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[Melb-ARDF] 80m ups and downs (China #6)
by Bruce Paterson 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

Well today we had, of course, the 80m ARDF event. Again we had the amazing police escorted trip to a remote location. It rained, despite the fine weather forecast. Even so, the villagers lined the streets of the towns and villages as we drove through the misty rain. It seemed every village had a police car there to direct us through. They decided to extend the time limit to 140 minutes due to the rain. I have a picture of the competitors camped at the waiting area. Digital pictures are not allowed in the actual start area due to the risk of someone transmitting an image of the map to a competitor somehow. This is all taken pretty seriously at a World Championship. Adam headed off first, and despite following a very strange and lengthy route managed a very credible 114 minutes and 26th place. An excellent effort in difficult conditions. Again this was a harder course than we've ever done before (including the 2m event 2 days ago!). Going down steep and muddy hills, you use the bamboo to slow you down, but in the process you shake the wet bamboo resulting in a mini deluge ! I was next a couple of hours later (it's a long wait, but we chatted to the Yanks and the Dutch team we were sharing a shelter with. Here's a brief description of my course: Headed out the Woman/Senior corridor to the West. 5 was ahead, 1 to the right, 2 the left and 3 & 4 up the top of the map somewhere. I was planning on doing 5, but after coming down the other side of the big hill around the start decided I was close and I should do it first. It was near a village in the middle of the map. Went to 5 next in the SW. Lost myself a bit on the map, so I was uncertain to within 100m of where it actually was. Next was #2 for me in the SE. Turned out to be well to the SE, and here the tracks didn't do what I expected from the map, so I'm only vaguely aware of where this one was. Not good. Still, doing ok with approx 1 hour for the 1st 3. 3 and 4 were right up the Northern end of the map so a good long run. Did 4 pretty quickly considering (making up some time), and quickly followed by 3 in a blinding 10 minutes -:) . Now is where things fall apart, unfortunately. I have over 20 minutes to get to the Finish, and it is only an easy 10 minute run away. I pop out on a North-South track and head South. It is a very crappy track, but it is on the map and it should get me to the finish quicker than the road which is harder to get to. I should have learnt from the 2m map inaccuries, but soon the track became quite indistict. I could not find a left turn I needed to take and gradually it started to head the wrong way. In an attempt to correct the problem I thought I'd just head through the bush Southwards. Bad Idea ! It became inpenetrable. Fox Hunt inpenetrable ! It even took me quite a while to back out of the disaster. 10 minutes wasted. Only 7 minutes left. Damm ! I head the only way I can, on the non-track (sort of a vague passage through jungle) which insisted on taking me West. I ended up on the side of the map, almost furthur from the Finish than I was at TX3. Time has run out. I walk dispirited (ok, I was pissed off -:) back to the distant start. A whole hoard of school children had recently arrived at the Finish so I had to run down the finish to their cheers (too embarassing to walk). Anyway, that was me out. Bryan found 3. He didn't have time to get either of the other Northern transmitters, but it was a good finish. The Australian team therefore didn't fare as well on the 80m hunt, mainly due to a dodgy map. Oh well ! I was encouraged to hear speaking to a Norwegian that he exactly thed same as me (4->3->Finish), but he had 30 minutes to throw away on the non- track, which he succeeded in doing in a very similar way to myself. He was also overtime. Tonight was the award ceremony and banquet. Quite a different affair from Korea. Surprisingly it was very informal and quite brief. Most teams chatted around the periphery during the prise giving. We had adequate gifts this time and of course the little Koalas and Kangaroos are always very well received. Team result was 15th out of 18, but we still beat Korea and Mongolia. Adam was 26th in the Senior with 114 mins, and the best time was 59 minutes from Czech Replublic. Again, photos will appear at http://www.qsl.net/vk3zpf/china/day3.htm http://www.qsl.net/vk3zpf/china/day4.htm http://www.qsl.net/vk3zpf/china/day5.htm This may or may not be my last message from China. We will see. Meanwhile, Cheers from Nanjing, Bruce, VK3TJN (PS: Sending this from another account since I can get this to work at the moment, but please reply to brucep(a)netspace.net.au) ***** Remember, an out of tune piano makes noise, not music! ***** call, (805) 966-7060 . E-MAIL: dennis(a)rain.org . *** Bye from the Paradise Playground of the Pacific Beaches. *** Dennis Schwendtner *** WB6OBB *** *** http://www.rain.org/~dennis *** *** Schwendtner Piano and Service *** WB6OBB repeater web-site ***

