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 Organiser
Roy
G4JAC |
Sunday May 21st
Multi-Tx DF Location Broak's Wood North of Gosfield, Essex. NGR TL 787 315 Lat/Long 51 57' 11" N, 0 35' 56" E Click here for road map with zoom. |
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| Event planning We have used Broak's Wood several times before but there remains plenty of scope for different challenges. With the car park being close to the NW corner, organisers usually make the start somewhere closer to the centre to give more contest space (Txs must be within 1 km radius of the start). However, this event was not going to have competitors with the usual spread of expertise and fitness. Those that had booked in were all experienced DFers, hence no need to have easy Txs for beginners to find, however, three currently had quite serious medical conditions making walking difficult and, with this being the first event of the year, others may also have lost fitness over the winter.  What to do? I needed to keep distances to Txs down, but some competitors do keep themselves fit during the winter months and if I made it too easy they would likely find all 10 Txs and be standing about for a long time waiting for the event to end - not good! How could I minimise the difference between those fit enough to run and those who would be struggling to walk? In normal events we address the issue of different performance levels by having 6 easy and 4 difficult Txs (coded red) which give short transmissions and are very well hidden deep undergrowth. A particularly difficult red Tx is the Ghost which is only on for part of the event and gives short transmissions at random times. Usually it is placed centrally to give all roughly equal chances to get to it, however, on this occasion I guessed that only the fit and very competitive would be attempting it, so placing it well away from the bulk of the Txs would keep them busy while the less fit were grabbing good points on the close Txs. I had set the whole of Saturday aside for hiding the Txs so could look for some seriously good cover for all 10 Txs, not just the usual 4 red Txs. |
| Saturday A beautiful dry day, rare this year! I arrived at 10am and started my longest walk to where the Ghost would be hidden. I had the Ghost + A B C in my bag.   Location of Txs - A was dropped off on the way, then to 1 Ghost on the right.  The map shows some paths but
there were many more,
helpful in reducing distances to travel but also confusing! I had
to make sure that B was within 200m of A (as explained here).
Fortunately my GPS has a facility to select a point (A) and monitor my
current distance from it, allowing me to select a position for B
without
having to return to A - ancient legs love this technology!
A shorter distance was chosen between B and C as I encountered some
dense undergrowth - perfect hide for challenging experts!
Back to the car to pick some more Txs.
The undergrowth beside the entrance track was particularly dense, although very close to the start it looked as though I could keep people busy for a while! Access from the main path was OK but those trying to take short cuts between H and the F,G pair would need jungle techniques! Back to the car for the final 3, K, L & M. The track South from the start was very muddy, much easier to stay on the grass which does a remarkable job in soaking up water, nevertheless there were places where extra ponds had formed - great for ducks. As I approached the one below, a pair were playing but by the time I had managed to find my phone and the camera app they had disappeared into the long grass opposite, still a pleasant picture though.  With K and L in place I checked my watch, 2:15 pm, plenty of time before the 3 pm test transmissions to find a special hide for the M Tx and Triffid.  
  Can I hear all the Txs? A B C F G K L M 1 (Ghost) Oh dear no H, fortunately not far away - now where exactly did I put it ????. Shakespeare may have had a phrase for the struggle I had to find it, with only a rough GPS location to go on. |
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Sunday 11 am Back on site with the broken antenna on Tx H fixed. Tx H and Triffid returned to hide. Now can I hear them all on this second test transmission? A B C F G H K L M 1 (Ghost) Phew - relief! Time to relax and talk to some dog owners. "Oh what a cute little puppy, how old is he?" "6 years" |
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 During the briefing I explained that, since no beginners were present, all Triffids would be difficult - I would consider it my failure if anyone could get more than 5 or 6 let alone 10. Most managed a smile for the camera but it did seem to provoke more than usual preparation and plotting of initial bearings during the first round of transmissions. (Jokers encourage competitors to search for Txs in different orders, to be fair, no one is allowed to leave the start until the first sequence of transmissions is complete - 5 minutes).       After about 4 minutes of transmissions, some decided to relax before s -- p--r-i-nging into action!   On your marks, get set ........ |
 When I get to the general area of G, I find 4 people searching, some strange strategies in play ...., I'm confused, are they are confused ....? |
 I wonder if Richard has already found his Joker H? |
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 Eventually
Steve
spots it but Rosie knows a thing or two about rugby tackles, who got
their Dibber in first? We will have to wait for the results. |
