The first event for Brisbane WICEN to support this year was the Kilkivan Endurance Blue ride, which was being run by Kilkivan Endurance Riders Club raising awareness for mens’ health issues. We were to support an event at Southbrook a few weeks beforehand, however Cyclone Alfred knocked that idea on the head, apparently making quite a mess of the proposed track.
Getting to Kilkivan proved to be a challenge, with recent changes to the highway now bypassing the town, getting electronic guidance was an exercise in reading between the lines and educated guesswork: between three GPS devices in the vehicle, we weren’t quite sure where we were supposed to be going. Out of all of them, OSMAnd (which is open-source and uses OpenStreetMap) running on an Android Tablet wound up being the most helpful of the three.
Others in the group got similarly bushed, with some deciding to explore up the highway to see where the northern track took them. In the afternoon however, all arrived safely and base was quickly set up.
On this event it was determined that we’d be using FM simplex on the 2m band (147.500MHz national WICEN simplex frequency), with some checkpoints operating their own cross-band communications. CB was used in the base for communications with the organisers. There was a big open shed that served as both the vetting ring and meeting area, with a food vendor there keeping the masses fed. Base was simply set up on a table in a spare spot, with the antenna on a mast lashed to a post for a sign outside. For scoring, a laptop running a custom ride base management application kept track of all the competitors. In terms of the route taken and rides taking place, this was known ahead of time, there would be three rides (80km, 40km and 20km) on the Saturday, and three on the Sunday (40km, 20km and 10km).
Saturday
For David VK4MDL, Richard VK4ZA and myself, we were at a checkpoint a small stone’s throw away from base. Good enough that we could mostly work it using hand-held radios. The event started at mid-day, so plenty of time to get up, get out to site and get set up.
We were the first checkpoint out of base, and the first riders we’d be seeing that afternoon would be the 80km riders. The checkpoint was a simple set-up, with just a single table and some camping chairs. We relied on the hand-helds at first, following KISS principle. The competitors would be headed towards us along the track, then turn left onto the dirt road and ride a short distance before turning right again and heading into the forest.
Being on the checkpoint means sometimes you wind up assisting in areas that are not your expertise. Take for example farrier work. Some bigger events do have a farrier on site who can come out to a checkpoint and assist a rider with a loose horse shoe, but this being a smaller event, no such luxury exists. So if a competitor comes in with a loose horse shoe, options to assist are limited. David found himself being impromptu farrier for the afternoon since while he wasn’t exactly trained, he did have a few tools on hand that proved useful.
Later on as conditions shifted, I set up a cross-band radio to enable communications back to base a little more easily. In addition, it was found that some of the radio equipment I was using had developed reliability issues: notably the PTT cables (U94 adaptors sourced from Amazon) had become “scratchy” leading to a poor signal despite a good RF signal path. (Thank-you Yaesu for connecting Microphone and PTT in series, and Alinco in copying their mistake.)
Around dinner time there was a lull as all the 80km riders were through their first leg, and all the 40km riders had finished for the day. (We didn’t see 20km riders at our check-point.) We nipped back to base for a bit of dinner, then returned later to run the checkpoint for the second 80km leg. It would be around 9PM before we’d see more competitors.
Sometimes on these events, you get the curiosity of the locals, in this case canine curiosity: one of the local farm dogs emerged from the long grass and decided to grace us with his presence. We weren’t sure exactly which property he came from at that point, and being dark (it was 11PM at this point) we weren’t able to take any reasonable photos and there was no collar, but given the dog’s condition, he clearly was not a stray.
Our last competitors on the second leg came through about 23:48, by midnight we were headed back to base. We’ll be back here in the morning.
Sunday
The events on this day only had a single leg, so while we were starting in the early morning (thankfully after sunrise). We had three events to take care of, a 40km ride, a 20km ride, and two riders doing a 10km ride. Being the first checkpoint, we were done before morning tea, setting up around 0600 and finishing around 0800.
Our canine visitor from the previous night was also down to say hello, and soon made himself comfortable.
Richard spoke to one of the local farmers later that morning, and it was there the mystery of the visitor was solved, he was from that farm… apparently he managed to escape his kennel and make a bolt for freedom. So he hadn’t travelled far, and did belong somewhere.
Elsewhere on the event
Gary VK4ZGB had his checkpoint set up from the motorhome in a more challenging spot requiring an elevated antenna to make it back to base. At one point though, the radio being used stopped receiving signals properly (although it was transmitting just fine).
We didn’t figure out the cause of Gary’s cone-of-silence, as the fault resolved itself as mysteriously as it appeared. (His station’s photo is featured at the top of this article.)