 |
Sunday 20th
September 2020 Multi-DF Ten Txs & Triffids to find Organiser Philip C Location Upper Hollesley Common, near Woodbridge, Suffolk. Times Training Txs from 12:30 Jokers & briefing 13:00 Start 13:30 Finish & picnic 16:00 Event Format - full details here. Contact email. |
 |
 When the CV19 'socialise with max 6' law was introduced it looked like this event would have to be cancelled but after a bit of thought it was realised that the Multi-Jokers could be used to divide the competitors at the beginning and end of event. During the event the 10 Txs and scoring system, designed to encourage individual hunting, mean that it is rare to meet more than one or two people near a Tx. Normally the Jokers are randomly selected on the day but in this case they were selected so that each group had a mix of beginners and experts that would initially head for one of the three 'chains' identified by the green Tx (A, F or K), once near the chain they would divide again to 3 to hunt for their joker - e.g. group A would divide to looking for jokers A, B or C. |
 Philip picked up the Txs on Saturday morning; as I stared at the remaining dibbers, loan Rxs and demo Txs I realised that distribution on the day was going to be an issue, hence these were sorted into three boxes. Meanwhile Philip had prepared the arrival map below and signs to separate people on arrival at the car park. OTT? Probably but we were quite aggressively interviewed twice by other users of the area, so it was good to show them the 'Boris measures' we had put in place and I assume they were convinced as no boys in blue interrupted our 'enjoyment'. |
 Over to event organiser Philip: The whole bloody saga. I had looked at this site last year but with a number of teams coming up from Kent we thought is a bit too far. But it had obvious potential given the amount of space, lack of people and fairly good car parking. With the Kent teams unable to attend it seemed the ideal time to try it again. I looked it over the Sunday before and made some changes to balance the TX layout to ensure there was no advantage to where the joker/ first TX was for each competitor. I also dispensed with the OS map as it had a number of paths that no longer existed and newer tracks not marked. The pathway around KLM still did not show that well on the satellite imagery, so I enhanced this to try and make the cross route between the three clusters easier to identify. The enhancement was subtle, I didn't notice the map had been tampered with (Ed.) |
 DFers are known to get lost very easily so .... |
Setting
up
on the Saturday afternoon started well and I drove down to the lower
car park to plant K, L & M. Planting being the operative word as
with the really dry conditions I was advised to get them well down to
help with the ground wave. The position for M was going to be in the
woods but when I arrived the spot was being used by a couple doing odd
things with an umbrella! It was when I was setting up F on the other side of the site things went wrong. I have taken three poles to get the aerials up but found they were not long enough. So foolishly I tried to climb up the tree. One of the branches broke and I fell off and somehow gouged out a large cut into my thumb - blood everywhere! The situation was saved by having a number of Roy’s elastic bands which I used to bind a dressing together and stem the flow to allow me to carry on. Then bizarrely in digging the ghost in I managed to draw more blood by stabbed my other thumb on a broken piece of heather. It was good of Vaughn to turn up with a similar injury to make me feel in good company. |
 It looks so easy with
hindsight!
