Dingo Creek was a challenge from a radio perspective, but was a really well-organised event and a joy to help out with. Far-a-way and Stirling’s Crossing could learn a lot from this group! This has got to be one of the best-organised horse endurance ride events I’ve been involved with.
The ride operated out of Wondai showgrounds, which normally plays host to horse racing events and the tracks all took place through the state forest nearby. WICEN base was set up under the rusty roof of the old stables, with a small shed nearby serving as sleeping quarters for the base operators.
Operations took place on 2m simplex initially, with a repeater site eventually set up situated at one of the checkpoints. That said, the terrain was quite hilly. The checkpoint we wound up at (third checkpoint) turned out to be very much in a challenging spot radio-wise, to the point we needed a directional antenna to be heard at all. The tracks also were quite windy, whilst I knew which one took us back to camp, figuring out where we were in relation to the repeater was a challenge, and my first attempt at pointing the antenna yielded a lousy signal.
The repeater suffered some power issues which meant it was inoperative for short periods just prior to the event starting, making re-pointing that antenna quite challenging. Eventually by accident, I found the correct direction, and even though the antenna was horizontally polarised, I didn’t care — it was working, leave it! 4G was pretty sketchy too.
We have two rides to worry about, both coming from the same direction. This is where the organisation of Dingo Creek is excellent: they’ve set up the checkpoint clipboards with their log sheets — colour-coded log sheets that match the colours of the bibs worn by the riders on the relevant events! Normally we have to figure that stuff out, and write up generic log sheets with the checkpoints, but they’ve worked all this out. We just have to get the right numbers on the right sheet.
My software will help with that part, and we can use our generic capture sheets to record it if the technology fails, but we at least have a clear and concise record of what competitors we can expect and how to identify them. If we have to do it 100% on paper, we just record on the capture sheets, then when we have a moment spare, figure out which checkpoint they belong to and transfer them to the relevant sheet.
With everything set up, we just had to play the age old game of “hurry up and wait”. We were set up by 2PM, and an hour later, we had the 80km riders coming through our checkpoint. A little while later, we had both 40k and 80k riders coming through simultaneously. Fun and games ensued with the repeater, with the battery powering it running down due to insufficient solar to keep it afloat. Given our precarious RF situation, we’re kinda dependent on that repeater.
Things quietened down after 5PM. There was a brief period of quiet where we could relax and have some dinner (brought out to us, a much appreciated luxury). As the sun came down, the mozzies however rose. It was a clear night too, so no cloud cover to “seal in” the warmth of the day, it got quite chilly! By about 7PM, we were starting to see the 80km riders coming through on the second leg. This lasted until 11:45PM, when the last riders came through, and we wasted no time in packing up.
This event, as I mentioned was one of the best run events I’ve assisted with in a long time. We had timely notification of vet-outs/withdraws, the checkpoint preparation was excellent. We certainly need to work on the radio side of things, but as it’s a new site, it’s not surprising that we had a few wrinkles in the set-up as we haven’t fine-tuned everything yet. There are definitely things that this group does, which I’d love to see replicated by other groups. A joy to work with and I hope to work with this group again next year.