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Sunday 5th December
2010 Colchester 'Christmas' DF |
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| Start Gt. Bentley
Time 12:30 - 3:00 pm Operator Tim The week prior to the event was punctuated by announcements from the Police 'Stay at home' 'Snow' 'Ice' . See the view from Tim's house on Thursday above. Schools were still closed on the Friday. So it was a brave decision by Tim on Saturday ....... 'We are go for Sunday'. The Maxi had been reprogrammed to have a shorter continuous period (30 minutes reduced to 15) but with longer transmissions for the last hour (2 in 5). The idea behind this was to give beginners a better chance of finding the main station. Sadly because of the weather conditions, once again beginners were left in the warm! By Sunday the weather had improved so much that we all had a great time, though some times were even greater than others! I am sure you will understand if I am just a little quieter than usual ...... |
 At the start Tim phoned singing " 'Noel' 'Noel' 'Noel' .. and 'Silent (4/9)' so nine shivering Txs. If the
meaning of this table is not clear see here
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| ‘The Wrabness Challenge’
– (Report by Philip). Snow or slush – no it was the mud and the cold that decided the Wrabness Challenge and the overall Colchester League this year. The last DF visit to Wrabness had been to the old Ammunition factory in May, the hottest day of the year. Whilst the final event was hottest competition for points, it was the cold to the bone, particularly for Tim, in command of the operation. The event had nearly been postponed given the heavy snowfall in the week and because it was not suppose to be the Snowman event, traditionally coming at the end of January. As we gathered at Gt. Bentley Larby had a premonition Tim was in the Stour wood, which was just about proven, and we would be dining in the Manningtree Crown later in the day – which he got completely wrong – hopeless sage!! Huge signal at the start and everyone shot off to Wrabness on Sea hoping to get there before the tide went out. Along with Ian and Richard I kept on the A120 and came down Primrose Hill where I picked up a Micro coming in on 1843 MHz. Leaving Richard to his own devices I headed to the Railway car park to find a frozen Tim warming himself in his car using flash photography to distract me from Mini J only a few feet away from where I had just parked. Crossing the railway bridge I was determined to go for Micros first but found X&W beating against each other, but thought X closer and ran off eastward along the railway line towards the top end of Stour Wood. |
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 Gary and Graham - train station - funny place for a DF - obviously no Tx here! |
 The
Abominable Snowman
- minus snow.
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 Tim being startled at the K transmitter, by Larby emerging from the undergrowth. |
Half way along and I lost the sense on X and frustration
developed into a
foot stamping moment. Hearing Roy’s advice running through my mind I
stopped and listened through the minis in sequence, working out that H
was by the river to the east, I & A were down to the beach on
the
west side and J was back the way I had just come! So no sense
of
any plan came of that and I thought sod Roy just wasted 5 minutes, best
carry on as originally intended and find X before anyone else did.
Fortunately the signal strength picked up as I made my way to the top
end of the wood and no problem picking it out from the undergrowth.
Then
thought - where is the Mini to go with it? Thinking this was H I ran
off down the wood with Larby who had since joined me for the ride. We
got down to the edge of the wood just as it went off, then bit later
heard a really strong K the other side of the railway tracks, which
Peter went off for, whilst I decided to keep on with H. Weaving round
Strandlands house and through the two steel gates it took a couple of
cycles to pin H down, but provided amusement to one Essex Way hiker.
Eventually found the transmitter bag and followed the earth wire down
to the triffid right by my foot. Headed back through the gates towards ‘I’ popping into a micro just at the near edge of East Grove wood. Picked up the trail of ‘I’ again but only reached the far end of the wood before it went off, but found myself on top of another micro. Then ran up the edge of the wood and into ‘A’ meeting Roy just coming out. Picked up a bit of ‘I’, which pointed to a large tree further west along the sea wall. Back down as the sea wall had a reverse sense that took me back into the wood for while. Eventually got to the tree and searched both sides of the path before the happy discovery of 40 more points, which I had assumed were long gone given the people I had seen and heard nearby. Back to the wood to have my photo taken again by a happy looking Timbo before heading up towards J and becoming more confused the further up the hill it went until finally I was running out of Black Boy lane back to the Station car park. There provided worrying entertainment for a lady waiting for the trains to depart. Just two more to go. |
| Retraced
steps out along the railway and crossed the middle railway bridge to
bump into Gary coming the other way, less one sense aerial. Found Graham just inside Stour wood and hunting down the Micro came across Roy, who I had assume had just grabbed some points before me. Overshot but took a bearing on K at the bottom by the railway, which was completely 90 degrees out, so took some time to come back to the path where I had earlier seen Graham. Finally found the illusive ‘K’ on the other side in the Holly bushes. Job done. Phoned home to say, despite being only three o’clock, there was no point of coming over to have a look as it was all over. Then saw Roy doing what I thought was some after competition practice with his set, to be told he only had four in the bag and I could not possibly have finished! Noted and added up my points as I wandered back to the ‘A’ station – 273 (absolute zero! Ed) and three forty’s would that be enough? |
 Our narrator
in action
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 Richard
resolving those hissing Txs (see his comments below)
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 Graham
at Maxi A
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| Was then accosted by Ian at
the
railway bridge on Black Boy lane demanding to know where ‘J’ was as he
was determined to beat Larby this time out. As he looked so desperate,
gave in and pointed him in the direction of the station car park. Soon cooled off in the biting wind, cheered up by a bit of sunshine and a chance to watch Richard do some acrobatics after hitting some mud running at full speed. Thawed out in the Strangers Arms. Good result, more teams getting more stations during the afternoon and the competition getting ever tighter. Only downside – another cup to take to the engravers. Philip |
 Gentlemen
...... please!
