

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

Croydon Hills RadiO

RADIO -O RESULTS – Croydon Hills – Saturday 28th August, 2010
Name2 pt3 pt4 pt5 pt10 ptSub-TotalPenaltyOrderTOTALPoints
PATERSONBRUCE3545612209122100
PANTERGARY444561210512199
RUUSKAKRISTIAN3555612661012098
TEMPLETONEWEN334461110611197
PANTERDARIAN2122685038596
ACKERLYBRYAN2122685048595
BROKNERPIERRE1002672077294
PANTERRYORDAN1002672087293
SHALDERSDIANNE1002562026292
BROOKSPETER324147312116191
DORMANVERA1001557015790
O’CALLAGHANSUZANNE112324815133389

GARDINER’S CREEK CAKE-O/RADIO COMBO

GARDINER’S CREEK 7 AUGUST 2010 – CAKE-O/RADI-O COMBO RESULTS
NAME2 PTS3 PTS4 PTS5 PTS10 PTSTOTAL
Bruce Paterson25445105
Gary Panter21555102
Adam Scammell3234594
Kristian Ruuska3134591
Ewen Templeton2243481
Keith Anker1134477
Pierre Brokner12562
Ryordan Panter12562
Darian Panter2211349
Bryan Ackerly2211349
Dianne Shalders & Tanya Panter1121238

RadiO Hageby 2010

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.
sniffing
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.

start 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:

NameSIFoxOrTransitionBush-OARDF123455-in-5TotalNotes
RD Short Course












Darian Panter20402800:26:4400:00:2600:16:2600:48:2200:10:5400:12:2000:13:2600:14:1500:20:2300:21:5301:53:51
Ry Panter43099200:34:0400:00:1900:18:5100:55:2600:00:3700:01:4500:02:4400:03:3200:05:2000:06:2901:55:09
Pierre Brockner20426000:34:0100:00:2500:18:4400:55:2900:00:4300:01:5500:02:5400:03:4800:05:2900:07:0101:55:40
Henk DeJong20413101:03:0000:04:1200:36:17
00:00:5200:02:0100:03:0800:04:1600:07:5800:11:0101:54:30No ARDF
Suzanne O’Callaghan25338301:12:2800:00:5600:26:0000:54:0000:01:2700:07:4200:10:0600:23:3200:41:3300:44:1102:23:35No ARDF
Peter Maloney43084401:47:0500:14:0001:01:21
00:06:4200:14:1900:17:16

01:01:4603:59:34No ARDF/3x5in5
Jack Bramham43084200:54:1600:07:1400:46:55






01:48:25No 5in5/No Bush/4xARDF
Di Shalders50292701:31:4400:04:1500:44:23






02:20:22No ARDF/No 5in5/3xFoxOrs














RB Long Course












Adam Scammell117917900:30:4700:00:0700:23:2600:58:4200:00:4000:01:3900:02:3700:03:2500:05:0000:05:5901:59:01
Gary Panter50292900:34:4000:00:5500:37:2001:17:5200:00:4200:01:3000:02:3900:03:4400:05:0200:05:5202:36:39
Ewen Templeton20415500:47:3100:02:1300:38:0501:19:1100:00:4000:01:57
00:18:2600:20:4100:23:0703:10:074x5in5

start 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.

Irishtown RadiO Hageby

Deadman’s Flat 28th 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 1st 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

Map of Hageby

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

Smiths Reef Night ARDF

Saturday 15th November 2008

In conjunction with the night orienteering event held by Nillumbik Emus, we decided to try a night RadiO course of their own. After much discussion with club members, we decided that the main format for the night would be a 2m ARDF course, following international rules (750m exclusion circle, transmitters at least 500m apart), and with total course distance being approximately 7km. For an added challenge, Rex Niven, the course setter for the orienteering course, kindly allowed us to show six of the orienteering controls on each competitor’s map, so that, as an added challenge, people could choose to find some or all of these as well as the ARDF transmitters. It was a perfect map for such an event – there were hills, but not so many as to make the reflections overwhelming or the terrain unrunnable, and the bush was very open, making beeline navigation between transmitters almost a viable option!   Now, as we’ve never run an ARDF course at night before, and had no idea how difficult such an event would prove, we made a few changes to how we set up the course.

