[ARDF]: 2005 Texas Champs - my thoughts

[Jennifer Harker]

I'm sure Ken will give his own interpretation of the Texas ARDF
championships in a bit (once he recovers), but I figured I'd
give my own thoughts and let everyone know how it all went.  I'm
not sure if we can put a map on the web page, but it might help
a bit with my description.  Otherwise, you'll have to bear with
me...

Saturday (the regular O-meet) and Sunday were both gorgeous
days, with temperatures pleasantly cool (mid 60s) at 9 AM, and
not too toasty (low 70s?) by early afternoon.  Low humidity, no
clouds in the sky, and just perfect (as long as you were under
tree cover) for a walk in the woods.  In Bob Frey's case, maybe
a run in the woods.  :-)

We had 9 competitors by Sunday morning; all but Bob Frey and I
were new to ARDF.  Ken took on the role of setting courses (and
placing transmitters) all by himself, allowing me to run.  (A
few weeks ago, we were figuring on maybe 2-3 competitors,
including myself, so that's where this decision came from. 
Maybe it wasn't the wisest.)  This meant that he was out in the
dark at 6 AM, setting out transmitters, so it did affect his
decisions on where to put transmitters, and it did worsen a
technical problem with the fox boxes (but more on this later). 
I was left with the mundane tasks of setting up the start and
finish areas, and placing directional signs at road junctions in
the park.

Most competitors were already milling about the stone "gazebo"
when I showed up at 8 AM to set up the start and finish
corridors.  Our start was scheduled for 9 AM.  Only one of our
competitors was late - but only by about 10 minutes, so it
wasn't a huge deal.  Truth be told, the extra time was useful in
answering questions, and everyone "trying out" everyone else's
equipment.  With so many newbies, we weren't all that interested
in the hassle of impounding equipment and keeping people from
listening.

The start was located about 200-300 meters away from the finish,
as we wanted the finish at the picnic area where everyone
parked.  Unfortunately, the road (the first major decision
point) was in full view of the picnic tables, so we moved the
start around the corner where everyone would have to head east
for about 100 meters around a curve in the park road before the
first major decision at the road intersection.

I was the last to start - in the random draw, I was close enough
to the end that we decided to put me last, just in case I wound
up having to run the start by myself.  Ken, however, was back
from setting transmitters by 8:40, so he was able to run both
the start and finish.  With 8 competitors, we decided to start 2
at a time, just in case someone was back at the finish within an
hour.  As it turns out, this wasn't a problem.  :-)

My start time came (at about 9:50) and I turned on my
transmitter.  It took me a few minutes as I walked up the road
to the start triangle to realize that a couple transmitters had
problems - 3 was okay, 4 was good (at that time), 5 was off, and
1 and 2 were mostly overlapping in 1's time slice.  Ken was
packing up the car at the start to drive back to the finish, so
as he drove up the road, I stopped him and mentioned what I was
hearing.  He went off down the road and a few minutes later, 5
came back on, but slightly overlapping with 4.  The overlap
between 4 and 5 got worse as the competition went on.  From what
I can tell, some of the transmitters were drifting, timewise,
just a bit, but over the course of the 3 hours before the start
and the 3 hours of competition, it was really noticeable.

It was nearly impossible (when I first started) to get good
bearings on 1 and 2 because of the overlap (2 was the
transmitter I was supposed to skip), but 3 was slightly louder
than 4, and it was the only one that seemed like it could be
north of the road, so I headed up there.  I turned north on the
first major trail, got as fast as I could out of the exclusion
zone, and just before I got out of the exclusion zone, heard 3
come on where the VK3YNG receiver attenuation was at 5, and the
audio s-meter was really high-pitched.  I knew I was close, and
was close to the top of the hill, so I had a pretty good
bearing. Sure enough, the top of the hill was just outside the
exclusion zone, and I looked left (where the bearing had
pointed, and I could see the flag through the trees. (Later Ken
told me he'd gotten too tired climbing the hill, as it was his
last transmitter to place, and his legs wouldn't go any further,
but he made sure it was outside the exclusion zone and not
*right* on the trail.)  One down, three to go.  I took a bearing
for 5 (which was now working), and headed back to the road, as
everything else was a southeast or south bearing.