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Results
 Well done to Philip who overtook Tim in the Colchester League in this last event. Results for 2010 here. |
... And a special
well done to Gary . What the results do not
show is that he was down in London 'clubbing' (reminds me of
my
caveman days) Saturday night, got home at 8 am, found his DF set (well
most of it, no sense aerial) and then 5 stations before
surrendering to
his bed. So that's it for another year. Time for reflection - two very different styles of event this year - do we do the same next year? (Personally I enjoy the contrast.) Can 'Essex Man' cope with more? Warning evidence is being secretly gathered ready for publication in 'Whiffi Leeks' samples below: Merry Christmas and Happy DFing in 2011, Roy |
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Thanks Tim for your
efforts. ‘The event was not too
demanding
and everyone seemed happy. I am fed up of coming 2nd
twice. Must improve but how
? We already do
what Roy
didn’t plan for us to do, that is find ALL the TXs. I am expecting he
will
announce a change to the rules in the new year. Larby |
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The Great Tashe Debate ...... Thanks
Roy, I think the results show you were beaten by more than just a whisker. Congrats to Phil for winning but it was a close shave. Idea: How
about a "joker" its a
knockout style ...... before the start you play your joker on a Tx and
you
score double points ? Next
suggestion please. Tim |
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My
views on the matter. Thank-you Tim for all your efforts yesterday. A really successful event, especially following the recent poor weather. Somebody must certainly be looking out for us all from the met.department. For myself, one of my better performances to date! During the course of the competition I felt that all was going especially well as within an hour of arriving on the main site I had located 8 of the 9 transmitters, and was on course for the ninth, with an hour to spare. However, all was not to be so simple thereafter. Dogged by Larby during the afternoon and everywhere Tim, with his camera it went to pieces from then on. A great event that kept us all on the move and no time to get cold, with all being most successful, with but only a few minor exceptions. Congratulations to Philip and Larby. But
success DEMANDS greater
challenges -----As
we have experienced to date, by
the touch of a switch, transmitters can be made to operate in various
modes: 1
in 5 mins, 2 in 5 mins, 2 in 10 mins. With yet another minor
modification
in this area "30 seconds in 5 minutes" could be achieved, and VOILA,
5 more time slots for additional transmitters to occupy and
keep the
competitors occupied with even greater challenges. And why
not 1 in 10
minutes? The possibilities are endless, but I'm sure that
some of these
ideas are perhaps stirring within the mind of
our innovator of these
activities. But perhaps this could be a rod for my own back,
or are we on
the road to self-destruction? |
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and just a word from me.... As we already have "The Snowman" may I suggest the title of this new December
event might be now known as
"The Father
Christmas" ?? So
Tim, here is your DF OFSTED: Site
10/10 I enjoyed it so much I hardly noticed I was completely soaked up to my knees by 1pm and that my BFO failed half way through the event so instead of listening to beeping of varying lengths I DFed hissing noises instead. Initially I assumed Roy had come up with yet another cunning tx "mode" (and no, I am not suggesting we all try DF WITHOUT a BFO!). |
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Another
set peculiarity I experienced
was a certain "quietness" in my headphones that I had not
noticed before.
This was eventually traced due to me simultaneously wearing a
woolly
hat. It attenuated the AF gain by at least 20dB. My
set is now on the bench ready for
it's winter
overhaul... Happy Christmas all Richard ****************************** See other events and information here |