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Friday's (10/20) Program
by AJSOENKE＠aol.com 17 Oct '00

17 Oct '00

Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club SBARC Upcoming Meeting Friday, October 20, 2000 7:30 PM (Doors open at 6:45!) Location: Goleta Union Schools Administration Board Room 401 N. Fairview Ave. (across from the Goleta Public Library) Visitors are cordially invited! Talk in is available on K6TZ 146.79/19 (131.8). Topic: HC8N Contest Station in the Galapagos by Trey Garlough, N5KO. The acquisition and construction of the Galapagos Contest Station, HC8N, with Trey Garlough (N5KO) is a multi-media presentation and a great travelog program for the whole family. The SBARC Bookstore, Membership table, and swap tables will also be available. Everyone is welcome!

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TOUR DAY, REPORT FROM AUSTRALIAN TEAM!
by Dennis Schwendtner 16 Oct '00

16 Oct '00

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[Melb-ARDF] ARDF halts Nanjing (China #5)
by Bruce 16 Oct '00

16 Oct '00

OK, I know this is two in one day, but this event just has to be reported. Tour day was today. The Mausoleum is what you would expect...a lot of stairs and not much when you get to the top -:) There was one amazing event today, however.... As part of the afternoon tour, we were taken over the Nanjing bridge over the ChangChang (Yankze) river. The bridge is over 1.5km long. Impressive as it was, it was not nearly as impressive as the lengths the organisation went to to ensure smooth passage for the ARDF bus cavalcade. bicycle peak hour traffic was halted over the bridge for us to have exclusive access (we're talking like trying to block the Sydney Harbour bridge here). We wound from one side of the road to the other, a line of about 15 buses with multiple police car escorts. Traffic was stopped in one direction or the other based on where we happened to be with other squads of police cars. Any cars getting in the way of our official speedy transit were blasted with the extremely serious horn on our bus (we happened to be in the lead bus behind the two police cars). This was amazing enough, but at the far end we left the highway, did an odd U turn in a nearby road, and then proceeded do it all again back over the bridge in the other direction. I have some pictures of all this, but it doesn't really capture the amazement we felt about the whole operation. The bridge itself tended to be secondary -:) The police escort, with sirens blazing, then led us into the middle of downtown Nanjing, the whole caboodle into a pedestrian only zone into the middle of the market for our dinner in a nearby restaurant. Anyway, 80m tommorrow so I'm off to bed. Bruce ----------------------------------------------------------------- -------- ***** Remember, an out of tune piano makes noise, not music! ***** call, (805) 966-7060 . E-MAIL: dennis(a)rain.org . *** Bye from the Paradise Playground of the Pacific Beaches. *** Dennis Schwendtner *** WB6OBB *** *** http://www.rain.org/~dennis *** *** Schwendtner Piano and Service *** WB6OBB repeater web-site ***

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MORE RESULTS FROM THE AUSTRALIAN TEAM!
by Dennis Schwendtner 16 Oct '00

16 Oct '00

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[Melb-ARDF] Team results and a tomb (china #4)
by Bruce 16 Oct '00