The test transmissions on Sunday morning seem to go well and I picked out all the stations with only B being a bit on the weak side, with K the strongest. As some people realized there were three paths at the start point which led each in turn to the three clusters of transmitters, the path to the west being the most tricky to find under a tree. It was a fair walk to from the start to the Jokers for all teams, but still well inside the 1km limit, though I expect in the sun it felt longer. To make sure things were balanced out the ghost was just on the other side of the main path from A and in the middle between F and K groups whose competitors I hoped would be passing by at the right time. As usually some teams decided not to stick to the script and I did not anticipate the problems caused by the fence in getting from B to C, which was much straight forward when accessed for the gateway at the main cross roads. It was good to see so many out with some new and younger teams taking to the field, particularly those with eagle eyes. Despite all the warnings on adders, all the running about, I saw none and never have on any DF. I think the secret is making lots of noise. Thanks Philip, I suspect the sound of you hitting the ground from a great height may have made the adders search for a safer home. |
 Above the A group beginning to form. Right Gary is experimenting with various commercial receivers, these £50 scanners with rod and whip seem to give a reasonable indication of direction, how will they get on in the heat of battle? Note the backpack of traditional receivers, just in case. |
 |
 Geraldine, Chris, Richard & Tim. |
 Above - Chris is at the breadboard stage, linking bits together as needs have been appreciated. The tests with the demo Txs were very positive so expect to see a boxed version soon. Right - Second event and George has a yellow Joker and Caroline (with green Joker) to teach how to use an Rx, neither has seen before - no pressure then! |
 |
 Last minutes of instruction. |
 Daniel listening to the training Txs. |
 Patrick is almost ready but where is his greatest asset? |
 Ah, there she is. They're off and Nuala is on the case .... |
 Shock horror, is expert Tim being overtaken? Is there going to be a major trophy upset? |
 Mum Issy is on hand with water & protein supplies! |
 Ferns, ferns with not a landmark in sight, does Debbie's phone reveal a way out, or has Vaughn's new sense circuit got what it takes? |
 If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try ... (for 40+ years), new Rx finished yesterday, 50 year old technology, if only body was that young! Tip - to enhance your trouser droop add drink, phone, gps .....lack of buttock muscle. |
 The machine gun has sounded, all is collected in. |
 Time for a sit down (at last!), picnic, results and prizes: |
 Oooooh the tension is building ........ |
 The outright winner - Well done to Multi-Star Richard. |
 Minus one finger but with added sense, Vaughn gets the 'If only I had taken glucose before the event' prize. |
 While Patrick (well mainly Nuala), receives the 'Just a bit more protein needed' peanut prize. |
Results
Times for info - only points mean prizes! Note Caroline's validation time - 15:59:35, wow this girl likes her spice hot!
Those doing it for fun only - not in the competition
Hero/Handicap points and discards - for more detail see the Hero league. Well done to Gary, still hanging on to the Hero, can anyone threaten him, or can he continue to try other Rxs, chuckling while we try to catch up? Good to see Richard has joined the pursuit, discarding just enough to keep within a 50 point win of deposing Gary.
|
| |
Over to our winner Richard
 A great event hosted by Phil and an excellent new site for a Multi event. The arrangements to comply with Coronavirus pandemic were very thorough. At the start I had difficulty in hearing any of the green transmitters, with nothing from station A at all. However, the map showed a limited range of the compass and so all Txs had to be in that area. My joker was H so I was fortunate to get a direction for green TX F from the start. I headed straight for H only to find that Gary was already dibbing it having found it by mistake while looking for his joker G. So I was disappointed to be second in. Only one response possible of course, find G before Gary and Daniel did. Success! Group A, B, C was next in range. These were straightforward although I needed more transmissions than necessary to find C, not helped by making 2 crossings of the wire fence. The Ghost had been giving very strong signals in this area and I was able to reach it at 14.50. I was still only receiving the weakest of signals from K and even this required the whip aerial on my receiver to be fully extended. Once in the area the signals from K, L and M were all strong. Phil did say that these were all accessible by footpaths though the paths evaded me. For me, the Txs could only be found by struggling through all sorts of undergrowth and bushes which were ideal habitat for big spiders in their webs. |
|
I crossed the site to re-dib at Joker H by tramping across the heathers
which was hard going (Multis being good exercise always). For once I
had taken the trouble to remember my Joker's location and walked
straight in. It was a good distribution of Txs across site and refreshing to be able locate the Triffids without too much difficulty. The frustration of finding a transmitter but then being unable to find it's Triffid was excused for once. It was great to see so many newcomers of all ages and congratulations for all being successful in finding the Triffids. I hope that you all enjoyed the afternoon and hope to see you again. Thanks for the event Phil and your efforts to keep us all safe. Richard. |