AUSSIES OVERSEAS – RADI-O
AUSSIE MEDALS AT ASIA-PACIFIC RADIO ORIENTEERING CHAMPIONSHIPS Bruce Paterson
A team of four Australians had unprecedented success at the recent Radio Orienteering (ARDF) Championships held in Niigata, Japan, in September. Never before at a championship level have we come away with podium finishes in each event, both as a team and individually. Let’s start the story at the beginning. Why Japan?
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EGIONAL championships are held every second year, with the world championships held on the intervening years. The previous regional championship was held in Ballarat in 2003, and there the Aussie team did well, especially the juniors. This year it was Japan’s turn to host the events, the first time the regional champs have ever been held there. For some years they have been postponing, claiming it would be too expensive, but the cost of entry was almost the same as two years ago.
Help on the way We were able to get a bit of a tour around Tokyo for a couple of days prior to the competition, guided by a friend who lives there now, but who used to do direction finding here. It also helped the team acclimatise to the more humid and hotter conditions.
On the Floor Niigata is in northern Japan, a mere 2.5 hours by bullet train from Tokyo, but the accommodation was well out of town. It was the full traditional Japanese-style guesthouses (ryokan) with rice-paper walls, hot spring baths, sleeping mats (tatami), rice husk pillows and dinner on the floor. Each guesthouse had limited room so the nine competing countries were spread across seven houses in two villages. The real buzz was the great cultural experience, with the
Adam Scammell nears the Finish
disadvantage that socialising was more difficult with no common gathering area. On the first couple of days, which included technical testing & calibration against their transmitters and the official opening ceremony, we were happy to catch up with friends (with varying amounts of English) from Mongolia, Kazakhstan, US, China, Japan, Korea, Russia and to greet the newcomers from Thailand.
Lets get into it Day 3 is where things really got going with the first competition, this one being on the HF band on 3.5MHz. It was unusual to have this one first, but since in many ways it is more straightforward it was a good call. The A3 1:15,000 maps weren’t to IOF standards and in fact showed no runnability information at all. As it turned out they could have all been shaded largely dark green, but knowing where the green wasn’t would have made quite a difference. It was a bit like a RadiO street-O event - any venture off the tracks was fraught with danger. I did go bush (read jungle) once on my way to my first transmitter to avoid a very long backtrack, but in retrospect the backtracking may have been faster, and a lot less arduous!
The jungle, the rice fields and the surprise The RadiO team in yukata bathrobes - Bruce Paterson, Bryan Ackerley, Mark Diggins and Adam Scammell. 38 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2005
Bryan Ackerly and myself both chose an optimal transmitter order and good route choices (apart from