16 Oct '00

Firstly, Peter is putting up pictures when I manage to send them to him at the following web address: http://www.qsl.net/vk3zpf/china/day1.htm http://www.qsl.net/vk3zpf/china/day2.htm ...and so on. Well late last night we got the official results for the 2m competition, and we're quite happy with them ! The full results will probably appear on http://www.crsa.org.cn at somne stage. Here's some highlights: Team Australia 9th in Senior division. China 1st. What is of note is we beat Japan, Kazakstan, Korea, USA(Yay!), France and Yugoslavia. If we count only the truly 'A'RDF teams (those who actually have Amateur callsigns, we came 3rd !! In individual results, The best China time was 57 minutes for 5 TXs. Nikolay from Kazakstan was 2nd with 57 mins. Adam was 15th with 94 mins, I was 32nd with 115mins (4TX) and Bryan 39 with 125mins (3TX). Adam was thrilled he beat the tall Chinese guy from Korea. Kurt (Belgium) was 38th with 113mins & 3TX. Alex (Kazakstan) came 7th in the Old Timers with 74 mins. Best US result was Rob Cooley (an orienteer) who managed 9th in Vets. Some of the comments we have heard about the course: It was long ! Many of the tracks weren't there. You had to read the map and keep track of where you were in order to have a chance of finishing reasonably. It was a good 'navigational' course. Map detail was lacking. I will take a photo of the map soon. This morning we visited a Masoleum. Lots of steps and photos. What more can be said ? Some titbits of info: The New Century Hotel turns out to be fully owned by the Phone campany that is sponsoring the event. It is 5 star and otherwise would be costing a fortune -:) Speaking to a Yugoslavian student who is competing: He was born in Slovenia, but had to move to Yugoslavia in 1991 due to the war because his father was born Yugoslavian. However, the Croatian, Slovenian and Yugoslavian teams are all good friends. They had to get individual sponsorship in order to come here. Jack, The Region 3 championships will be in Mongolia next year (2001) around about the end of June. The Mongolian team captain invites us all. We are not sure if we'll be hit with the Kareoke yet.... There was echo on the tour leaders microphone.... First aid was not required, but Adam did damage himself a bit falling a couple of times. I used my first aid kit for one of the Yanks who had cut his hand. This afternoon we go on a bit more touring, after a team leaders meeting and lunch I must go !! Bruce ----------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Remember, an out of tune piano makes noise, not music! ***** call, (805) 966-7060 . E-MAIL: dennis(a)rain.org . *** Bye from the Paradise Playground of the Pacific Beaches. *** Dennis Schwendtner *** WB6OBB *** *** http://www.rain.org/~dennis *** *** Schwendtner Piano and Service *** WB6OBB repeater web-site ***

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RESULTS FROM THE AUSTRALIAN ARDF GROUP!
by Dennis Schwendtner 15 Oct '00

15 Oct '00

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PERSONAL RESULTS FROM KE6HTS IN CHINA WITH ARDF!
by Dennis Schwendtner 15 Oct '00

15 Oct '00

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[Melb-ARDF] Did we cream the Yanks ? (China #3)
by Bruce 15 Oct '00

