It was the first event in 14 months for WICEN Vic. Duncan’s Run 2021 (March 20-21) was an opportunity to get away and forget 2020. For many WICEN operators it was an opportunity to dust off and check that equipment which had not been used in some time. Duncan’s run has been an annual event for WICEN Vic for many years and in 2020 due to Covid-19 it had been cancelled. However, in 2021 the event came back stronger than ever with some 450 runners competing in the 6km, 21km, 50km and 100km Ultra Marathon races. http://www.duncansrun.com.au
Th
e event is held near Balook on and around the trials of Gippsland Tarra Bulga. The event honours the life of Duncan Orr, who’s life was taken too early. Duncan was a local and passionate runner, and one way his mates remember him is by holding this event annually. This year’s winner ran the 100kms in just over 12 hours commencing at 6am on a dark and cold Saturday morning. WICEN Vic had a team of around sixteen operators who had travelled from all over the state to support the event, providing runner tracking, logistics and emergency communications. Much of the area has little to no mobile phone coverage. 
On the Friday afternoon a small army ascended on the Balook visitor centre to turn it into a mini city of tents. One of those was the race control and our communications bunker known as VK3AWI. Many operators came for the roast that John VK3ZRX had organised and many thanks to John’s wife for making the drive up from Traralgon South to deliver the fresh beans and home-made desert. It wasn’t long before it was dark, and it was time to find a home for the night. Several of us headed for a cleared logging area to set up tents and swags. With a 5am alarm set after a long day we didn’t spend too much time chatting after setting camp.
WICEN operators are spread across the course, with many having more than one check point throughout the day. Some locations required a change of operator, as the check point is on the air for most of the event. VK3AWI—our event HQ station—was on the air before 6am and remained on air until the last runner was in, close to twenty hours later. The Friday night, Balook experienced strong winds and Chris VK3CJK found the race control tent had blown over. Chris and a small team went to work getting it fixed, which explained why at 5.30am Chris and John looked a little flustered. The good news was the erected antenna mast was untouched.
A variety of communications in our tool kit were used. 2M packet and voice with 6M voice being used for the first time with success. We used one of our portable repeaters as well as a strategically placed digi repeater. Our packet system TRAK followed all runners in the 21, 50 and 100km races throughout the race. We had a few early problems to challenge the team, however the problems were resolved, and those operators got on with the job at hand. Some of the operators joining us for the first time witnessed some of the issues field operators face—if you’re a SOTA operator you probably know what I mean. Laptops that won’t boot, antennas that worked the day before having issues and propagation paths that shouldn’t give a concern but do and then magically open up with no rhyme nor reason. 
However, all tracked runners were accounted for, many messages were passed for the organises to assist with logistics and everyone went home safe. For this event I was able to get around and visit most of the stations and see a variety of setups. Not to mention meet many members I’d only seen virtually the past twelve months and non-members joining us for the first time. You could argue this event could run without WICEN Vic, using patchy mobile phone comms, but the risks to the runners and event officials would be expediential especially as night. This being my 4th year at Duncan’s Run, I’ve got to say the event organisers and WICEN Vic keep getting better and better at it. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the appreciation from the event organisers and the runners appreciating all those volunteering their time so they can run.
73’s
Mark
VK3MDH
PS: Many thanks to those first time operators joining us and the Victorian AR Clubs assisting WICEN Vic in many different ways.
