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.
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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@rain.org .
*** Bye from the Paradise Playground of the Pacific Beaches.
*** Dennis Schwendtner *** WB6OBB ***
*** http://www.rain.org/~dennis ***
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