Hosted at home by the Hawkes Bay Club this year, with over 350 kids from around the North Island attending. Both the Individuals and relay events were situated in the Maraetotara area with its detailed limestone rock formations.
Radios were going to be used for both days. It was the first event where I had the luxury of two 40″ High definition TV’s ( previously had up to four but at lower resolutions ). Before the event I had set up to use an additional 4 monitors as well, but ended up going with the TV’s as everything fitted fine and it made setting up easier. One screen for the boys and the other for the girls. The display stand I thought I had made just for the nationals last year got yet another outing, so I am certainly getting a lot of value out of it. Cellophane ( Lunch wrap ) across the TV’s again to protect them from the inevitable fingers.
For the individuals the top classes had a good visible spectator control on a spur above the event centre. The courses also used one of two controls prior to this so I used radios on them to provide an early warning of competitors approaching the main spectator control. This proved really good for commentary purposes as the announcer knew who was coming into punch. Early warning controls prior to the finish were also used for all courses and it needed 3 radios to do this across the various courses. I also put out about another 4 radios to monitor the half way point of the youger kids courses who were not using the main spectator control.
Didn’t quite have the mobile broadband signal needed to go live with the event so this was a bit disappointing. Antenna attached to the tent below was to try to get reception but the pole also proved useful to attach the O-Lynx master radio to.
Relays – always a bit of an unknown as they happen so infrequently. Arriving on the day I found I needed to setup for the new OS2010 file format so a bit of time was needed to get this done ( after the first runners had already started ). Also the issue of the mass start for those runners still left towards the end of the race. For these runners O’Lynx has no idea of who was involved so the results boards are inaccurate after this. Still good for commentary and keeping track of the kids though.
A big thanks to Jane Davidson and her helpers for organising a great event.