This event was designed to sort the tortoises from the hares. All went well until race day; even at the start it looked as though we may have the odd tortoise present; but no, a sniff of RF and they all sprouted long floppy ears.

So let me introduce Terry our pseudo tortoise for the day. Now Terry has had a good life, perhaps a few too many beers. In fact if it were not for that supportive undershell his belly would be scraping the ground. Maybe his legs are short and stumpy but his ears and brain are as sharp as ............well, you get the picture?

Click here for Tx schedule

Tx A was just over 3 Km from the start on 256 degrees.

Tx B 8 Km on 236 degrees.

Now one of our DFers, who has asked me not to give his name, let's call him March Hare, actually got 255 deg for A but plotted 295. . He drove to the top of the Map. There he got a bearing due South across the river. Then decided to go for Tx B taking the A12 to the West of Colchester and stopped at the Zoo for another bearing (well they are only every 5 minutes). Terry, he needs your help.

Site A did have a small amount of cover to excite any hares that may appear (and some did get very excited). However all the Txs were within 3 metres of bridleways. There were several holly bushes both sides of the track near A, giving plenty of cover for me and the two micros W and X. I chose to have X which was on my frequency past me and W, which was not, before me. This meant that anyone entering the site from the West would not automatically hear W unless they thought to check for it. Most didn't - I think Larby was the only one who one did.

What do you think of it so far Terry?

)

Me, waiting for the tortoise that never came, I hope my disappointment doesn't show?

This site had much more cover. The obvious way in was from the path near H. The path under the A120 to B was much harder to spot on the map. Richard and I went to great lengths to hide his Ford Fiesta so as not to give the entrance away, getting permission to park it completely out of sight at Crockleford Hall. So it was a bit of a b....r that someone parked an identical Fiesta right by the path bringing those who thought they knew Richard's car straight in. Oh well, if your not a tortoise I guess you just have to get lucky!

How would you have handled it Terry?

"Well I would have driven round the site, noted Txs everywhere, perhaps ambled under that bridge for B, told Richard where he could stick all those other Mini and Micro things and gone back the pub."

Hmmm, perhaps you have a point, let's go to the tea.

Back at the Cunningham Ranch it looked as though Caroline had been cooking for weeks, it was a huge spread! A big thank you from all of us Caroline. After much munching we retired to the front room for the results, everyone knew it was between Steve and Philip (in the absence of a real life Terry).

As you may have guessed from the picture above. Philip won it, assisted by Raymond, Larby picked up the Maxi Prize and Rosie was awarded the Ladies prize for trying to apply some structure to Colin's 'haring' about while under the influence of radiation from Mini i. Steve was second in the main event, but there are no prizes for being second in Essex!

As organiser of the event I felt compelled to rise to new heights of oratory. I pointed out that the idea for a ten tx event had first come to me many months back, it took weeks of persuasion to get others involved and then it was all over in a couple of hours ............... a bit like sex really.. Some hare shouted out, "A couple of hours, he's added in the time to get up the stairs". Terry, they just don't get it mate, its not rushing to the finish ........ it's .....it's ....................it's ....... "Time for a pint?" Yea, there's plenty of time, there are loads of speeches to come.............. Results

Mid- Essex Nightmare event
Report from the perspective of the Event winner – other perspectives may vary.

Score:- ‘Full Strike’, ‘180’ , 3.00pm.

‘Too easy’ – that’s what Roy said when we handed in our last tickets, having found 10 hidden transmitters on two sites in about one hour forty two minutes.  Sounds fast, but I was as knackered as when we finished the national final in Weston. What is it about the multi Tx event that makes it so physically hard? Maybe it’s more a marathon run than a classic DF saunter around the woods. No time to catch your breath waiting around fifteen minutes for signals to come up; there are signals all around, all the time. No long aerials wires to wander along at your leisure – there are none to spot. No opportunities to follow other teams and let them do the hard work for you. No, it’s just you, your set, DFing and lots of it. Run to one Tx, then another, then another, then back to the operator on the Maxi. There is no let up till you drop or finish!

On our first experimental Multi Tx events we all got horribly confused and in retrospect this was a good thing. A great excuse to linger and get your breath, on the pretence of working out which station is which. An opportunity for cosy chats with other teams looking as perplexed.  Why press on when you can sit back, take all afternoon, then blame the organiser for setting up such a muddle of frequencies and timings.

Second trick we tried was blaming the Morse. After some leg pulling I eventually discovered I was not the only Class A licence holder who never listens to the Morse any more – just the tempo. Well Ok I can still read ‘TestDF’ & bash out my call sign, but no more. The first Multi Tx events relied on being able to pick out four stations on the same frequency by their call signs. Great - more ‘time out’ to figure the Morse, ask other teams for interpretations (what is ‘J’ now?) and think about whether I should really be handing my licence back to the RSGB.

Oh – those good old days. We have come a long way since then, lessons learnt, new transmitters built, better organization. At one point I even wrote out the Morse on the side of the set – but not needed now. More Micros, less minis, more frequencies, easy-peasy . Two Micros on each site now, easy to pick out on the two different frequencies, one bleeping slow, once fast, on all the time. No need to sit a Morse test for this guys. Only two Minis on 1960, two minutes apart – much easier to work out in the field under pressure. So no more excuses and all then replicated on the second site, so a quick learning curve. Even having the Maxi station on one of the Micro frequencies was not a problem and saved time retuning.

