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Sunday May 22nd 2022 Multi-Tx DF Organiser Tim M0BGE Location Fordham CO6 3LX TL 927 286 Map with zoom |
 Organiser Tim P |
Tim has used this area several times before and was keen to find an alternative, but with a busy schedule, other areas explored failed to offer the DFing challenge that he is 'renowned' for. Could he find a new angle to torment us with? The initial map we were given is shown on the right but the Txs were all in a very small area, roughly shown by the black rectangle. The weather was kind and we had a good turnout. Not only the competitors but Tim's daughter Catherine and grandson Harry, who had come along for a taster. This kept Tim very busy all afternoon, not only that but this fiendish event kept all the usual photographers busy until it was over - hence very few pictures to include. It was good to have Alex competing again, a previous winner, now 5 years older and 50cm taller! So 13:30 all Txs heard from the start - we are off ..... |
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Below
Tx 1 is the Ghost which gives very brief random transmissions and shuts
down at 3 pm, giving more time for longer transmissions from the red
Txs on 1915 kHz in the last hour. The Tx locations, all in a small area, so how was it that no one managed to find all 10? The reports below may explain. |
Results
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 Mult-Star George |
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 Gary - 100% and still the Hero with a handicap of 130 points. |
 Ghost! |
Times
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 The Google imagery makes the undergrowth look sparse, it isn't now! Very difficult to make progress unless you find a main path. George's GPS track is superimposed. |
Over to our winner
George
 Well, this was a very unexpected win for me. I took far too long in the middle of the event, and failed to find the ghost... kept hearing it off to the south, but always seemed too far away to try for. Overall, on the map from my gps it seemed like it should have been pretty easy, the transmitters weren't too far from the paths, and I had a good start with a straight run to my joker F (just beating Colin to it). For me at the time, it seemed to go downhill from there... I took the long way round to G, getting lost in the woods close to it, but again, somehow just managed to beat Colin to it. Now I'm in the woods, lost, had no idea how I got in there, and no idea where the nearest path was. H was 'over there somewhere'... so I tried to set off in a straight(ish) line. Took a meandering diagonal off in about the right direction... found a path (across the direction I was going... aren't they always?), wandered up and down it... dived into the woods and took a very long meander (second picture) through the trees eventually emerging at the road. I could now hear excited voices from the other side of an impenetrable hedgerow... got through it by going into the hole that Rosie emerged from, and started charging up and down the well-trodden grass in the corner. Now it gets weird... The Tx for H had dropped to very short transmission periods, I was getting hot, and my Rx was doing slightly strange things resulting in me taking several more transmission periods to wind up inside the right bush at the beginning of a transmission... bingo, there is the wire. Where's the triffid? there it is, I've walked past it on the way in, it in plain sight on that tree... dib dib dib. Ummm... isn't it supposed to be well hidden for a red one? Ummm... why is there a wire behind it when the Tx is over there? Ummmmm... why is my Rx playing up... sounds like it's blocking from a strong signal... click click on the channel selector... VERY LOUD morse 'L'. WHAT????? I've just dibbed L??? Back out of bush, direction of L definitely into the bush, wait for H, H definitely in the bush, back into the bush, wire for H still there, 10 mins scrabbling around in the bush later and I've found the Triffid. Dib dib dib for the second time in the same bush. Amazingly, I'm first to that one as well... though I definitely wasn't the first into the bush. The blocking from the strength of L on a nearby channel was undoubtedly why I had trouble finding the H Tx in the first place. |
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| Now this is where I wasted even
more time... having just dibbed L by accident, it didn't occur to me
that I must be close to K and M. I'd been monitoring the direction of
A, B and C on my previous wanderings and decided to go for those next.
Since I'd had enough of meandering through bushes and clambering
through little holes in hedges, I took the main path from L, which took
me past the mid-point of K and M, then crossed the road for the walk up
to A. B and C were a little trickier being off the paths, but no real
problem. All the way back to K, then a long way round the outside of the block of trees that M was in trying to find an easy (well, any) way in. Eventually back to the closest point, and a dive in to find Gary waiting for the machine gun of dots. I now had a mere 20 mins to get back to my Joker F, but I could have walked slower as I made it with 9 mins to spare. Many thanks to Tim for Organising the event, and Roy as ever for the equipment. See you all next time, George. |
| 2nd place man Steve, emailed to say: Roy If you could pass this on to the group. I don't normally comment, but this
was unusual circumstances. Thanks to Tim for an 'interesting' (weird) event. Surprised that the start
showed all three groups to the north, and they weren't particularly strong, so
all probably north of the road. Walking north when my joker L came on showed
that this wasn't the case, so backtracked to the start and went west then
up. Got to the gate when L came on showing access to be via a semi beaten
down path. Had to fight through a wooded bit to get further along, but
eventually found L and thought this is silly, I was already scratched and
bleeding. K & M were just as bad. Won't bore you with the rest of it, but the interesting point is that after
A B C I was quite tired but decided to head up to F and then work my way back
to L, and if G H were on the way all well and good. G was OK once I got onto a
main path and luckily it wasn't far into the grot. At this point I was
completely lost and the H signal kept pointing deep in to the undergrowth, so
decided enough's enough. Eventually fought my way back to L and was just waiting when Colin turned up
followed by Rosie who said that H is there as well. So extremely lucky to come
second, without H I would have been 8th I think. It was also lucky that the L
triffid could be identified as it was hanging in the tree, which was not the
case with H which was well buried. So it was possible for someone to punch H if
they happened to spot it instead of L, or vice versa. Steve The event seemed very hard BUT of course was set at the perfect difficulty/trickery level, several people found 9 Txs but no one managed 10, everyone fully occupied for the full 2 1/2 hours. So through gritted teeth I must say "Well done Tim"! |
The Hero League - Handicap changes after
this event
Hero page List of all handicaps Winners of previous events |
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