Lickey Hills, Birmingham 17 June 2012

David M0WDD brought us back to the Lickey Hills south west of Birmingham in June, making full use of this heavily contoured area. After the main 144MHz race, Bob G3ORY set out a 3.5MHz sprint course in the afternoon.

Overall Long Course 8 Foxes. 8 starters.

Overall Short Course 6 Foxes. 5 starters.

3.5 MHz Sprint 10 starters.

Organiser’s Notes:

1. I hope I got all the times and TX found correct – it was a bit confusing with some folks swapping to “80m first” while I was out replacing 2m Tx #2. If I have made a mistake – please let me know.
2. Thank you to Geoffrey for turning up (unexpected to my knowledge but I think Uncle Robert had a hand in this) – I would really have struggled without your help.
3. It was meant to be a challenge and to make the most of the long June daylight hours and ‘good weather’ with long courses to make the journey worthwhile. I am sorry if I made it too tough. I had no option but to put some of the Tx in areas of thicker vegetation and whatever you do there is bound to be significant climb on the Lickey Hills. The climb was less than 5% of optimum course length – which is well within the standard limit for orienteering.
4. I hope I got it right for the M40 (and the M70 who ran the 3+3). Having published the length and climb and remembering that we normally allow 2hrs for 5 transmitters I had hoped that folks would have self selected down to the 3+3 course. I could have upped the time limit to 180 minutes. I much prefer having “lots of Tx to find” and to do them all-in-one-race. Shortens the day for the organiser. I find having a significant afternoon activity means it is a struggle to get fed and watered and recovered in time and I will have started to seize up.
   Feedback and suggestions most welcome.
5. We did not get a total time for Peter Langmaid – sorry Geoffrey was busy with the sprints I believe.
6. Comparing times for the 2m and 80m segments is not really fair – because folks did them in different orders – and therefore fatigue would come into play.
7. Excellent performance from Robin Bishop – only his third ARDF outing I believe and within 20 seconds of Bob on the 2m segment.
8. Congratulations to Peter and Thomas for both finding 4 transmitters. For Peter this was his second competition of the day having been up at 04:00 for “archery at dawn”.
9. How on earth Mike managed to take under 20 minutes for the sprint using a PJ80 I do not know. I had the advantage of being able to wind my Czech Rx up to “7”, press the sense and hold the Rx horizontal. I found that I could get a far bearing on the fox from up to about 10m away – which fits with Bob’s technical explanation.
10. I would be interested in reports of “multipath” around 2m Tx #2 and #4. Certainly from Tx #2 Tx #3 was barely audible on the direct line and there was a strong reflection from the hillside to the north.
11. For a map showing the location of the transmitters please click here.
12. Finally, many thanks for your support.

Category: ARDF Results