Discussion: Night Orienteering

Should there be a standard torch for Night O to make it even and then more about the orienteer rather then his/her torch?????

No.

Only if everyone runs in the same shoes for daytime O

There should be a standard for maximum luminosity.

...but brighter light usually means a heavier battery to carry around.
If anything i would say i would be more important for a 'rule' to insist on a MINIMUM brightness first.
The main advantage of a brighter light is not seeing controls from further away, it is in fact the increase in condinence of footfall .... because you can see where you're putting your feet, you can run faster and / or reduce chance of injury.
Ergo: Weak lights are dangerous

There will always be those who try to spend their way to the podium, but a fair navigator with a 2000-lumen light will still lose to an excellent navigator with a 200-lumen light. With llghtweight 3W LED's now affordable to just about anybody, I'd say once could safely change the rule to "You must have a light." Those who choose to spend/carry more may do so.

A fair navigator with 200 lumen lamp will probably lose to a fair navigator withe 2000 lumen lamp. Is that fair? The size of your lamp should not be decisive in the race.

I see nothing wrong if someone with 200 lumen lamp looses to someone with decent lamp. Just as someone with rubber boots will loose to someone with decent O shoes, just because boots are too heavy and bulky for fast running.

Note: a fair navigator with 3000 lumen lamp may loose to a fair navigator with 1000 lumen lamp just because lamp is too heavy and bulky and he may just get blinded by his own lamp. Extra 2000 lumen from 1000 to 3000 doesn't give any significant advantage, just 600 g extra weight.

What about night vision goggles?

What about hiring so many spotlight-carrying helicopters to fly over you that you're effectively running in "daytime" conditions?

I would say the variances in lighting equipment will make a bigger impact than variances in footwear (and talking about orienteering in rubber boots or stilettos is just nonsense).

Compare orienteering in no shoes vs. $20 shoes vs. the best possible shoes. And then compare orienteering with no light vs.$20 light vs. the best light possible.

There are equipment regulations in baseball (bats) and tennis (racquets). The technology is there to make better-than-allowed equipment, but it's reasonable to set a limit. I think night-o should have a standard for max luminosity, as toddp suggests.

There is already a limit based on electrical power: 20 Watts measured between the batteries and the lamp. Pick the technology that provides the most light from 20W. I wonder if there is a theoretical limit to brightness, or luminosity, or whatever based on input power? Use an efficiency to that perfect limit as a figure-of-merit for headlamps.

The 20 watt limit rule has been rendered impotent by powerful and efficent LEDs that shine blinding light at a fraction of the wattage of old halogen technology. The march of technology simply outpaced the rulebook.

How many lumens does 20 watts of halogen tech produce?
How many lumens would a 20 watt LED produce?

Why helicopters and night vision goggles would be allowed? It's same as using motor cycle in day O. Nonsense, we already have some rules after all.

Compare orienteering in no shoes vs. $20 shoes vs. the best possible shoes.

O with no shoes is stupid. 20$ isn't wise either. $100 shoes are fine, best possible shoes aren't much better.

And then compare orienteering with no light vs.$20 light vs. the best light possible.

No light is stupid. Racing wth 20$ isn't wise either, I have never seen anyone using such a light for night O racing. I'd say it's recreative walking in forest with map without taking time. $250 lamp is great. Best possible lamp isn't much better, it has about the same output but 100-200g less weight.

How many lumens does 20 watts of halogen tech produce?
How many lumens would a 20 watt LED produce?

There is no 20 W limit in Sweden or Finland. 20W halogen gives about 350 lumens. 20W led about 1500 lumens. That's more than enough, optimal lamp uses less than 20W. Makes it more light weight and and there is no use for 1000+ lumens output.

I'd say once could safely change the rule to "You must have a light."

For safety, I'd rather have a rule that said, "You must have a backup light". On the other hand, I once ran a Night-O using only a tiny penlight to read the map by, and nothing to illuminate the terrain. And I won. (But I still have scars from the barbed wire.)

There's a big difference between light that comes from you and light that comes from overhead. With a light mounted on your head, there's a point (in forested terrain, anyway) where brighter isn't more helpful. Advances in lights at this point (in my opinion) are more apt to be in terms of beam pattern, run length, and lightness.

How much does a helicopter add to the cost of an Event?

i think that the light used for night orienteering should be small as the whole idea is that you have low visibility

Re the 20 Watts---I know I've seen race announcements with 20W power limits and actual test equipment. Maybe they don't do that anymore---"If you can carry it, it's allowed."

NMFC---I used to think that too---Sort of the "We Own the Night- Walter Mitty" experience. But I've come to disagree with the idea that night O is about stealth and low visibility. It's about running in the woods at night. It's about being able to train in the short daylight winter months. Having a big light just makes it faster and more fun. Safer, too, especially when the footing is bad.

