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Malacca Heritage Hunt |
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Malacca Heritage Hunt |
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Malacca
Heritage Hunt 2010 |
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( Mc Donalds had a hand in the arrangements ?? ) Most of the organisers were
already at the scene as early as 6:30 am, making the necessary preparations
to welcome the competitors who slowly came in groups from all over Malaysia.
Teams from the Viva Club, Kumpulan V17 and individual hunters like veteran
hunter Deen Atan coming all the way from Johor made up the eager hunting
teams. |
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But wait! The audio did not sound similar as the previous hunts! Could the foxes be shouting in Chinese? No! they were operating on mode A2A,
That's why they sound different when received on the handies which were mostly on FM mode. Looks like the organisers are getting closer to meeting the International ARDF technical requirements. The problem of using AM mode,
creates a bigger challenge to the hunters as interferences from the ignition
system of passing vehicles and motorbikes plus the neon lightings will be
easily picked up by the hunters' receivers causing misleading signal
strength readings. |
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The area of coverage was not too big, about 1
Kilometer distance only. St Paul's hill was the only highest obstacle in the
path of the hunters. Hunters were sent out in 1 minute intervals, and soon
they blended into the Sunday tourist crowds in the areas like the Malacca
Clock Tower and St. Paul's church.
Pin-pointing the exact signal source of the
beacons was a tedious task for the hunters with bounced signals reflecting
off the heritage buildings and streaming through the narrow side lanes. |
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 No
flags were used in this hunt but instead the big Touch N Go
boxes acts as the marker and recording devices. From my observation, the location of the boxes meets my expected standards as a marker. The distance of the fox beacons to their individual markers are also well placed. The hunters ( by the way, comes in all different sizes and shape ) are now more matured. No more usage of hand-phones or walkie-talkies to communicate amongst the hunters were observed by the marshals going around on bicycles. That is a good progress in the Malaysian ARDF scene. Hope in future, we can have more or all hunters ditching their hunting partners and hunt as an individual. Not difficult-eh! |
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Time allocated for this hunt was 3 hours, and the
hunters were flagged off intervals of 1 minute and were required to touch
with assigned keycards at the specially made Touch and Go boxes to record
the time of arrival at the different locations. |
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Soon the hot Malaysian weather took the toll and
zapped the energy of the hunters. Maybe that is why many experienced hunters
were making serious mistakes, like walking past the markers although finding
the signals to be very strong at that location. Distractions from curious
tourists asking questions was another factor. |
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 The
END beacon (144.800 MHz) assisted the hunters to locate the Finish point
which was conveniently setup at the Hash House Hotel and Bar. Cool draught
beer was definitely a welcome sight after the tedious hunt in hot Malacca
sun.
Prize giving and other awards were conducted there. Congratulations to the 3 winners who were well rewarded for their efforts. A great thanks to the organisers and helpers from Malacca Amateur Radio Community for the good job done. |
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Location Map |
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Allocated run time: 3 hours,
extended to 3.45 hours
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Pictures are available at: http://www.kclim.myardfsport.com/cpg144/thumbnails.php?album=45
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Updated on October 6th, 2010 |
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Amateur
Radio Direction Finding
The
starting point was placed near the Menara Taming Sari and some how there is
always the 24 hours service of Mc Donalds fast food center from which the
organisers and participants who arrived early, could purchase and have a
hearty breakfast before the hunt.
Five
China made foxy beacons were howling on 144.500 MHz on 1 minute transmit and
4 minutes silent mode intervals could be easily picked up at the starting
point.