So it was just lots of good solid DFing, running, finding Tx and handing Peter Larbalestier his second place tickets. There was not even a lot of time to catch your breath in the car between sites – as they were fairly close together. So marathon runners please step forward. Steve Stone didn’t look like he broke out in sweat – apart from when he smashed over my wife favourite china flower tub outside the house. But I was pooped, though co-pilot son Raymond said he felt OK, but at the same time refused to grasp the set and take over the mantle from his old man.

The big mystery is why you tend to get lost in time and space in Multi Tx events? Maybe it’s age. It was worse on the recent night event – complete disorientation. 
But even in daylight something weird happens.  Running straight from one Tx to another felt like quite a hike, but organisers insist the distances were small, and post event analysis agrees with this – but it feels so much further in reality.  Where is it that Roy Emeny has taken us all? Are these just automated Top-band transmitters he has built or sinister five phase, time shifting machines?

Two sites, ten transmitters, we finished at Station Xxx.
We won, what more can I say – a great Experience!Whoo-oo  (fade in your own weird science fiction music here).

Well done Peter for getting to both Maxi’s first.
Good effort from the newer teams - Graham and Gary.
Excellent technical development and organisation from Roy, ably assisted by Richard.
Let’s do it all again next year and call it the Mid-Essex Marathon.

Philip
GONXH

Maxi Prize winner Larby:

................... Having taken bearings on Roy and Richard, I decided to go to Richard first. The strategy was "everyone else will go to the strongest signals". As a result, I will grab all the higher scoring tickets on Richard's site instead of having to share them !

Having reached Richard, there was Phil's car. Never mind as Richard came on as I approached him, yes 1st there, I saw Phil going after Micro "Z" so not wishing to be 2nd I went off after the after Micro "Y" and got my 25 points, JUST ! as Phil appeared behind me. Now for the 2 Mini's but on each, Phil's arms were longer as he reached in the envelope and gave me the 20 points keeping the 25 for himself. I collected " Z" on the way out and so had 3 @ 20 and 2 @ 25.

Phil was seen later at Lawford, great I thought as Roy was going to up in the woods by the Church, actually he wasn't !
Having decided where he really was, I parked near Phil's car, I collected the micro on the way in to Roy's site who came on as I arrived.
So 3 to go, but Phil was returning to Roy when I had 2 left to collect.

So 10 in just 2 hours and Phil even quicker, sorry Roy, what must you do to stop us ? A fun event which everyone enjoyed.

Graham's view:

As a rank novice, I have to say that I did enjoy Sunday’s competition because I did manage to find both the main stations as well as two micros at Richard’s site and with hindsight should have left his site at that point and made my way back to Roy’s location to try to do the same trick as I had already found him.. However that is just the sort of calm thinking which disappears with the heat of the moment and the first blossom of success.

Obviously I had little chance of winning given the high level of the opposition but I did leave the event with the feeling that I had experienced a good afternoon and one which I would be happy to repeat. .....

.... The proximity of the stations meant that it was not a driving competition and Roy knows that I do not like driving too quickly (!!) as my car does emit some dust on hard acceleration!  The fact that they were relatively close to roads, assuming that you did not park at the furthest point away from the southerly station, was another bonus in that there was no half mile or more run-in (if only I had known that there was an underpass under the A12 and that Richard was there to “meet and greet!”).

 Indeed it was almost possible to take a stroll around the course and find all the stations in the time available.  Mind you this assumes that you don’t get phased by all the signals and have an argument inside your head about which one you had actually found and wasn’t that the same one you were now approaching but this one is bleeping and the one you are looking for should be doing morse so it can’t be there but they seem to be in the same place and you have forgotten that they might be near one another (if you see what I mean!)

Confusion apart, I really enjoyed it and certainly would do another one like this as a daytime event – indeed I am actually looking forward to one!  Not so much fun at night but I did enjoy the High Woods event although the “après transmission” was too short!!

And last but not least, young Ian:

......... As promised, please find pics. of the event for the report and also the DF Album. Have included shots of operators in action, also location shots at Micros I and Z. Would also just like to say how much I personally enjoyed the event, even after an earlier bout of apprehension regarding the size of the undertaking. I know that all the others did too, and everyone achieved some considerable success. I expect that even now new ideas are being considered for more variations along these lines to extend our abilities. I look forward to the forthcoming challenges that I'm sure will be presented to us all in future events. Thank you for a splendid DF, one which will be remembered as a landmark in this evolving activity.

Summary:

So eight teams, six found all ten Txs (yes, even the March Hare!) Our new teams, managed to find four each. On reflection the Minis could have been used to 'extend' the hares a bit more ..... perhaps next time!

But Terry, one things puzzles me, weren't you supposed to win with your cool thinking steady approach?

"Nah, that's just a fairy tale, put about by us tortoises to keep hares out of our pubs ....."