[ARDF] Japan????

[Bob Cooley]

Harley and I landed near Toyko and took the train from Toyko
to Niigata.  This was a 150  mile trip and the train did it
in less than two hours, through the mountains of central
Japan.  How was this possible?  I was so jet lagged I couldn't
figure it out on the way to Niigata.

We stayed in a traditional Japanese Inn next to the Agano Spa,
where the party started in the bath house every morning at
5:30am.  At 6:00 someone comes out and gongs a huge bell
9 times.  Each gong was about 20 seconds after the last so you
always had a lot of time to wonder if there was going to be
another.(very Zen)  The Inn wasn't that traditional because it had
a sound proof room where you could sing Karoke to yourself and
a few friends.

Anyone who has looked at the first day (80m) results may wonder
why only 30% of the competitors got all their transmitter in
time.      http://www.jarl.or.jp/2005r3ardf/
The area had many power lines, and many of the bearings you
got were a little, or sometimes alot off.  The map had two kinds
of vegatation, farm land and forest.  I suspected that there might
be a lot of green in the forest, and what I found was that there was
no white, and no light green, and very little medium green, and
you can guess what was left. (This is a very wet area)  I made some
poor choices about how soon to leave the road and go into the forest.

The 2m day was a little steeper and number 3 was way out there.
This resulted in only 27% of competitors getting all their transmitters
on time.  I had sort of learned my lesson about staying out of
the forest so I managed to finish in time.

On the way back on the train Harley GPSed it at 148mph on the straight
track over the farm land, but what about those twisty mountain passes?
Those twisty mountain passes are handled by taking a short cut 
through 30 to 40 MILES of tunnels.