VOICE OF THE FOREST

where listeners can tune into by connecting to the server using a music software package (e.g. Winamp or iTunes). Given the expectation that most of the listeners were based in Europe, VotF hired a SHOUTcast server in Sweden that relayed the audio signal to international listeners. The two most popular events were the Sprint, where a maximum of 145 listeners were connected for 50 minutes on average and the Relay, where a maximum of 167 listeners were connected, averaging 60 minutes per visit. All the interactions of the team with the Internet, i.e. live audio, text commentary, radio controls and results upload, as well as the public forum interaction, were possible thanks to a special variety of broadband internet. Due to the remote nature of the competition areas, and the high tech requirements of the coverage, a fast, reliable and cheap connection to the internet was required. The conventional forms of broadband (e.g. ADSL, Cable) are not available outside metropolitan areas, and Wireless technology depends on area coverage in the same fashion that mobile phones do. Therefore, the best solution was to use Satellite broadband internet. Colin Price, from the JWOC2007 marketing and sponsoring committee, acquired a sponsorship agreement with Clear Networks, which is a growing provider of Satellite Broadband for rural and remote areas, as well as regional centres. Clear Networks not only lent the required equipment, which included a satellite dish and broadband modem, but also the relocation and adjustment of the dish, after each day’s event, and an internet connection that suited our requirements free of charge. Once the system was set up (which only took about 20 minutes) it worked with consistent reliability.

A busy moment in the tower. Photo: Richard Talbot

Sportident, Radio controls, Networks, EMMA & Information Overload

Bill Jones & Dane Cavanagh

THE program used to run the events at JWOC, and most other larger events, is OE2003. OESpeaker is an add-on program to extract competitor details from OE and give event commentators organised information to broadcast. Until a competitor has finished and downloaded, the commentator has to make do with little fact and a lot of speculation. Enter the radio control. A SportIdent control station on a course is connected to a radio link back into the OESpeaker program. When a competitor punches the control, the control number, the SIcard number and the time are instantly relayed to the commentator. The information can have two purposes. One may simply be to warn the commentator of a runner approaching a spectator control. The other is to give the commentator an accurate split time of a runner’s progress to that control. OESpeaker also calculates the runner’s time to that point and sorts the runners/times in order, giving the commentator accurate information to broadcast to the audience.

(For the techo heads: The radios operate in the VHF band at 151.3MHz, with a transmitter power of 100mW and a data transmission rate of up to 2400 bauds. They have a listen-beforetransmit capability to avoid collision with other units. They are also fitted with a modem to convert the digital input signals for radio transmission. Data input speed to the modem can be up to 115200 baud. The modem checks for clear-to transmit and message acknowledgement. It will also retry a preset number of times if the sent message is not acknowledged. The radio modems do require some reasonably simple programming initially. The radios at JWOC were programmed before the event and never changed throughout. The radios can also be easily utilised with one laptop to check if a selected radio link path is viable by using the “ping” function. The radios come with short, flexible whip antennas that are only suitable for short distances, about 200-300 metres. Distance can be increased to about 2 –3 km with a more efficient 1/4 wave antenna mounted well off the ground, or one of the radios can be configured as a repeater, although this requires more comprehensive programming of the radio network). While radio signals were received directly to the tower, we also needed a connection to the finish tent (and networking between all of our computers). We decided very early on to go for a wireless network as opposed to a wired network – this option had fewer cables and no long cable to connect to the finish tent (avoiding the risk of a clumsy spectator taking out the entire network). There were many computers in the finish tent but we only needed to communicate with two of them. One was the backup results and the other was the main results computer. Both these computers were running copies of OE2003 (standard event administration software) for all the individual days and OS2003 for the Relay day. We were using the backup computer for our radio controls so that we could tie in the SportIdent number punched with an entered runner and therefore know their name. The commentary network was set up with an Apple Airport Extreme base station at its centre. We were using WEP protocol for security as some computers would not support the WPA