  1. Joyce kindly provided us with some reflective tapes, which we attached to the ARDF flags so that, as is the intention during the day, if you got reasonably close, you had a good chance of finding the transmitter. These things were incredible! You could see them from a mile away and they reflected so brightly, that it was easy to mistake them for other people’s torches!
  2. We also placed 5 2m Fox-Ors, transmitting on 144.250 MHz, out on the course. Their purpose was twofold. First, those that did not feel confident about completing an ARDF course at night could instead just complete the Fox-Or. Secondly, we placed the ARDF transmitters into the same 200m circle as the five Fox-Or-ing controls. The theory was that if people got close to the ARDF transmitter but couldn’t quite find it, then they could use the continuously transmitting Fox-Ors to zero in on them a bit. In future events, we probably won’t do this. Some people chose not to use the Fox-Ors and complete the ARDF course in the traditional way, while those that did felt they could have coped without them.
  3. On each transmitter, we placed a segment of the map showing the 200m circle that the transmitter was located in. If people had lost contact with the map, which is a common occurrence even during the day, let alone at night, then they could use this segment to help them relocate themselves.
  4. We placed the transmitters so that getting them in order was the most efficient route. Not everyone realised this, but for those that did, it meant less zig-zagging around than on some of the ARDF courses.
  5. We asked everyone to return at midnight, with everyone starting no later than 9:05pm. Without the usual 90 or 120 minute time restrictions, we figured people would be able to take their time and find the transmitters without feeling the need to rush back to the start.

  We had great turnout for this event – ten competitors. Starting most people off at 9pm, except for a couple of stragglers that started a couple of minutes later, we settled down to wait for the verdict. David had just managed to lodge the homing beacon up a nearby tree when Rex, our fellow orienteering course setter, expressed an interest in night ARDF, saying he had tried the format in the past but without a great deal of success. Figuring most people wouldn’t be back for a while, we headed off with him to give him some moral support as he found a couple of the transmitters. He enjoyed himself, and managed to find 3 transmitters in the 2 and a half hours or so that he was out on the course. And he drew some extremely accurate bearings in the meantime, too – two of which crossed perfectly on Tx2’s location.   After an hour or so out on the course with Rex, however, I had that uncomfortable feeling that we’d forgotten something… Racking my brains, it finally hit me – although the homing beacon was in the tree, it wasn’t actually ON! I rushed back to the start with my rapidly flattening torch batteries to turn it on – and lucky I did, because not only did Adam beat me back to the finish (having done all the ARDF transmitters and a couple of O controls in just over an hour – brilliant effort, before returning to drop off his sniffer and heading out again to get the rest of the controls), but also Bryan was not far from home when I arrived! It’s worth mentioning that not only did Bryan find all the ARDF controls without a compass and without tuning in to the colocated Fox-Ors, but he also managed to find his way back to the finish the old fashioned way – navigating by the stars – since I only turned the homing beacon on about 10 minutes before he got back. Well done, Bryan, and sorry about the delay!   Other competitors returned later, with most enjoying their run and finding what they’d set out to get. Bruce, Mark, Geoff and Gary all found the five ARDF controls, with Bruce finding three of the orienteering controls as well, despite taking out a northern hemisphere compass! Ryordan and Darian went out together and found all five of their Fox-Ors while Suzanne headed out to get a couple of the Fox-Ors and some orienteering controls as well. Peter M had a bit of difficulty, but still found two of the ARDFs and two orienteering controls, so well done to him! No-one noticed the echidna which had been making itself comfortable at transmitter four when we put the controls out, so perhaps it had moved on by the time everyone arrived.   All in all, night ARDF seems a promising concept. No-one got too badly lost and, provided the terrain is good, it looks like people can still complete fairly accurate and rapid runs. The colocation of Fox-Oring controls is probably unnecessary, so I don’t think we should repeat that next time around, but other than that, I recommend the format to people looking for a course to set in the future!  

ARDF
 CompetitorTimeARDF Controls  
Adam Scammell1:09:095
Bryan Ackerly1:18:025
Gary Panter2:02:015
Mark Besley2:43:115
Geoff Hudson2:47:285
Rex Niven2:15:003
CombO
 CompetitorTimeARDF ControlsO Controls 
Adam Scammell1:25:0056
Bruce Paterson2:01:2053
Peter Maloney2:24:1522
Fox-Or
 CompetitorTimeARDF ControlsO Controls 
Ryordan/Darian Panter2:17:5050
Suzanne O’Callaghan1:57:2023

RadiO Hageby Melee

Sun 13 April, 2008

What an interesting event !

There was drama, as Bryan arrived late after getting a bit navigationally embarassed relying on his GPS to negotiate the new freeway, cards lost and found, compasses lost at night and found one the “one last just-in-case check” and even Birthday cake.

There was exhaustion, as David just couldn’t contemplate that final A loop, and the opposite as Bryan flew through the B course, much to his own surprise, and fever as Adam couldn’t get his head together.

The forecast showers stayed away, and despite the few dramas, it went pretty smoothly. Hopefully it was woth having to wake up before 7am (!), to get all the RadiO controls, both FoxOr (it was fun finding places to put them, despite having to push the bike up one of the hills) and 80m ARDF (antennas were slung the night before; a well worthwhile time saving precaution) in place.

