Fwd: [ARDF] 2m ARDF in Cincinnati, July 16, 2005.

[freyra at aol.com]

Gee Matt I remember Hi hi - Not often I do not make a silly mistake somewhere on the course.

 Also, I forgot to post about Dick Arnett's last course, which was on
Field Day.  It was 80m, short, a little over 3.5km, I think, and fun fun
fun.  I've forgotten the results, but I think it was Bob Frey, then
me, then Brian.  Emily got 2 of the 5.  Bob said he had a perfect run,
and I screwed up the last one pretty bad, or it would've been
closer...

 
Bob - 58 Minutes
Matt - 70 Minutes
Matt - 81 Minutes

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Robbins <cedarcreek at gmail.com>
To: ARDF <ardf at kkn.net>
Sent: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 18:04:31 -0400
Subject: [ARDF] 2m ARDF in Cincinnati, July 16, 2005.


Bob Frey set a 2m ARDF today at Mt. Airy Forest, in Cincinnati. It was
4-something km, with a *bit* of climb.

The most amazing thing was the forest. The map is 12-years old, and
the vegetation is much better than the map shows (at least the places
where I was). We really need a mapper to add some small depressions
(sinkholes) and give us some awesome 3-color green. I can't think of a
better place to be in the woods in Cincinnati in the summer.

The winner was Brian DeYoung in 67 minutes, followed by Dick Arnett in
80 min. I took 120 minutes. My order was 24514, the same as Brian, I
think. Dick did 35142, which might have been a good decision.  When
Brian and I committed to 2, we gave up initial bearings for 3, 4, and
5.  Dick was probably able to be more confident in the order, and the
extra distance wasn't too much.

I spiked 2 and 3, but I wasted a cycle each on 5 and 4. Four was right
up against a tree, which bugs me a little. I'm so used to regular O'
that I almost never think to look behind a tree (unless it's a big,
mapped tree). Am I whining?  Maybe.

I screwed up 1 heinously, because I just missed it on my initial
approach, and got into an area where reflections became predominant,
but not obvious. It took me about 6 cycles (30 minutes), after my
first attach from the road. The best I can tell, I was within 100 feet
of it four times in that 30 minutes. It was unusually
reflective---everything was wet---and the bag was at the bottom of a
2m sinkhole, while the antenna was sticking up above the lip. It was
amazingly confusing to DF, even though I don't think the other two
guys had any trouble with it. My biggest mistake was not paying
attention to 1 in one particular place---I thought I was going for 4,
I was really out-of-breath, and I forgot to check it as I was climbing
a hill.  I wouldn't have had line-of-sight, but I should have noticed
the signal was stronger that I expected.  Luckily, at the point where
I was going to commit to a big descent to go for 4, I decided to wait
for 1, just to make sure it wasn't behind me...

Overall, it was a very good course.  It kept me off-balance pretty
much the whole time, and there was little opportunity for taking
trustworthy cross-bearings.  For some reason, 4 was transmitting for 2
minutes.  Bob decided to not fix it, and it wasn't as bad as I
thought.  It made getting 4 a whole lot easier.


Matthew
AA9YH
Cincinnati, Ohio
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