Pl Name Class Time Rate 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Fin 1 Siri ULVESTAD W20 60.47 8.44 1.35 1.35 1.03 2.38 11.32 14.10 4.34 18.44 1.34 20.18 1.09 21.27 1.40 23.07 9.29 32.36 3.50 36.26 7.12 43.38 4.06 47.44 1.40 49.24 4.24 53.48 3.20 57.08 1.26 58.34 1.57 60.31 0.16 60.47 6 Vanessa ROUND W20 62.50 8.73 1.31 1.31 0.52 2.23 10.31 12.54 4.56 17.50 1.37 19.27 1.20 20.47 1.52 22.39 10.21 33.00 5.03 38.03 8.14 46.17 3.48 50.05 1.43 51.48 4.17 56.05 3.25 59.30 1.27 60.57 1.37 62.34 0.16 62.50

protocol. The Apple Airport Extreme was connected to the satellite dish through a Broadband modem. We were running four computers plus one 19-inch wide screen monitor up in the commentary tower and three laptops in the tent below. We had four of these computers connected wirelessly – but discovered late in the piece that two didn’t have wireless cards in them, and one refused to communicate wirelessly; so we connected them into the three wired ports in the router. In total the VotF network had six computers connected wirelessly and three with cables. All but two of the computers in the network were running OESpeaker on all the individual days and OSSpeaker on the Relay day. The Speaker versions of the programs allow for easy commentary. A quick run down of computer tasks: Two computers were just for the commentators to get information of radio controls and competitor pre-warning - one also had the 19-inch widescreen monitor attached. One computer, a Macbook Pro, was playing the music and prerecorded interviews. One computer was streaming the audio signal to the web. One computer was being used for uploading text commentary. One computer was receiving the Radio Controls and sending the information to the finish to be processed. One computer had a program called EMMA for uploading the radio splits to the web. EMMA is a special program provided by Peter Löfås from Sweden. EMMA is used on a computer running OESpeaker or OSSpeaker depending on the day. This computer needs to run automatic results, which refreshed every 30 seconds. There is a considerable amount of technical work in setting up EMMA and we are thankful that we had the full support of Peter in Sweden both prior to and during the event. Finally just a quick word about how all of JWOC2007 appeared on the web. Once the splits appeared from the radio controls with the help of EMMA they were moved via the Clear Networks Satellite dish to their satellite and then to servers in Sweden hosted by Peter. Voice commentary took the same route but was handled by Henrik Persson in Sweden. Both Peter and Henrik monitored and worked on the servers to make this all happen, sometimes with e-mails bouncing to Sweden and back at all hours of the day and night. Finally, at the conclusion of the events we uploaded the results, which were produced out of OE2003 into a CSV format and then uploaded to the new OA results server. Part way through JWOC this server had to be moved from an Australian based server to one in Germany as the server in Australia was not handling the incredible load. Everything required constant monitoring and there were some late nights sorting out minor problems and early mornings setting everything up for the day. Often the smallest problem can be the biggest downfall. Luckily we had a group of people that knew what to do in situations like that and we could determine the best course of action – and we always managed to have the commentary tower ready by the time the first runner went through.

Dane consults with his mother, while the rest of the team (both above and below) concentrate on the race. Note the trusty satellite dish to the left, and the radio mast on the tower receiving signals from the controls. Photo: Richard Talbot

Text Commentary

Blair Trewin

SPECTATORS at the event probably never realised it, but text commentary was going live on the web for all the JWOC races. This used a relatively simple application written by José and works provided the Internet is running. It’s a great backup to get some information to the world even if all other systems fail, provides extra information for those listening to the broadcast and an alternative source for those who can’t pick up the audio signal. Text commentary is something that all major national events would be able to use if Internet were available, is almost free, and would add a lot of interest to our major events. The text commentary attracted a lot of comments on our public forum, and had as many “listeners” as the audio broadcast. The text commentary was merged into a race report, filed on the website with results and photos within 30 minutes of the finish on each day.