15 Oct '00

Yes, well that's the question you all want to know the answer to ! ...and at the risk of being a spoiler, the answer is Yes (we think). Some rough results (I will confirm more later) are: Adam 14th-ish (an excellent result for all 5 tx's on a longer course than we've ever experienced before Me (Bruce) 24-ish (last I looked....) Bryan 43-ish We do know Adam's time beats Yuri (the USA previous world champion from Hungary), and my time beats the other USA seniors, so it's looking good -:) Now, we will have some pictures for you. Peter Fraser has volunteered to put them up on his site, I have emailed them to him. Peter will hopefully announce where to find them when he has ! The pictures might lag the story a bit. Hopefly I will catch up eventually ! Today was a 5am wake up (groan), breakfast & hopefully grabbing all the gear we needed & out to the buses. Off we go is a mammoth porcession, complete with Police escort and traffic priority provided. There were police holding off traffic even on a freeway at one point so we could do a strange exit up an entrance lane ! All very impressive, and at the same time the scale of it all a bit unnerving. Off the freeways we headed down bumpy roads through small Chinese villages about 1.5 hours out of Nanjing (don't ask me where !). The villagers were all out in force to witness the spectacle of the bus cavalcade. There were even ARDF posters plastered to some of the walls. We arrived at the destination out behind yet another small village. All the local children were out to see the foreigners. Bryan was first out with the 6th group. Groups are let out at 5 minute intervals. I had about a 2 hour wait till I went out, Adam went last about an hour or so later. The sun came out today and it ended up being quite warm and clear. Lucky I happened to pop the sunscreen in my bag. I was in the same group as my Belgium team leader friend, Maurice. I was number 001, but he lucked James Bond - 007. The course itself was quite long and hilly. There were areas where it was very slow movement, as well as areas of closely spaced plantation that was possible to move through reasonably quickly, and a number of tracks, but some areas of the map were a bit inaccurate in ths tracks (some new tracks were there, and of some old tracks shown there was simply no sign and had to be bush-bashed. Every 2m TX was atop a significant hill. Sometimes you could tell the transmitter wasn't far away, but to get there was quite a different matter ! Unfortunately I did the transmitters in a non-ideal order, having to backtrack at the end to get one, but in retrospect it wasn't too bad a route choice. It just toome a while. I had about 15 minutes left of the 130, and I decided to abort getting that last transmitter, and turned around to head for the finish. Later I found out I was less than 200m from the transmitter, but the time I didn't feel I could risk being late (which means instant disqualification). I had some trouble with my smart card at the readers, especially at the last two checkpoints. I personally would not recommend this system ! Now I have to go and talk about my post tour details. I will give you more results when we know them, as well as the fastest times (and some pictures). Bye for now Bruce ----------------------------------------------------------------- -------- ***** Remember, an out of tune piano makes noise, not music! ***** call, (805) 966-7060 . E-MAIL: dennis(a)rain.org . *** Bye from the Paradise Playground of the Pacific Beaches. *** Dennis Schwendtner *** WB6OBB *** *** http://www.rain.org/~dennis *** *** Schwendtner Piano and Service *** WB6OBB repeater web-site ***

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2M Competition
by Freyra＠aol.com 15 Oct '00

15 Oct '00

Hi Barb and Dennis, I ended up not doing as well as I would have liked, but considering the course, I did okay. Below is a short report of the competition. *********************** Today was the 2Meter competition. We left the hotel about 6:45AM for a one hour drive to the competition site. I was lucky and ended up with a starting time 2 hours and 25 minutes after the first competitors left. One thing different about this competition from other competitions was that we would be using electronic scoring. This would be done with a small credit card sized circuit that would be inserted into a reader that would automatically record the time. It really worked well and I found it easier to use that a punch card. After picking up the map and equipment, I headed out to the starting area. At the start signal, I headed out North along the trail and started listening. I had the rough location of transmitters 1 though 4 in the first five minutes (I didn't need to find transmitter #5.) It seemed like transmitter #4 was the first one to find, but I didn't find a trail heading that way until I got clost to #3. While I knew it was longer, I picked off #3 which was at the top of a hill a couple of hundred meters high. Heading down the hill, I passed through a small village on the way to #4. After picking off #4, I went back to the village to a trail that went in the direction of #2. #2 turned out to be about 2 Km and in the process of running, I fell and ended up with a very bloody hand from a relatively small cut. About 15 minutes later, I got to transmitter #2 and climbed slowly up the steep grade to find it. At this point, time was running out and I headed back to #1 which was also in the same direction as the finish. As I was running along the road, I passed #1 but I was in real danger of being disqualified for being over time, so I passed it and headed to the finish. Running along the finish corrodor, I punched in with 15 seconds to spare. Quite a number of people did not find all 4 transmitters and I ended up at about 38th place in a total of about 50+ competitors. While it certainly was not where I wanted to be, it was better than I did in Hungary so at least there was some improvement. It was indicated the results would be available in an ASCII file, and I will forward that as soon as I can get it. Tomorrow is a local tour in the morning and shopping during the afternoon. The 80M competition will be held on Tuesday. ***** Remember, an out of tune piano makes noise, not music! ***** call, (805) 966-7060 . E-MAIL: dennis(a)rain.org . *** Bye from the Paradise Playground of the Pacific Beaches. *** Dennis Schwendtner *** WB6OBB *** *** http://www.rain.org/~dennis *** *** Schwendtner Piano and Service *** WB6OBB repeater web-site ***

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