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 Tim appears a few minutes later. |
 I spot Tim behind the tree where the Tx is, the Triffid is behind him. |
 Yes Dibber in hand he has seen it. The 5th Tx he has found. |
| I
wait around until 3 pm and then collect the Ghost Tx and Triffid to
take back to the car park where the Tx will act as a homing beacon for any
lost DFers at the end of the event. Lost DFers - who ever heard of such a thing ? :-) Confident that I know the paths back, I don't bother to listen to my radio. Strange, I don't recognise this bit of scenery, turn on radio, gosh the Txs sound very weak, hmmmmm ........ Eventually tired legs get me back to my car ...... yep the extra paths, not shown on the OS map can be pretty confusing. I wonder how our experts are doing? |
Results
Despite all my attempts to hide the Triffids, Philip and Tim still found all 10 and finished with some time to spare. |
Times
After banking/validating points at her Joker G (15:34:44), Rosie went after M to see if she could grab that too. She did find it at 15:57:30 but didn't have enough time left to bank the points for that back at G. The red numbers show the time of the find but no points were gained. |
| Over to our winner Philip: The Long Way Round Broak’s Wood – 21st May 2023 We have used this wood before and Roy clearly wanted to do something different this time, talking about walk sedately round an easy event, aiming for only five TX, then saying we may want to place out a lot of water. The Triffids would be made particularly hard, another new tactic. The most important difference this time would be the absence of the runner Gary Parker, out due to self-inflicted injury. Talk of him hobbling round with a orthopaedic boot, proved unfounded. So unlike November 2021 I would not just be following behind the swift, eagled eyed Gary – it was going to be tough! It was a good turn out, but not much time to talk beforehand as we had been delayed by traffic around the Colchester By-pass road works. |
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Joker
C came my way – not had that one before. Good signals at the start with
the surprise that ‘F’ headed out to the main road. ‘A’ was strong to
the east and ‘K’ weaker to the South in Shardlowe’s wood. New OS app recently purchased was now set up on the phone and set to record as we set off towards A (aim for joker C) in company with Colin(F). Strangely C got quieter as we got closer to A and I made the mistake of not sticking with A, because C was clearly a long way off to the south and took a long time to hunt down. The only compensation was that I was first in. Confusingly amongst all this it felt like C was much closer to K, L & M than it was to A and B. Felt it was best though to stick to the logical order and headed off next to B the other side of the path, where I found Colin (F) who had clearly done A but was not that far ahead of me. Took a long route round the pond and bird hide to find A back where I had started. |
 Philip's new OS tracker app, note paths shown differ, perhaps surveyors were a little confused too! |
Had
heard the Ghost a lot and thought it not far away, the problem was the
bearings which first took me far north before eventually on a long
route to the east and the edge of the wood. Yes – the Triffids were well hidden! Another long run across the wood back to C to take in L, M & K with some help from Rosy leading the way and Colin (F) out in front. Made the mistake of not listening for H but went through the car park and down the road looking for F, to find George looking tentative at one entrance, and Tim already inside some really difficult scrub, leading the way into F, then just beat me to G. That just left H for both of us, but it seemed weak and in the direction of some houses. So back to the road and car park, where I confused another visiting family before meeting up again with Tim who had taken a more direct route somehow, but beat him that time to H. |
| Along the way I had fallen over at about 3.00 pm and my watch had
stopped. So I did think I had a good hour before close of play and
thought of going back to the car to try and get a drink, but decided
first to unload all the points, only to discover that I had only twenty
odd minutes left and it had been a bit tighter than I thought. Everyone was fairly quiet at the finish and myself very tired as well and keen to get home and rest up after a long day. Well done to Roy for setting out a bit of a puzzler and Tim for winning on points but not with the dreaded handicap! Philip GONXH |
  |  Points mean Prizes! Philip was first in to the leg stretching Ghost and by some strategic discarding had grabbed the first 'Gold' Multi-Star of 2023. Tim had done incredibly well to get 2nd while competing with a handicap of 130 and remains our Hero! It's OK, Rosie hasn't shrunk! She was demonstrating how she would be applying her new extra low 'Tangle Foot Tackle' on the next event. Well done to all, I really thought I had set a course that would keep you all guessing for much longer. Clearly (?), I must visit Spec-Savers (other brands available) to get my own Triffid spotting enhancements. Next event will be on 25th June, Philip will be in charge, keep your eye on the noticeboard for details. Roy |
| Changes in Hero League for people attending this event (more detail here).
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 Those within a win of being Hero in this game of snakes and ladders.
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