I headed east on the road to the trail on which I figured Ken
had put 4, but at that point, 5 was stronger than 4, but still
further east.  As the trailhead was on top of a small hill, it
was a fairly reliable bearing, and I decided to keep heading
east to 5.  Within a few cycles, I had found it about 50 meters
off the road, and Bob Frey ran up to it just as I was punching. 
We grumbled about the overlapping transmitters for a few
seconds, while making our way back to the road, then Bob broke
into a jog back west towards the trailhead and I walked (it was
uphill for most of the road walk west).  My one complaint about
5's placement was that it was the only area of the park I saw
clusters of poison ivy, which I carefully avoided, but which a
newbie might not realize they had just walked through.

So once I was back at the trailhead for the major north-south
trail, I headed south and started searching for 4.  One of the
newbies, Keith, was stumbling out of the woods near a trail
junction, and I talked with him for a few minutes.  He was
convinced he was close to 2 (which by that time had shifted so
that you got about 5-10 seconds before 1 came on).  I told him I
thought 2 was much further away than he'd been looking, based on
what I was hearing, and the overlap with 1 wasn't helping
matters, but that 3 was overlap-free, not too difficult to find,
though not the closest transmitter.  (It turns out he'd
continued looking for 2, and had probably getten within 100-200
meters of it, before he decided he had to head back to the
finish before being overtime.)

About 200 meters south of that conversation with Keith,
transmitter 4 came back on again, and its bearing had shifted
almost due west, and was really strong.  There were several
small clearings back there, so I set out though them and found
the flag after a bit of wandering.  I'd forgotten my trail
running shoes at home that morning, so I was not thrilled at
walking though a grass field (lots of prickly seed things) in
socks and tevas, but I survived. :-)

Once I got back to the north-south trail, I was getting a
south-southwest bearing to 1 (and a south-southeast bearing to
2).  I continued south on the trail, even though I knew there
wasn't a good way to get to the west until the very bottom of
the map (near the boy scout campground).  I figured I had almost
an hour to get back to the finish, so I could take some time
taking bearings and going the longer way around.  Sure enough,
as I got down to the bottom of the map, the bearings turned
west, then northwest and were getting weaker.  I got to the road
that would take me back north (uphill) to the finish, thinking
the transmitter was probably down in the evil re-entrant/ditch
system in that corner of the map, and if I didn't get stronger
signals soon, I was just going to go back to the finish.  (At
that point, I had about 35 minutes left.)

I had just about given up hope on 1 when I decided to go explore
the small flat area just south of the exclusion zone.  It wasn't
there, but it was the strongest signal I'd heard on 1 yet (level
5 attenuation, mid-to-high-pitched s-meter).  In probably my one
moment of assistance gained from living with the course-setter,
I remembered Ken had said he'd planned to put the transmitters
in locations he could find again with map and compass (i.e. not
just plunking them down anywhere, where he'd never find them
when the meet was over).  Sure enough, there was a couple of
ditches about 75 meters to the south of there (where my bearings
were pointing), and they met at a right angle about 25 meters
from where they began.  I headed down to them, walked towards
the ditch junction, and though the flag was pretty well
concealed by leaves, was able to spot it from about 20 meters
away.  Is that cheating?  Maybe.  I'd heard Ken say the same
thing to other people, but I can't be certain he told everyone. 
Certainly in orienteering, you know the flag's at a distinctive
feature - but you can't always assume the same in ARDF.

I got back out to the road with about 22 minutes to make it up
the big hill, and had to stop to catch my breath halfway up, and
at the top - but only for a few seconds, as it was flat the rest
of the way to the finish, and only about 150 meters away.  I
crossed the finish line at about 12:36 (14 minutes to spare),
with Keith right behind, and a couple of people still out on
course.  I was surprised to find that I was the first to find 4
transmitters, as I figured Bob had taken a similar route to
mine, and had to have run right by #4.

The two remaining competitors were eventually overtime (though
Greorge Fremin III did find all of his 4 transmitters).  A lot
of the newbies said that it was a lot harder than they'd thought
- but everyone made a point of telling us they had fun, even if
they didn't find a transmitter.  I know Ken had made a
relatively easy course, to avoid scaring off beginners, but it's
tough to set a course with 4-5 km of length, keep it all near
trails and roads, and still maintain exclusion zones.  The
overlapping transmitters didn't help matters, as I found it a
challenge, and I'm sure a beginner would have been even more
frustrated with it.

All in all, though, fun was had, the weather couldn't have been
better, I gained yet more experience in ARDFing, and maybe we
got a few more people interested in the sport!

---Jen


	
		
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