Thanks to Suzanne for the cakey bits, Greg for all his help merging the event with the BK Hageby, Bryan for (eventually) bringing the 80m receivers and all the competitors. Thanks also to those who helped pickup controls, including Pru and Peter who hadn’t competed in the RadiO.

Competitors had to start with the VHF 2m FoxOr, doing any 4 or 6 of the 7 large circles, then a bush-O leg, followed by HF 80m ARDF, doing and 3 or 5 of 5, then another bush-O leg to the finish.

Here are the results:

RAMarta Salek2:22:161st

David BeardDNF
RBBryan Ackerly1:11:301st

Ewen Templeton1:34:052nd

Darian Panter1:47:583rd

Mark Besley1:58:064th

Suzanne O’Callaghan2:30:025th

Hanging Rock – RadiO

       Sun, 20 May, 2007

A RadiO course was held on Sunday 20th May at the picturesque Hanging Rock park, made famous by the Aussie film Picnic at Hanging Rock. It was also part of the worldwide Foxhunting Week.

The course was a novel format designed to blend into an Orienteering Hageby event run bt Bayside Kangaroos orienteering club. A year or so ago Bryan Ackerly held an RadiO co-event with a Hageby using 3 legs, 80m and 2m FoxOr and a pure orienteering leg. This event built on this theme, using a FoxOr 2m leg, an 80m ARDF leg and 2 different length orienteering legs. This compared fovourably with the orienteering equivalent courses which had 4 orienteering legs.

clothesline
registration

The park is small, and only a 1:5000 scale, so the challenge is to offer interesting courses without too much risk of stumbling into ARDF controls while you’re on another leg ! I elected to be cunning and tricky on some FoxOr legs, but straightforward on the ARDF legs to ensure the ARDF wasn’t too daunting for those inexperienced in it’s complexities. One of the FoxOr controls, though on the map, was outside the fenced in park area; one way to increase the distance for a leg since you had to run the short distance back to the main gate. Another was behind a water tank that you had to negotiate a complex series of open gates to actually get to the side it was on (unles you’re Gary and thin enough to slip past the tank and the wall).

susanne
start

Apologies about all the slippery ash below one of the FoxOr controls. It was beyond my control ! It turns out there was an easy way track route into this control from both directions (not marked on the map), but I didn’t know this myself and also had to brave the slippery slope.

When planning the course I pencilled in am ARDF control on a dead tree beside a small lake, but on the morning, when I found the lake was largely empty due to the drought, I relocated it to a treed island.

mike
pair
marta

The event itself was beset by persistant showers and occasional heavy rain, despite it being a fine day in Melbourne, so well done to all the competitors to brave the elements.

Three courses were offered and taken up by the 14 RadiO competitors:

RA had 4 loops; Two O loops (med & short), any 6 of 7 2m FoxOr and all 5 80m ARDFs. ~10km

RB had 4 loops. Two O loops (long & short), any 5 of 7 FoxOrs and 2 of 5 ARDFs. ~8km

RC was one loop, any 15/28 O controls and any 4/7 FoxOrs. For beginners ~3km

Others made up their own courses as suited them, a few doing just FoxOr after an full orienteering course or helping organising the events.

CourseNameClubLap OneLap TwoLap ThreeTotal Time







RAMarta SalekAR19.1551.4061.48104.50
RAAdam ScammellAR


DNF
AAdam ScammellAR18.3831.5543.1060.10







RBGary PanterAR27.4052.0064.4081.20
RBMark BesleyAR11.1948.0584.29114.51
RBDavid BeardAR35.5557.45DNF







RCHogan/ Maclagan



113.00
RCDarian PanterAR


42.55







Fox7Dianne ShaldersBK


77.00
Fox4Ryordan PanterAR


26.13
Fox4Susanne OCallaghanBK


30.00
Fox4Pam KingDR


33.00
Fox1Peter & Phillip GossipBK


20

Notes:

  • Hogan/Maclaglan had never tried RadiO before, but one had tracked possums, so this was an interesting exercise for them. The YNG sniffers were a lot easier to use than the AM gear she had used for the possums. They did a special course combining FoxOrs with the orienteering PW course (any 20).
  • Peter Gossip & son, Phillip, went out to try for 1 FoxOr to see what it was like after their orienteering. They enjoyed it so much that they may try a full RadiO event next time.
  • Di Shalders started off doing RC course after assisting with running the orienteering event, but changed it to 7/7 ForOrs since she was enjoying that more.
  • Darian Panter went out with Susanne for a couple of controls to help on her first ever RadiO event. Thanks Darian.
  • David was not feeling well after his 2nd leg and had to abort during the FoxOr. He’s fine now.
  • Adam was doing 4 legs for orienteering followed by the two RadiO legs to attempt to get a score for both.