The official program
The Open Nordic ARDF Championships 2014 is held in Finland with championship site at Eerikkilä Sports Institute in Tammela. The championships are organized by the Finnish Amateur Radio Society SRAL together with local radio clubs.
- July 25: Sprint 3.5 MHz
- July 26: Classic 3.5 MHz
- July 27: Classic 144 MHz
The journey
The team flies to Helsinki from where a rented car is used for the last 100 km, north-west of Helsinki.
Speed diagram of the travel.
Departure from Västerås
The team departed in Leif's car Friday morning at 05:30.
Long time parking at Benstocken was booked. The boarding passes was already printed thanks to electronic check-in from home computers the day before.
Waiting for the airport transfer bus at Benstocken long-time parking.
Foto: Hans Sundgren
Benstocken ticket
Finnair electronic ticket
Boarding pass departure
Boarding pass return
Rented car from Helsinki airport
Hans has rented a car beforehand. The car offered was an Golf TSI BlueMotion with automatic transmission instead of the manual transmission car ordered.
Only 248 km was driven during the 3 days.
Foto: Leif Zettervall
The competition center
Eerikkilä Sports Institute is an official training center for sports in Finland. Eerikkilä is located in the south of Finland, only one hour´s drive from the cities of Helsinki, Tampere and Turku.
Foto: Hans Sundgren and photo in the restaurant
The apartment house
Hans, Jan and Leif stay in the house "Tammela" in a 4-bed room with wc and shower in the cooridoor, shared with the other runners from Västerås.
Breakfast is served in the restaurant in the morning and additional meal vouchers are purchased for lunch and dinner. The food is excellent.
Meal vouchers.
Foto: Hans Sundgren
The competitions
The competitors walk from the ARDF center to the starting zone for Sprint race and for the 144 MHz race. The 3,5 MHz race is located 20 minutes car trip from the venue.
Competitors in the starting zone of the 144 MHz race.
Foto: Hans Sundgren
The races
Electronic punching is used during the Sprint race. Due to some problems traditional pin punching on paper card is later used on the following two races.
Bath and sauna
After each forest run it is nice to cool down in the lake Ruostejärvi.
Foto: Hans Sundgren
The medals
During the championships, gold, silver and bronze medals are awarded in each class, for example M50 where Hans participates. And since there are only 3-4 contesters in that class it is quite easy to obtain a medal.
Hans gets bronze medals in Sprint and 3,5 MHz, and a silver medal in 144 MHz.
Foto: Hans Sundgren
Miscellaneous
Hans tecknar tjänsten 3Utland för 149 SEK kvällen innan avresa.
Tjänsten 3Utland innehåller 30 samtalsminuter, 30 st SMS och 100 MB data och gäller i sju dygn från att tjänsten är köpt.