Besides everyone knows that following is against the rules.

I'm unaware that anybody has ever actually done any electrical testing of the 20W USOF limit (and when that rule was instituted, I spoke up and said it was stupid because testing was impractical). Does anybody know of any case when it has been enforced?

visibility is low, no matter how powerful lamp you have. You can see the next branch, but not much further. With powerful lamp the branch is just a lot brighter. Night O does not turn into day O, no matter how powerful lamp you have.

With small lamp any additonal light makes difference. Anyone with slightly brighter lamp or more fresh battery gets clear advantage. It would be also lot about ones night vision, some have better vision than others. It should be orienteering race, not a vision test.

Racing with small lamps would be fun to try once a year with club mates at club champs, but I don't think that's wath night O should be like. I hope no one seriously thinks elite athletes would be happy to race and start doing winter trainings with small lamps ~ 4 times a week.

Friends of mine who developed a LED Lamp for caving asked me if I would help them to adapt their lamp to the requirements of night-o. After a year we got it now (it's a 'scurion'). The first time I ran with it, I just couldn't stop thinking: Its the dead of night-o...

The new LED-Lamps are changing Night-O inevitably. They are four times brighter than the good old 20W-lamp and the lithium-batteries, enough for more than two hours of max.performance, weight a mere 100 gramm. They are a huge advantage in micro-routechoice and if the control is not hidden even in attacking the control.
(> Jagge: no problem to dim a LED, if branch densitiy is high)

For its just a shift of standard (as the dobb-spikes) there is nothing you can do about it, just join in or let it alone.

Funny, "dead of night O" never came to my mind. Maybe the image of night O is so different.

Would be nice to see more specs. 100g and over 2 hours makes me wonder how powerful it really is. Does the lamp dim automatically when there is branch too close to the lamp?

Just a note on having an crazily bright light - if you look down at a forest (white) map with a ubber bright torch, you can almost get blinded by the reflection and lose all night vision. So you can lose the "advantage" that you gained by having a brighter light.

For those who are complaining so much about the difference in light - if it really bothers you that much, just go out and buy the biggest lightest LED light you can find. Then if you start cleaning up race victorys, you may have some basis for your complaints. Until then stop moaning about bigger lights and just train more!

Ok, you unlimited lumination advocates have convinced me that super bright lights are an unstoppable tide, and not something to be jousted in the name of fairness.

I was especially swayed by cedarcreek's comment on night-o:
It's about running in the woods at night. It's about being able to train in the short daylight winter months. Having a big light just makes it faster and more fun. Safer, too, especially when the footing is bad.

Night-o is not special, it is just more o. Technology has just changed the game and made it faster and safer.

Time to pony up for a big a$$ light.

Most people will find that a $100 light completely meets their needs. I've won national championships (M40/M45) in CO/WY terrain where a powerful light is more helpful, using my homebrew hatlamp that cost me about $10 plus some scavenged parts.

He who has the bright light is also easy to see,
and may show where a control point may be.

If anything i would say i would be more important for a 'rule' to insist on a MINIMUM brightness first.

My three heavy falls at a recent night event whilst running with a dim small headlight suggests maybe this should be installed and enforced.

Jagge: I have no knowledge in the physics of light, if I go outside an I aim the lamp to the houses along my street I can easily distingush my spot reaching my neighbours house 50 meters away from where I stand. The lamp IS bright (LED P8).
The lamp has two LED: one as the spot, the other as the 'roomlight' it has an angle of about 270 Degrees and enlightens the ground right ahead of me, as the map while I am reading. I can program several combinations of spot and roomlight brightness and switch between them with a single tip on the lamp. So if it gets dense I dim the lamp manually (the next generation will do it automatically). The battery measures are 7x7.5x2cm and weigths 200g and assures full light for 2 hours and 10 minutes after that the lamp automatically dims down to allow me an other hour.

Maybe you have a better idea of what I mean with 'dead of night-o'. For me night-o was orienteering with a massively reduced amount of information compared to day-o. If I have 50m of information in front of me and I see the controls reflecting from 150m it isn't that much of a challenge any more. :-P

Here you can almost never see even that 50m, no matter how bright lamp you have. Forest is so dense. Maybe that's why bright lamps doesn't make big difference here. You can see about the same with a good 20W halogen, LED lamps are just much more lightweight.

I guess the lamp is quite similar to those caving lights they make. So I think it's P7 (not P8) and spot may be P4 as in cave lights. I think it's kind of middle bright lamp. 270 angle may waste lots of light to useless directions, so beam may not look as powerful as in some other lamps. Anyway, it sounds like good product.

The spot of the cavelamp was to focussed and reached about 80m, but for orienteering you need a broader spot. For that the P4 was to weak. So in the o-headlamp is are going to have the P8 for spot and roomlight... a nice tool!