May 26th 2013 -     East Coast Multi-DF   Event 2

Start and Tea  Eight Ash Green    First transmission  1:30,  last 4:30

Site Pods Wood near Tiptree,  9.5 Km from start.

Operator Roy G4 JAC
I was at  this site before back in 2010. Then Txs were spread over both sides of the road and half of Layer Wood.  Could the new format offer enough challenge in a much smaller area?

Why reduce the distances involved? - Simple, I am getting older and I am not alone!

The green stations all gave nice long transmissions and were within 30 m of a path.

The yellow gave shorter transmissions and were a  further from  paths.

Red gave very short transmissions and were right in the middle of loads of trees  that all looked the same. The logo top right was never more appropriate!

What is short?   10 seconds at Y - now that is short......  Oh OK it did also give some 30 second ones too but that was just my over generous nature getting the better of me. Funny how competitors only remembered the 10 second ones, something to tell the grandchildren about!

Obviously our intrepid guinea pigs - sorry Multi-DFers would leave red well alone until they had collected lots of nice easy green points ..... wouldn't they?

I had set the Micros to start 30 minutes early so that I could check them - just as well as G was only putting out a Micro(scopic)  signal!   This early start gave me a chance to move it much closer to F (as shown) before 1:30.   At home the fault was found to be a fractured wire on the output transformer.   Learning from the experience, I am building a universal Tx which can  be switched to transmit the ID and timings of any other Tx; so in future operators should have a better solution.  As is was, most people found G after finding F.


The 1 Km squares show how small the area used on Sunday was when compared to the 2010.  Then Pods Wood,  plus the area North of the road and Layer Wood were used too. 

The triffids were in bloom ....
 .....   and one or two ....... thousand .... bluebells
 An old bloke sculking in the bushes can cause alarm .. I went for the 'official twit' look, with some success I think? 
The main Tx was buried under a fallen tree but triffid and box were clear to see.
The box says ice creams  .. good idea Gary Oh no,   its only Jokering.
First on site is Philip,  passes me at A saying that M  is hard.  "... er   yes but what about  . ? " Oh he's  gone. Leisurely  Tim and Timbo  stroll by
Steve is not flapping either, he is flying
Near Tx I,   new Tim is showing old Timbo how to do it ....  

..... but the poor old fellow just can't spot the triffids.
Gary has gone for the high risk strategy doing the reds first ... all the trees look the same, so hard not to get disorientated!
Colin F, our narrator ....... Ah it's new Colin, how is his 4th ever DF going?    He takes up the story:

Nervously waiting for the start signal, we plotted our bearing and decided to use a B road SW instead of the A12 in case it was close . . It was, but I was thrown the map and advised to navigate Colin along this route, I was not sure which turning off the huge roundabout over the A12 was correct and ended up going towards Colchester without realising, by the time I did, we had got into traffic and didn’t know how to get across to the right road. So we continued to the turning onto the B road and then had to travel back SW to where we should have joined it about a mile or so down.   On the way we took another bearing just out of the built up area, telling us to continue along the B road. Then another stop gave us a good bearing on A, and we continued past some woods on the left, Rosie spotted familiar cars parked opposite, and told Colin to turn about. We parked up with the rest, and Colin & Rosie dived into the woods leaving me plotting bearings.

 I wasn’t making a very good job of this, and they all seemed to be in a similar direction ! . . I checked the car was locked and forgot my sunglasses, but it was dark in the woods as I headed in, and soon had strong signals for A & B, I was in a bit of confusion, all my plans of working around in a circle just wasn’t there.

I think I ended up getting N first, beating Rosie by 2 seconds, then still confused I went off and found B, but then decided not to go into A so early with only 2 tokens, and headed towards F & G.
 
On route I met Roy who told me of a problem with G’s signal, but said head for F and it will be close by ! . . so I did, sure enough F was in the rhodo’s and just across the path was G that was sounding like a very weak moaning animal on it’s last legs ! Now that I was getting somewhere, I & J seemed the obvious choice, and there was a path in that direction too. Half way down the path I met Colin who was in a state of desperation trying to find Z (his joker), I told him of G’s problem and missed my next signal on J.  I continued to the end of the path without even thinking of stopping for Y & Z on the way ‘der’ ! ! .

Turning left along another path I found J’s signal not far off and collected that token. On the other side going back was ‘I’, and after collecting that, I was drawn towards M through the woods to a path along the edge of the wood.
Colin M had drawn the short straw , a red Joker; elected to 'go for it ' but all  those trees and very short signals  were giving him a serious case of triffid blindness.
 I had to wait for another signal by a bend in the fence, and soon picked up the scent again, little did I realise I had gone full circle, as I was now almost back to N. Walking north I knew I was a near a path but on reaching it, I chose the wrong direction west, then realised there were no paths off going North, I backtracked East to the next one that did. I was heading for Y & Z, when I got a super strong signal for A, I turned left for 50 yards and then decided it would use too much time. (Ah a dash of Multi-Spice Ed.) So heading back to the path, I crossed it in search of Y or Z. With little signal time, I just continued in the same direction, searching the ground as I went, just using the brief signals to confirm direction. I found both triffids in an amazingly short time, then with 10 minutes left I hurriedly headed back towards A, at least I knew it was just to the right of the sun, and in 4 minutes I was greeted by the rest of the pack, so finding A was not a problem !

With all ten in the box, I heard some had finished early and already gone, I knew then I wasn’t too near the top and in fact found out at the pub I was a creditable 5th, mainly due to lowish scores which I had already noted at each triffid.
The  two Colins  meet again at Maxi A .....
..... and here comes Rosie.   The plastic bag contains drinks but the ticket posting is far more important!
Pam and Graham treat these events as their  Sunday afternoon walk with a bit of a puzzle  thrown in but even they were tempted into a bit of off-roading towards the end.  Graham arrived looking 'quite warm' with Pam not far behind having DFed the 'direct' route to A.
With everyone in, it is time to collect all the Txs and head for the pub.
Answer to question posed at the top:   No - clearly there are a lot of  RED blooded DFers out there who thought all the others would go for green!  



Philip had the honour of competing as our first -40 man having won the first event of the year.  


Steve  walked/flew off with the Multi-Star Trophy. He will now be competing with Philip  to see if anyone can win with a -40 handicap. Handicaps are reset to 0 at the end of the year.



Steve and Timbo finished with time to spare but everyone else was kept seriously occupied/confused for the full 3 hours.

Young Timbo also did pretty well  but that is easily explained by the help he got from new Tim F.  I understand that Tim  led the way but Timbo kept sneaking the Triffids at the last minute, nothing changes!  
(Wait a minute Timbo is running the next event -  .....   only joking  ....  SIR   .... grovel  ...  your highness .. what a Multi-DFer !!)

Rosie broke her sense aerial after her first 2 Txs.  Sense is essential on these events - do we need flexible aerials?
Top man of the day.   Very well done Steve, ten stations found with over half an hour to spare - awesome! Timbo receives the Colchester trophy, awarded for the best overall Multi-Performance of 2012.  A very closely fought battle between Philip and himself. 


During the meal Colin M demonstrated his new TX controller, this will allow the operator to adjust the TX timings in future generations of  Multi-TXs.

Thanks for all your efforts on this Colin, this project should keep us both amused through the winter(s)!






Next Multi-Event is on  
Sunday  June 23rd

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